What and where does duration on the Flow Designer Stages being used?

[JLeong]

I configured the duration on the stages I used in Flow Designer, hoping the info will reflect the due date on the approval table (just like in Workflow). But it doesn't do that. So where and how is the stage duration being used in flow designer?

In the Workflow properties, I can define the Expected time or Delivery Time of the catalog item. How do we do that in Flow Designer?

Thank you!

[Onkar Pandav]

Hi,

Please check below link that might be useful.

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/orlando-servicenow-platform/page/administer/flow-designer/concept...

[Gaurav Shirsat]

Hi JLeong

The Flow designer is used to reduce scripting so that it can be created easily and understood by non-technical users. It's just that you don't need to have more scripting knowledge to do a flow designer which will reduce the development effort. The same functionality can be achieved by both Flow designer and in Workflow Editor.  The only thing is that Flow Designer would have an extension to the Integration hub.

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/kingston-servicenow-platform/page/administer/flow-designer/concep...

Flow Designer is excellent stuff and it is going to change the way developers do their work going forward. 

Rules That needed to follow:-

1. If you starting newly you should start with the Flow Designer.
2. If your change requests require larger implementation in the already existing use-case you can start with Flow Designer

Think of Flow Logics as the lego structures and Action Logics are the lego blocks - Once you started using it you gonna love it and will start building cool use cases down the line.

Enabling the Administrators and Process owners to build their automation use cases themself (without the knowledge of scripting) is just one use case.

The real goal behind the invention of FD is: Getting rid of silos, Discoverability, Re-Usability, Run on Mid Server

Replacing silos not only for the customer it is for developers as well - One place for Automation

• With flow designer all the automation come down to single place - Business Rules, Schedule Jobs, Workflows, Orchestrations, Inbound/Outbound Rest Integrations will be a thing of past

Discoverability

• How many of you (Architects) have maintained the list of the script includes and their use-case and reference it during the code review and caught your developers that they re-invented something which already in-place. This is a thing of the past now. All the (scripted) customization is available at single place. Developers can spend their precious time in building the new stuff.

Re-use

• A very common problem in an organization that over a period of time having we end-up with so many scripts includes at the end of the day we will come to know that many of them do the same stuff, each developer tends to develop their own script includes without knowing there is something already one available. This is a thing of the past as we can create a Reusable Action Logics which serves as a building block for Flow Logics.

Mid Server

• You might come across that you would be needed to run your transaction in the Mid Server. With FD you can run it in Instance as well as MidServer.

Please go through below Links for More Detailed Understandings

 https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/orlando-servicenow-platform/page/administer/flow-designer/concept...

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/orlando-servicenow-platform/page/administer/flow-designer/concept...

Best Practices of Flow Designer:-

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=09becbf3db589b403882fb651f961986

Video to create Flow Designer Without Scripting:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8ssyGNo9Zk

Please Mark Correct and Helpful

Thanks and Regards

Gaurav Shirsat

[Swapnil Soni1]

Hi,

Please go through the blog Maybe this helps you-

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=09becbf3db589b403882fb651f961986

Please mark correct or helpful if this helps.

Thnaks

Swapnil

[JLeong · Accepted solution]

I opened a HI ticket to address this issue -->  Due date is not getting populated on Approval record when Approvals are triggered from Flow Designer but it was getting populated when used from workflow.

It is a Known Error - PRB1396138

Thanks to all who replied.

Stay healthy everyone!