Accelerating and automating your repetitive tasks by using Workflow Data Fabric
Summarize
Summary of Accelerating and automating your repetitive tasks by using Workflow Data Fabric
Workflow Data Fabric enables ServiceNow customers to significantly reduce time spent on repetitive tasks and accelerate service delivery by automating workflows within a unified workspace. It integrates multiple applications—including Document Intelligence, Integration Hub, RPA Hub, and Automation Center—to automate data extraction, validation, and legacy system processes efficiently.
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Key Features
- Document Intelligence: Automates extraction of data from uploaded documents (e.g., voided checks), leveraging AI models that improve over time to provide high-confidence data for review.
- Integration Hub: Enables low-code/no-code API integrations to validate extracted data against third-party systems, ensuring accuracy before processing.
- RPA Hub: Automates interactions with legacy systems lacking APIs by running unattended robots that securely input data, reducing errors and manual effort.
- Automation Center: Provides a workspace to monitor automation workflows, track cost and time savings, and measure organizational value from automation initiatives.
- Employee Center Portal: Centralized portal where employees can initiate requests (e.g., direct deposit updates) via AI Search or Virtual Agent, triggering the automated workflow.
Practical Workflow Example
In a direct deposit update scenario:
- An employee submits a void check via the Employee Center portal.
- Document Intelligence extracts and pre-fills the bank details for agent review.
- Integration Hub validates the bank data through third-party APIs.
- RPA Hub automates the update of payroll systems without APIs using unattended robots.
- Automation Center displays results, including time and cost savings, and finalizes the request.
Implementation Requirements
- Activate Integration Hub plugins and configure spokes for API integrations.
- Install and configure Employee Center to serve as the employee-facing portal.
- Set up Document Intelligence for document data extraction.
- Install RPA Hub to enable robotic process automation for legacy systems.
- Deploy Automation Center to monitor and manage automation workflows.
This integrated solution streamlines complex, multi-step processes by combining AI-driven document processing, API-based validation, and robotic automation, all within the ServiceNow platform, helping customers improve efficiency, reduce errors, and accelerate service delivery.
Reduce the time that you spend on repetitive tasks and deliver services faster through an automated workflow in Workflow Data Fabric. You can automate the data extraction from your documents with the Document Intelligence application, automate your data validation with third-party APIs with the Integration Hub application, and automate your legacy systems with the RPA Hub application all within a single workspace.
Using the combined benefits of the solution
Get these benefits by using different applications through the solution:
- Automate document data extraction.
- Create and extend processes by using low-code, no-code API integration.
- Automate repetitive and legacy processes to deliver services faster.
- Reduce the time that you spend on repetitive tasks and improve your productivity.
- Realize the value of automation to the organization through Automation Center workspace.
Workflow for the solution
- Document Intelligence
- Integration Hub
- RPA Hub
- Automation Center
The direct deposit request from the employee is divided into three stages. The stages are to extract the data, validate the data, and update the payroll system.
The following diagram shows the workflow for the solution.
- An employee visits the Employee Center portal and searches for the Direct Deposit form through AI Search or Virtual Agent chat assistant.
Employee Center is a central portal where employees can find out the latest updates from your organization. For more information, see Employee Center.
- The employee uploads a void check and submits the request.
- The request comes into the Direct Deposit Workspace that uses a playbook to navigate the complex process in a guided process.
- In the back end, Document Intelligence analyzes the attached check data, extracts the data, and displays it so that the agent can review it.
Document Intelligence knows which fields to extract. When the model is trained over time, the value has a higher confidence score that is determined by the AI in Document Intelligence. The agent or the automation team can set a score to meet their threshold requirements.
For more information about Document Intelligence, see Document Intelligence.
- An agent navigates to the Direct Deposit Workspace, opens the direct deposit request, and reviews the data that was extracted from the employee's check. As the agent completes the review, the information is automatically updated on the form.
- The extraction stage completes and the validation stage starts. An agent can view this process in the playbook.
- By using Integration Hub, a third-party integration validates the extracted data from the check. The extracted values are sent through an API for validation using Integration Hub spoke actions. This flow is completed by using Workflow Studio with the power of the Integration Hub spokes. The flow hits an external end point, fetches the data, and compares this data against the system data to validate the bank details. On a successful validation, the
direct deposit form is updated with any relevant notes.
For more information about Workflow Studio, see Workflow Studio. For more information about Integration Hub, see Integration Hub.
- The data validation stage completes and the payroll system update stage begins.
- When the request arrives for a payroll update, the system initiates an unattended robot to process the employee's bank information into the legacy payroll system (that doesn't have any API interface) by using RPA Hub.
In a typical situation, an agent copies the data from the bank record, opens the payroll application, and pastes the data manually to submit. This process is prone to error. With RPA Hub, this process is automated by using an unattended robot that impersonates the agent and runs on any remote Windows machine. It accesses the ServiceNow record securely and inserts the data into the payroll system within a few seconds.
For more information about RPA Hub, see Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Hub.
- After the payroll updates, the direct deposit request changes to the Closed state.
- The agent can open the Automation Center Workspace to view the cost, time saving, and the true value of the automation.
For more information about Automation Center, see Automation Center.
Requirements for integrating the solution
- Activate the Integration Hub plugins. For more information, see Request an Integration Hub plugin and Integration Hub plugins.
- Install the Employee Center application and configure the Employee Center Portal. For more information, see Install Employee Center and Employee Center admin configurations.
- Install and set up the Document Intelligence application. For more information, see Install Document Intelligence and Set up Document Intelligence.
- Install the RPA Hub application. For more information, see Install Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Hub.
- Install the Automation Center application. For more information, see Install Automation Center.
- Activate a spoke. For more information, see Integration Hub spokes.
- Build spokes using Spoke Generator. For more information, see Building spokes using Spoke Generator.