User case for custom application

[Mihir Patel]

Hello,

I am new to ServiceNow and will be taking on a new project for my client (who is a government agency) and have sort of a "different" use case that I am sure you all have come across before, but I am unable to find any decent guide or document reference for what I am trying to achieve. Here is my use case:

My client has recently switched to ServiceNow for their ITSM (and I believe ITAM) needs. They are also exploring path of citizen development but for now their in-house custom app development will be handled by the IT department (my department). Another group/department has expressed need and interest into creating a low-code based application using ServiceNow which will automate a funding request form which is currently being filled out by various people/groups manually in PDF. Here is how the process works:

• A group or department has a need to acquire goods or services (say license for Adobe)
• The requesting group (or someone from that group) fills out part of the above mentioned PDF and digitally signs it
• Then they route this PDF to IT department and IT department fill out their portion and digitally signs the PDF
• Then it goes to the finance team so they can add accounting information such as which account to use to pay for it. The finance department then digitally signs the PDF
• The finance department then routes this back to the requesting person/group for review
• After review the requesting person/group routes it to the final approver who reviews and signs the PDF
• Once this final approval happens, the PDF is locked, goes back to the original creator for processing and is stored or archived

I have tried playing around in my PDI (San Diego) and was able to create custom tables (one main parent and another child via reference). I also created forms and designed it the way I want it and was able to add related links to child table. This is still work in progress, but all of this was done in Service Management using Custom Application. I then started playing around in AES but was having lot of trouble and had some questions like below:

• My assumption is here (due to not have licensing information) is that the requesting department would not have access to Service Management so they will not be able to use My Company Application part hence there is a need to create some what of a "public/external" facing UI so the requesting organization resources can login and generate this funding request
• The same thing would be true for finance and approver or at least the expectation is that they just go to a URL, login, and fill out their portion, sign and done
• I tried creating Record Producer experience as well as Portal and Workspace experiences in AES but none of them are helping
• Ideally, I would like to design this in a way where anyone requesting funding would go to a webpage and login. They would be presented with a home page (similar to dashboard) where they see their work and anything that is pending or assigned to them. They can also create new funding requests from here. 
• The closest I got was by using Workspace experience, but I cannot figure out ways to edit other tabs and header that is part of the app shell such as "New Interaction" or "New Incident". I would like to replace them with "New Funding Request" that then pulls up the form I created for funding table (main table) and allows them to fill out this request
• I also did not figure out how to connect the record producer experience with workspace experience or tie in the portal experience with record producer. 

Note that, this probably needs to be 100% custom approach and extending existing Task or Incident tables is probably not going to happen. I appreciate any guidance someone can provide on this.

I know this is a long a post, so I apologize and thanks in advance!

[Ravi9]

If i am not wrong i am not sure you need to build this custom unless am missing somewhere , what pitfalls you see if you use simple oob catalog based design with service request mgmt process ? this doesnt feel like it needs this custom approach !

[Mihir Patel]

Hi and thanks for the reply. I am not sure how to use OOB catalog design. Also, utilizing out of box catalog approach may not be right one especially most of the request will not be for physical goods and rather they will be for services. For example:

• Line Item 1 = Operations and sustainment support for ServiceNow
• Line Item 2 = Senior ServiceNow Developer (100 hours)
• Etc.

So, creating a catalog of prefilled items will not work as the items required are unknown and generally unique on case by case.

[Ravi9]

Couple of things. I noticed that you said your new to this technology so I suggest you research a bit more about capabilities of this platform. Second, service catalog can be used for wide ranges of things and need not to be anything specific at all. That's the beauty. You can order a chair or a new azure box, but having said that I will leave it to you and your team to take a call. From my perspective custom app seems to be a overkill for this.

[Mihir Patel]

Thanks and I am learning a lot and have already learned a lot and have been very impressed with the ability of ServiceNow. Just a quick question, so I were to utilize Service Catalog approach, is there a way that I can give the end user to add item that is not part of the catalog. For example, I can create catalog of widely requested items such as Laptop, Chair, Table, Telephones, etc. but if an "odd" request were to arise (i.e. carpet repair service), the end user can add this item outside of the catalog? If this is possible, how do you recommend doing it? Thanks a lot again!