This guide will help you activate the ServiceNow mobile apps and quickly get started.
Mobile Platform Overview
The Now Platform mobile suite includes two mobile apps – Mobile Agent and Now Mobile – in addition to robust, mobile development tools that enable organizations to rapidly build and deploy mobile-first experiences.
Each of the mobile apps are purpose-built for the processes and actions taken by a specific
persona, focused on helping agents and employees work more efficiently and productively.
The ServiceNow mobile apps is a platform offering that is integrated with many other parts of the Now Platform. More than 25 pre-configured mobile workflows are available out-of-the-box, allowing specific
lines of business to get started using mobile applications simply by deploying a single plugin. Each workflow is represented by a plugin that contains configuration packages based on common use cases for each line of business. Admins can activate and configure the experience on these channels independently.
The Mobile Agent app delivers out-of-the-box, mobile-first experiences (~15 OOB plugins) for the most common
agent workflows, making it easy for agents to triage, act on, and resolve requests on-the-go, with or without Internet connectivity.
The Now Mobile app delivers out-of-the-box experiences (~15OOB plugins) for employees to submit Incidents and Requests, manage Tasks, find answers, and access company resources from anywhere.
Leverage pre-built, out-of-the-box mobile workflows as-is or extend and configure them based
on organizational needs to quickly achieve value. If the pre-built applications do not meet a business need,
developers can use Mobile App Builder -- a no-code configuration tool that makes it easy to build, manage, and
deploy native ServiceNow mobile applications for iOS and Android devices. Developers can
configure the screens and records that make up workflows within ServiceNow mobile
applications in a point-and-click interface.
Want to learn more about why you need ServiceNow mobile? Read more here.
Before getting started
| Plugins and Entitlement |
The core functionality for ServiceNow Mobile is available in the base system as a hidden plugin that is automatically installed across all instanes. Two mobile clients (apps) are available for download from the app store:
Mobile plugins may differ based on each customer’s platform environment. The availability of plugins is based on customer entitlements on the Now Platform (i.e., HR customers will get access to HRSD plugins) – if a plugin is not available, review your entitlements
If the out-of-the-box content does not meet a business need, then you can further extend the workflow or create a new workflow from scratch using Mobile App Builder, using the sn_mab plugin. Find out more about mobile plugins in the docs. |
| Roles | The admin role is needed for plugin installation. Grant other developers the delegated_developer role to peer review and test your mobile apps during implementation. Additional user roles may differ based on each customer’s installed workflow plugins (i.e. wm_dispatcher for the dispatcher using field service mobile agent) Find out more about roles and permissions in the docs. |
| Self-Hosted |
ServiceNow mobile for self-hosted customers is available, contact Support for provisioning. |
Get started in a few easy steps
For the live-building session, watch this mobile app academy session:
Step 0: Define your app's purpose
Determine which apps you will roll-out to your organization (Mobile Agent or Now Mobile) and user roles you want to define for each launcher screen, screen, and functions. This step ensures you have completed your research on which out-of-the-box experience you want to extend and deploy and necessary plugins to get started. Learn more mobile plugins here.
Step 1: Define the information your user needs the most
Record information in tables need to be defined in order to display on mobile to users. Create data items to define the data that your users need the most, how you want to visualize the data for your users (screens and launcher screens), and enable valuable micro-moments by creating actions that are optimized for your user's workflows.
Step 2: Personalize your mobile app
Personalize your ServiceNow mobile apps with custom landing pages, internal app theming, custom icons, and banners so that your users feel like everything was designed and built for them.
Step 3: Security and compliance
Mobile applications can bring additional risk. Work with your information security team to make sure the app complies with your internal policies. Consider the following:
- How will users login to your app? Reference mobile authentication documentation
- Will you require a VPN for internal distribution?
- Data policy controls
- Requirements for MDM or MAM, especially if employees are using their own devices.
Step 4: Distribution
Deploying a mobile app means launching your app and making it available for internal or public consumption. You can distribute apps via an intranet or email, on the Apple Store, Google Play, or with a Mobile Device Management (MDM) or Mobile Application Management (MAM) solution. How you choose to distribute your app (Mobile Agent or Now Mobile) will depend on your security and branding requirements. Use the publicly available apps if you don’t have any branding requirements. Otherwise you can explore Mobile Publishing to build custom versions of the ServiceNow mobile apps and have full control on how you distribute the app to your employees (public or private). Learn more whether mobile publishing is right for you.
Step 5: Deploy, Monitor, and Improve
After go-live, it is recommended to understand your usage and adoption of your mobile apps using user experience analytics. These out-of-the-box dashboard views will help you visualize metrics and interactions to better understand the user experience, and create more intuitive journeys for your users.
Go Further
The Mobile App Builder System Admin Guide provides a quick overview for your admins & developers to get familiar with using Mobile App Builder. Find out more.
Go through the ServiceNow Horizon where you can find the mobile overview and best practices for mobile to create an amazing user experience.
Want to learn more? Join us in our next mobile app academy: our monthly live app configuration series where you can learn new concepts, best practices, and ask our mobile experts questions around your mobile implementations.
