question ServiceNow incident outlook integration in ServiceNow AI Platform forum

ServiceNow incident outlook integration

john_duchock — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 17:35:27 GMT

We are investigating using the Microsoft Outlook plugin to allow users to create incidents from outlook. The setup is pretty straight forward, but i cannot seem to find any documentation on how to configure it a bit better. Some obstacles:

The "out-of-the-box" configuration pre-populates the short description and additional comments with some pretty abstract text that i want to change and standardize, but i cannot figure out where to go in the platform to modify it (is it part of the manifest sent to our office 365 team when we configured it?)
We have some custom fields (and a few OOTB fields) that i want to populate with standard values when an incident is submitted via outlook. I am sure i can do this with a business rule (or two) but there might be a better way...

Anyone had any luck configuring the outlook integration capability ...and if so, can you direct me to some better documentation than what exists now? These are all i can really find out there:

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/orlando-customer-service-management/page/product/customer-service-management/task/install-servicenow-outlook.html

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/orlando-it-service-management/page/product/incident-management/concept/create-incident-outlook.html

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

john_duchock — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 17:51:20 GMT

Meh...i think i got it....

portal page "outlook home" > widget "create incident" calls on a system property that defines the catalog item to use when submitting an incident. I can use that catalog item's client scripts to do my population (i think).... I can also standardize the outlook form view easily enough...

Its a shame that you have to reverse engineer this to start to understand it... Also, the manifest is read-only and i do not want to deploy the VTB portion of it, so i will probably just have to edit the manifest.xml file after it is exported so that only "create incident" is available in outlook...

we are doing this in NY for our proof-of-concept... anyone know if Orlando makes this easier ?

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

Ryan S — Fri, 16 Apr 2021 07:27:27 GMT

We've just started looking at this now for Orlando and coming up with the same questions. How'd your implementation go? We haven't gotten the manifest deployed but appear to be able to work around that for the moment by viewing the /sncoutlook page and modifying system settings, but it's still woefully lacking in documentation so it's all trial-and-error. Any advice?

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

Sarah Travis — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 15:49:36 GMT

I'm hoping someone has more insight now on how this thing works. So far I know the following:

As John said, the widget is Create Incident on the Outlook Home (outlook_index) portal page.
You can modify the mappings for subject, body, etc. in the Client controller script of this widget.
To add/remove fields from the widget, update the Outlook view of an incident record (works for ITIL users only).
To do the same for non-ITIL users, use a record producer that is set in a system property (sn_outlook_addin.create_incident_cat_item). I'm not able to test as a non-ITIL user right now, but this is what the docs say.
You can clone the manifest and give it any name or image you want and test using the sideloading method (web or client).

What I'm so far unable to do is set the contact_type and impact for the new incident. I tried using default value in variables on the record producer, but after testing I concluded this RP is not used at all for ITIL users. I've also tried to modify the widget Server script with no luck, but I suspect this is the place to do it.

Any and all help appreciated!

Sarah

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

john_duchock — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 16:36:36 GMT

Aye, I need to get contact type, impact and urgency populated as well... i even tried a client script on the record producer, but that did not help either..

I may end up using flow designer to populate missing field data, providing i can find a proper trigger for these records.

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

Sarah Travis — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 17:31:47 GMT

I'm looking for that trigger as well. These incidents are created with nothing unique in the XML. I even looked to see if we could put a hidden field on the widget that's populated with a value, but using the Form Designer on a view doesn't give that option (as this would be accomplished in a UI policy).

I'll let you know if I get anywhere with the Server script.

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

QX — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 15:06:45 GMT

I am dealing with the same thing....I still cant find where to add/remove fields on the default view on the outlook. I would love to add the some custom fields on there from the incident form just cant figure out how.

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

Sarah Travis — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 15:12:41 GMT

You can update the fields that appear in Outlook by going to an incident record and changing the view to "Outlook". Update that form with the Configure > Form Design or Form Layout options.

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

QX — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 17:17:09 GMT

That was simple and easy....thanks a lot. Another question....lets say I want to add Change on the plugin, what would I change in the mainfast to add Create Change on there?

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

Sarah Travis — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 21:35:10 GMT

First clone the delivered manifest by going to the actions menu (hamburger or right click in header) and choose Clone Manifest. Rename that copied manifest to Create Change. Until you click Activate, you can update the associated Office Control.

I expect you will need to connect that control to a new portal page that's cloned from the original and designed for Change inputs. You'll also probably need to create a new Outlook view on a change record to be tied to the new portal widget. I haven't done any of this yet, so not sure how involved it would be.

I suggest first looking at all of the installed components of the ServiceNow Add-Ins for Microsoft Office application. You can do that by choosing the app in your app picker and click the icon for Show selected application. Then view the tab Installed Files. You can order by Class to see all of the related items a little easier. You could compare the delivered VTB files to the Incident ones perhaps.

Good luck and please share if you figure it out!

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

Sarah Travis — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 19:48:29 GMT

We were never able to find anything to trigger on, so we ended up displaying the contact_type field on the Outlook view and presetting it to Email. I don't love the solution, but it works. We let the impact go with system default.

Now I'm setting up the record producer used for non-ITIL users. I can get the display to show the correct fields, but I haven't been able to populate them from the email content. I also suspect this could be done in the catalog client script using some of the client controller script behind the widget, but I've no luck so far. Hoping someone has done this and can share!

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

Peter Groft — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 08:21:21 GMT

The ServiceNow Add-in for Microsoft Outlook feature lets you engage with IT directly from an email or, for IT users, quickly create an incident from an email and immediately assign it to the correct team. It also lets you create a VTB task. You can activate the ServiceNow Add-in for the Microsoft Office plugin.

Hope This Helps,
Peter

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

VL10 — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 18:37:31 GMT

Hello, we are using the ServiceNow Add-in for Microsoft Outlook and can create incident tickets from emails with the easy to use addin interface when reading email in Outlook. The body of the email gets added as a comment. and we are wondering if it is possible to change the manifest to be able to add this in the description field instead.
Has anyone done this?

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

Michael Culhan1 — Sat, 02 Dec 2023 07:55:40 GMT

Have a look at the client script of the Create Incident widget. You can change the below to suite your needs (line 118)

try { item = $window.Office.context.mailbox.item; g_form.setValue("short_description", item.subject); item.body.getAsync("text", {}, function(result) { g_form.setValue("comments", result.value.trim()); }); }

Re: ServiceNow incident outlook integration

Sarah Travis — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 16:27:01 GMT

Has anyone successfully modified this section of code in the client script of the widget to allow for better formatted text copied from the email body to the incident comment or description? Like new lines instead of no line breaks or a bunch of HTML?