Kafka Producer step

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Kafka Producer step

    The Kafka Producer step is an action step within ServiceNow's Workflow Studio that enables you to publish events to a Kafka topic in your environment. This step requires a Stream Connect subscription and the ServiceNow Stream Connect Installer plugin. It is designed for users with theactiondesignerrole to create custom actions incorporating Kafka messaging.

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    Key Features

    • Topic: Select the Kafka topic to publish messages, grouping messages of the same type (e.g., Payments).
    • Message: Define the text content of the message to send.
    • Key: Specify a key to control message partitioning, ensuring messages with the same key go to the same partition.
    • Headers: Add message headers as name-value pairs, using static values or data pills.
    • Wait For Completion: Optionally configure the flow to wait until the Kafka Producer step finishes before proceeding.
    • Schema: Reference a schema to validate message structure, ensuring the message adheres to the defined schema format.
    • If this step fails: Choose whether the action stops for error evaluation or continues to the next step despite failure, with error information available in the Step Status.

    Key Outcomes

    When executed, the Kafka Producer step publishes messages to the selected Kafka topic and partition with adherence to the specified schema. It returns a Step Status object containing runtime details, including:

    • Code: Integer indicating success (0) or error (1) of the step.
    • Message: Error message if the step fails, helping diagnose issues.

    This enables ServiceNow workflows to integrate seamlessly with Kafka environments, supporting event-driven architecture and real-time data streaming within enterprise processes.

    Create an action that publishes events to a topic in your Kafka environment.

    Roles and availability

    The Kafka Producer step is an Workflow Studio action step. Users with the action_designer role can create a custom action with one or more action steps.

    This step is requires a Stream Connect subscription. For more information, see https://www.servicenow.com/now-platform/workflow-data-fabric.html.

    This step requires the ServiceNow Stream Connect Installer [com.glide.hub.stream_connect.installer] plugin.

    Fields

    Field Description
    Topic

    Name of the topic to publish the message to. A topic stores messages of the same type. For example, a topic named Payments might store messages about recent payments.

    Select a topic from the drop-down list.
    Message Text of the message.
    Key Name of the key for a specific partition. Topics can be partitioned. Messages with the same key are stored in the same partition. For example, payment messages with a key of June would all be stored in the same partition of the Payments topic.
    Headers Headers for the message, in name-value pairs. For both the Name and Value fields, you can enter a value or use a data pill.
    Wait For Completion Option to require the flow to wait for the step to complete before continuing.
    Schema Reference to a schema table. Select a schema from the list. For information on schemas, see Schema management in Stream Connect.
    Note:
    The message you're sending in the Message field must adhere to the structure of the selected schema.
    If this step fails Option to go to error evaluation or continue running the next step. This option has no effect on the Step Status. Select one of the following.
    • Stop the action and go to error evaluation: Stop running the action at the current step and go to error evaluation. The Step Status object contains the error information returned by the step.
    • Don't stop the action and go to the next step: Ignore the failure and continue running the action from the next step. The Step Status object contains the error information returned by the step. Action error evaluation runs regardless of whether the action continues running.

    Example

    In this example, the step sends a message recording the creation of an incident. The message includes an incident identifier, a description, and a message header. The message is sent to the incidents topic, and stored in the partition with the name of the incident identifier.

    Example Kafka Producer step.

    Outputs

    Field Description Data Type
    Step Status Object data pill containing runtime details about the step. Each step in an action returns a Step Status. Object
    Step Status > Code Integer data pill indicating whether the step produced an error. By default, a value of 1 indicates that the step produced an error. A value of 0 indicates that the step ran successfully. You can't customize these codes. Integer
    Step Status > Message String data pill containing the error message produced by the step or system operation. You can't customize this message. String