How to make a catalog item which links to a form which is external to ServiceNow

HugoFirst · ‎03-21-2018

Overview

We are setting up our Service Catalog and I'm exploring ways to make the catalog "one stop shopping". One obstacle to "one stop shopping" is that some types of requests are hosted on ServiceNow and some are not. Sometimes you can move an application from another platform to ServiceNow, but not always. There are times when the service providers are happy with their platform and will not move.
So our solution is to provide an entry in the Service Catalog for each type of request regardless of whether it is hosted in ServiceNow. For those requests types which are external to ServiceNow, the catalog item will provide a link to the request on the external platform. This article explains one way to do this.

Summary of Approach

This article assumes that you understand how to create applications in ServiceNow and how to place the related forms in the Service Catalog. The steps to implement a catalog item which directs the user to form on another site involves:

1. Creating a UI page with the HTML markup to redirect the user to the external form.
2. Creating a catalog item with one variable, of type UI page, with a value of the UI page just created.

The user experience will be to see the item in the service catalog, click the catalog item and then observe that the desired form is displayed within the ServiceNow frames, even though it is not in ServiceNow. The form can be filled out, and submitted based upon the design of the form and the platform which hosts the form. No records, workflow, etc. is created on ServiceNow.

Detailed Description of Solution.

1. Create a UI Page with the HTML markup to redirect a user to the external website. This example will take the user to https://htmlcolorcodes.com/color-chart/ ( a color picking app). Please replace both htmlcolorcodes urls with the URL to your corresponding form or resource. The HTML markup for this page appears below. Leave the Client script and Processing script empty.

2. Create a catalog item and place it in the Service Catalog. Add one variable to the form with the type set to "UI Page".
Configure the variable so that the value of the UI Page is the one created in step 1.

Save everything and then visit the Service Catalog with the newly created item. Click on the item and note that you are taken to the external site, The color picker in this example.


===== Begin HTML Markup for the UI Page at the next line =======
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<j:jelly trim="false" xmlns:j="jelly:core" xmlns:g="glide" xmlns:j2="null" xmlns:g2="null">
<html><head><title>Page to direct you to Color Picker</title>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" 
CONTENT="1;URL=https://htmlcolorcodes.com/color-chart/" />
</head><body>
<h2>Page to direct you to the Color Picker</h2>
<a href='https://htmlcolorcodes.com/color-chart/'>Click here to pick a color </a>
</body></html>
</j:jelly>
====== End of HTML Markup for the UI page is the previous line ========

Reference link for the META/REFRESH markup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_refresh

kristincmcd · ‎05-24-2023

While it won't help the original poster, for the benefit of others attempting to find this in the community, you can use "Content Items" within the Service Catalog to achieve this.