Overview
As workplaces keep evolving with remote and flexible setups, both organizations and employees are increasingly seeking innovative solutions that enhance self-service, collaboration, and efficiency.
Research from HBR shows that employees switch between different applications around 3,600 times a day, wasting over 260 hours a year on 'swivel chair' experiences. This constant toggling drains their energy and impacts productivity, but what if you could simplify your workflows, cut down on distractions, and get more done in less time?
Get ready for ServiceNow for Microsoft 365—your ultimate solution that brings the best of both ServiceNow and Microsoft.
While ServiceNow is your intelligent and essential workflow layer, where you would come to get help, self-serve yourself or complete any task. And Microsoft is your collaboration layer, where you would exchange information, communicate and collaborate with your peers.
With this integration, empower your employees and service desk agents to effortlessly complete tasks and collaborate within their favourite workspace, be it Microsoft Teams or Outlook.
ServiceNow for Microsoft 365 improves efficiency by seamlessly weaving ServiceNow and Microsoft experiences into your employees’ natural workspaces, and you get:
- Happier Employees
- Increased Productivity
- Optimal Collaboration
Ready to learn more on how ServiceNow integration with Microsoft 365 delivers a better experience and greater efficiency for both employees and agents?
Capabilities Included in ServiceNow of Microsoft 365 Ecosystem:
Capabilities that help drive employee self-service and productivity
- Embed Employee Center in Microsoft Teams
- Engage employee with Employee Communication on Microsoft Teams
- Enable ServiceNow’s Virtual Agent and Now Assist in Microsoft Teams
- Live Agent Chat
- Microsoft Outlook Integration
- Microsoft Viva Integration
How does it help agents to be more productive and foster collaboration?
- Request based agent Microsoft Teams chat and Conferencing call
- Major Incident Management (MIM)
- Sidebar Integration
Functionality Availability by SKU
Capabilities that help drive employee self-service and productivity
i. Embed Employee Center in Microsoft Teams:
Employee Center is ServiceNow’s actionable, digital front-end for all employee needs: access to enterprise services, information, tasks, and communications.
With ServiceNow for Microsoft 365 you can embed the entire Employee Center portal within Microsoft Teams. Employees will be able to perform all their tasks and access all the portal pages within Microsoft teams itself. Once you have this integration, your employees can also access the portal from their Microsoft Teams mobile app on their mobile devices, without any additional configurations required.
Below is an example of Employee Center embedded in Microsoft Teams applications:
Employee Center embedded in Teams is a great way to meet where employees are, drive self-service, and improve employee productivity.
How to get access?License Required – To integrate Employee Center with Microsoft Teams if you are an HRSD customer you will need HRSD or above, or if you are an ITSM customer you will need ITSM Std or above. To embed Employee Center Pro, you will need either HRSD Pro OR EC Pro stand-alone SKU Plugins required – You will need at least either one of the two mentioned below applications to integrate Employee Center in Teams
All the dependent plugins will be auto installed, please remember to select demo data checkbox, while you install these applications. Technical Details- If you are not on Employee Center, you can embed Service Portal or any other portal you are using today. Embed a custom portal Employee Center can be embedded in Teams without Virtual Agent chat feature as well by manually removing virtual agent bot from the manifest. Customize Manifest - Remove Chat Tab or Reorder Tabs There are two approaches to integrate ServiceNow with Microsoft 365:
Read more about Employee Center on: Introduction to Employee Center Refer to ServiceNow for Microsoft 365 product documentation for step wise implementation guide. |
ii. Engage employee with Employee Communications on Microsoft Team
Organizations can boost employee engagement with targeted communications for critical news and events. Send actionable messages via Teams, making it a one-stop hub for employees to stay updated anywhere, anytime.
When employees receive notifications in their Teams feed, they're directed to the relevant communication in the Employee Center (EC) portal within Teams.
Drive engagement and keep employees informed through:
- Actionable notifications that prompt employees to take action
- Multimedia-rich targeted campaigns and reminders
- Company news and announcements
Streamline employee communications and foster a more connected, informed workforce
Below is an example of Employee Communications via Microsoft Teams:
How to get access?License required – For Employee communications via Teams you will need HRSD Pro OR EC Pro stand-alone SKU. Along with Employee communications configurations in Employee Center Pro portal, additional configurations will required to be able to leverage employee communications via Teams Plugins Required- Along with Employee Center pro and Virtual agent related plugins, additionally you will need these two plugins as well:
Technical Details – Administrators have the flexibility to tailor communications to their specific needs, They can set up and translate communications in their preferred language, schedule automated Teams communications to target specific audiences. Refer to Sending notifications to employees using Microsoft Teams Product documentation for step wise implementation. To know more about employee communications refer to the ‘Employee Communications’ section in Employee Center Features & Capabilities on community. |
iii. Enable ServiceNow’s Virtual Agent and Now Assist in Microsoft Teams
ServiceNow’s Virtual Agent provides a conversational interface powered by artificial intelligence, that makes it easy for employees to easily get help, find information, and complete tasks. With the ServiceNow for Microsoft 365 integration, employees can access the complete ServiceNow’s Virtual Agent capabilities directly from Microsoft Teams.
Take your employee productivity by integrating Now Assist with your Virtual agent, LLM powered Now Assist, enhances the user experience and helps you improve deflection rate by combining AI Search with chat. With this integration you get Now Assist and Virtual Agent combined in your Teams chat.
With Virtual agent in Teams (with or without Now Assist) employees can also receive actionable notifications for key updates such as:
- Approvals – for Request, Change Request
- Ticket comments: Employees can respond to notifications on the tickets from within Microsoft Teams: Incident, Requested Item, and Change Request.
- Incident: Resolved, Updated
- Requested Item: Completed, Approved, Rejected, Updated
Below is an example of Virtual Agent experience in Microsoft Teams:
How to get access?License Required – To integrate full Virtual Agent in Teams if you are an HRSD customer you will need HRSD Pro or above, or if you are an ITSM customer you will need ITSM Pro or above. Only Virtual Agent Lite is available with ITSM Standard. For Now Assist, you will need an ITSM Pro Plus or HRSD Pro Plus License and depending on ITSM or HRSD specific use case you will need the specific SKU for e.g.: Now Assist for ITSM or Now Asist for HRSD Plugins required – Install Conversational Integration with Microsoft Teams (sn_va_teams) application from ServiceNow store and Glide Virtual Agent [com.glide.cs.chatbot]. For Now assist capabilities install Now Assist Core (com.now_assist_core) plugin, Now Assist In Virtual Agent (sn_nowassist_va) Technical Details- You can integrate Virtual Agent with Microsoft Teams either with your Now Virtual Agent bot or the Self-configured bot.
If you are already using Now Virtual Agent app in MS Teams, disable Now Virtual Agent app to avoid duplicate notifications from Microsoft Teams when you install and integrate ServiceNow for Microsoft Teams with your ServiceNow instance. (this is applicable when you integrate using OOB available bot) Disable Now Virtual Agent app Refer to Integrating Virtual Agent with Microsoft Teams and Using Now Assist in Virtual Agent conversations with Microsoft Teams for additional details. |
iv. Live Agent Chat via Virtual Agent:
Deliver instant support with Live Agent Chat, connecting service desk agents with employees in real-time, directly within their Microsoft Teams workspace.
Initiating a live chat is easy:
- Employees simply type or select 'Live Agent Support' in the Virtual Agent
- Their request is instantly routed to available agents
Once accepted, agents can continue the conversation seamlessly from their own workspace, providing a smooth and efficient support experience.
Live Agent Chat offers numerous benefits for agents, including:
- Promote chat to a call from workspace from Live agent chat using /teams_call command
- Native Chat surveys to gather important information from users, before and after they chat with a live or virtual agent in Teams.
- Carry out a conversation in another language using Dynamic Translation for Agent Chat overview
- Supervisor features, such as Agent Whisper, that enable managers to join ongoing public customer chats with agents or send private messages to agents.
- Agent features, such as workspace inbox controls for viewing, accepting, or rejecting incoming chats.
- Read a summarization of the chat (this is available only if you have Now Assist installed). Chat summarization
Below is an example of Live agent chat experience in Teams and Service operations workspace
How to get access?License required - Agent Chat is available with HRSD std or above, ITSM std or above. Plugins required – Agent Chat Plugin id: com.glide.interaction.awa Technical details – Admins have a lot of flexibility while configuring agent chat: · Automatic assignment of chats and work items to agents based on criteria that you define, such as agent availability, capacity, skills, Agent Affinity, and variable work item sizing. · Automatic queue overflow handling · Chat timeout reassignment If you are still on classic service desk UI, you can still leverage Agent Chat features. Refer to Agent Chat Product Documentation Look at the live agent chat demo for more information: Live Agent Chat Demo |
v. ServiceNow in Microsoft Outlook
Within ServiceNow integrations with Outlook we have three capabilities :
a. Employee Center in Outlook
Unlock seamless employee experiences with Employee Center fully embedded within Microsoft Outlook, enjoy the full range of Employee Center capabilities without leaving Outlook, boosting employee productivity and self-service
Navigate to your available apps in the left panel and search for ServiceNow for Microsoft 365 (or the name you gave while creating the manifest) and pin the ServiceNow app to your left panel for quick access.
Below is an example of Employee Center experience in Microsoft Outlook:
b. Actionable messages in Outlook
Elevate user experience with ServiceNow's Microsoft 365 integration, powered by Outlook Actionable Messages. This enables users to take action directly within email notifications, without ever leaving the Outlook application.
Streamline workflows and boost productivity with various actions available within Outlook:
- Employees and agents receive instant notifications about request submissions
- Managers and approvers get summaries and detailed reports for approval requests, with the ability to approve or reject directly within Outlook.
- Employees can provide feedback and participate in surveys, within Outlook.
Simplify workflows, reduce clicks, and enhance user engagement with ServiceNow's Outlook actionable
Below is an example of Actionable notifications in Microsoft Outlook:
How to get access?License: Outlook actionable message is available with HRSD std or above, ITSM std or above. The customers also need to be licensed for Microsoft Outlook. Plugins required – Install Outlook Actionable Messages(sn_ms_oam) plugin to configure actionable messages. Technical Details- Admin configuration will be required to customize the body message for a request, change, and request item approval sent in Microsoft Outlook. Admins can integrate SAP concur expenses approvals, for that Approvals hub integration with SAP Concur (sn_ex_cnc) plugin must be installed. Refer to Outlook Actionable Messages for additional details. |
c. ServiceNow Add-in for Microsoft Outlook
Boost employee efficiency and self-service with the ServiceNow Add-in for Microsoft 365 in Outlook. This powerful tool provides customizable experiences, streamlining workflows through quick links and reducing time. ServiceNow add-in provides an extensible framework to invoke any form or any navigation link in Outlook:
- Incident and case submission: Create new incidents directly from Outlook
- Catalog requests: Easily request gadgets and services
- Workspace management: Book internal and external meeting and conference rooms
- Navigation link: Navigate your employees to the link of your choice.
Below is an example of ServiceNow Add-in embedded form in Microsoft Outlook:
How to get access?License required - The ServiceNow add-in is a baseline platform feature and is available with all the ServiceNow products. For ServiceNow and Microsoft 365 integrations you will require HRSD std or above, ITSM std or above. The customers also need to be licensed for Microsoft Outlook Plugins required – Install ServiceNow add-in for Microsoft 365 plugin (version 7.1.2) for all the latest capabilities which is available from Yokohama and above. This must be manually activated for new and existing customers. This plugin includes demo data and activates related plugins Technical details – Admins have flexibility to setup different types of forms in ServiceNow Add in for Outlook. Admins can also configure a separate version of ServiceNow Add-in for different work departments, eg: HR, IT, Legal etc. Once the ServiceNow Add-In manifest is generated admin can configure email fields to the form/catalog fields to get those auto-populated when the Add-in form/catalog is invoked in outlook. Refer to ServiceNow Add-in for Microsoft 365 product documentation for additional details. |
vi. Viva Connections
ServiceNow is now seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Viva Connections, bringing a unified employee experience directly into the Viva Connections dashboard.
Employees can now access a personalized ServiceNow card, showcasing their pending tasks in a clear and concise manner. With just one click, they can navigate to the Employee Center portal within Teams, enabling them to take immediate action on their tasks without ever leaving the app.
This powerful integration streamlines task management, accelerates workflows, and amplifies productivity – empowering employees to work more efficiently and effectively.
Below is an example of ServiceNow card in Microsoft Viva dashboard:
How to get access?License required - Employee Center for Microsoft Viva Connections is available with HRSD std or above, ITSM std or above. The customers also need to be licensed for Microsoft Office, Teams and SharePoint. Plugins required – Install Employee Center for Microsoft Viva Connections (sn_now_ms_viva) for this integrartion. Technical details – Admin configuration will be required to set this up to allow cross-domain requests to REST APIs by creating a record in CORS rules and Microsoft Viva integrations package needs to be deployed in the Microsoft SharePoint admin center to enable the display of card details in the Microsoft Viva dashboard. Refer to Employee Center for Microsoft Viva Connections product documentation for additional details. |
How does it help agents to be more productive and foster collaboration?
i. Request based agent Microsoft Teams chat and Conferencing call
a. Request based Microsoft Teams chat
Take service desk productivity to the next level with ServiceNow for Microsoft 365. This powerful integration enables agents to collaborate more effectively, resolve cases faster, and deliver exceptional employee experiences.
With the Collaborate feature, agents can initiate real-time chats with employees and other agents, creating a Microsoft Teams group chat that streamlines communication.
Agents can then import relevant chat conversations into the ticket, selecting specific messages to include. This imported chat will be available as comment section as work notes and will serve as a valuable reference point for future conversations, fostering seamless collaboration and boosting productivity.
b. Conference Teams Call (Agent to Employee Teams conference call from Agent work desk)
Agents can initiate Microsoft Teams conference calls directly from their workspace, collaborating with requestors and other agents in real-time. This capability, powered by the Notify Connector for Teams, enables seamless collaboration and faster issue resolution.
With Teams conference calls, agents and employees can:
- Collaborate in real-time
- Share information and expertise
- Resolve issues more efficiently and effectively
Streamline your support processes and deliver exceptional employee experiences with the power of Teams conference calls
Below is an example of Agent experience for initiating Teams chat and conference call from Collaborate in SOW.
How to get access?License required -Agent Conferencing call is a baseline platform feature and is available with all the ServiceNow products; HRSD std or above, ITSM std or above, App Engine, LSD, WSD, PSM, and GRC. Plugins required –
Pre-Requisites:
Technical details – You can integrate Notify connector with your ServiceNow instance for both per-published app (Single Microsoft Teams tenant to single ServiceNow instance) and self-configured app (Single Microsoft Teams tenant to multiple ServiceNow instance) approach.
If you are still on classic service desk UI, you can still initiate Teams conferencing call and collaborate with requestors and other agents. Refer to Notify connector for Microsoft Teams Product Documentation for additional details. |
ii. Major Incident Management (MIM)
Minimise downtime and maximise response with ServiceNow's Major Incident Management feature. During critical incidents, this feature enables authorised agents to propose/promote incidents to major incident and initiate targeted communications to the relevant stakeholders.
With flexible communication options, you can choose to notify employees via Microsoft Teams, email, or Slack. Select specific participants and tailor your message to ensure the right people receive the right information.
Stakeholders will receive native Teams notifications and alerts for upcoming Communication via Virtual agent chat bot to access incident details and take action.
Resolve major incidents faster and more efficiently with ServiceNow's intuitive and integrated Major Incident Management capabilities.
Below is an example of incident manager creating a communication channel for MIM workbench from SOW.
How to get access?License required – Major Incident management is available to all the ServiceNow customers. Plugins required – Incident Management - Major Incident Management plugin (com.snc.incident.mim) must be manually activated for new and existing customers. Incident Management - Major Incident Management plugin activates these related plugins if they are not already active: i. Incident Communications Management (com.snc.iam) ii. Incident Updates (com.snc.incident.updates) iii. Task-Outage Relationship (com.snc.task_outage) Technical details – Admins can give permission to agents to promote an incident or group of incidents to major incident. Manage major incidents better with MIM dashboards and KPIs: Provides information on Active Major Incidents, Number of resolved major incidents, Average resolution time of Major Incidents, and New Major Incidents Vs Resolved. Refer to Major Incident Management Product Documentation for more details |
iii. Sidebar Integration
Sidebar a real-time messaging application in ServiceNow workspaces, which connects co-workers to collaborate in real-time. With this integration not only agents will be able to have a real-time collaboration with other agents, but also with requestors. While requesters remain in Teams and agent will remain in their agent workspace. Simultaneously they can also collaborate with other agents/SMEs to get help and resolve the requestor query faster. Sidebar is supported in all the workspaces available in ServiceNow.
Below is an example of Agent and Requestors/SME collaborating live via Sidebar.
How to get access?License- Sidebar is available to all the ServiceNow products, but you will need a full virtual agent for the integration which will require HRSD pro or above if you are an HRSD customer or ITSM pro or above if you are an ITSM customer. Plugins required – omni-experience standard feature set App (sn_oe_sfs) Technical details – To have Sidebar integration for real-time collaboration with requestors in Teams requires a self-configured virtual agent bot, which is not possible with out of the box virtual agent which comes with Pre-Published app approach. Refer to Sidebar Product Documentation for more details Curious to know more about Sidebar? Watch this video Getting started with Sidebar Look at the Sidebar and Teams integration demo for more information: Sidebar Demo |
Functionality Availability by SKU
Additional Resources
This article also links you to some of the key resources to learn all about the ServiceNow for Microsoft 365 integration
- See FAQs help you answer some of the frequently asked questions.
- Follow this installation guide to integrate ServiceNow with Microsoft 365: Install ServiceNow for Microsoft 365
- Read about Outlook Integrations from ServiceNow: Outlook integrations within ServiceNow for Microsoft 365
- Got questions about Integration Hub (IH) transactions consumed when you integrate ServiceNow with Microsoft Teams and M365? See this document for the latest details. ServiceNow for Microsoft 365 Integration Transaction FAQ
- Link to key related Community sites: Virtual Agent, Employee Center, IT Service Management, HR Service Delivery
