Build your first flow in Flow Designer

Step through an example of how to build, test, and activate a sample flow in Flow Designer.

Before you begin

• Role required: admin, flow_designer, or delegated_developer
• Make sure to familiarize yourself with any features that your business uses to automate operations on the ServiceNow AI Platform, such as Flow Designer, business rules, and workflows. Learning about these concepts can help you avoid creating any conflicting logic in your playbooks.

About this task

To help you get started with building your first flow in Flow Designer, follow along with the steps below. The example flow will start, or trigger, every time a user on the instance creates a request for a Service Catalog item. When a request is created, our flow will automatically run the following actions:

• Check if the catalog item's price is greater than $1,000.
• If the price is greater than $1,000, notify the requester's manager to approve the request.
• Otherwise, if the price is less than or equal to $1,000, automatically approve and close the request.

Procedure

1. Use the filter navigator to go to All > Self-Service > Service Catalog.
2. From the Top requests box, select Standard Laptop and complete the record producer.
   The system produces a Requested Item record that has a price of $1100 or more (RITM0010001).
3. Use the filter navigator to go to All > Process Automation > Flow Designer.
4. On the Flow Designer landing page's main header, select New > Flow.
5. In the Flow properties window, fill in the following fields:

   Field	Action
   Flow name	Enter Approval flow for requested items

   Then select Submit to open your flow in the Flow Designer design environment.
6. Under the TRIGGER section, select Add a trigger.
7. In the trigger picker, either enter Service Catalog in the search field, or locate the Service Catalog trigger under the APPLICATION category.
   Then, select the Service Catalog trigger to add this trigger to your flow. Later, when we test this flow, we can simulate firing this trigger by creating a new Service Catalog Item Request record.
8. Click Done to finish adding the Service Catalog trigger to your flow.
9. Under the ACTIONS section, select Add an Action, Flow Logic, or Subflow.
   Then, select Flow Logic to open the flow logic picker.
10. In the flow logic picker, select If
11. Next to the Condition 1 input, click the pill picker icon () to open the dot-walker.
    The dot-walker lets you access data from the trigger in your flow. Later, when you add actions to your flow, you can also use the dot-walker to access data from those actions. You can use the dot-walker to drill down into data that references other records in order to get the proper field placeholder value that you want to drop as a data pill in an action's input.
12. Navigate, or dot-walk, to Trigger - Service Catalog > Requested Item Record > Price and select Price to add this data pill to the Condition 1 input.
13. In the condition builder's next field, choose greater than, and then enter 1000 in the final field.
    Now, you've successfully set up a condition that will check if the price of the catalog item that a user requests is greater than $1,000.
14. Click Done to finish adding the If flow logic to your flow.
15. Under your If flow logic condition, select Action.
16. In the action picker, either enter Ask For Approval in the search field, or locate the Ask For Approval action by selecting ServiceNow Core > Ask For Approval under the Default subcategory.
17. Add the following values for the Ask For Approval action's inputs:

    Input	Action
    Record	Click the pill picker icon () to open the dot-walker. Then, navigate, or dot-walk, to Trigger - Service Catalog > Requested Item Record and select Requested Item Record to add this data pill to the input.
    Table	Leave as Requested Item [sc_req_item].
    Approval Field	Leave as Approval.
    Journal Field	Leave as Approval history.
    Rules	Leave the first field as Approve. Under When, select Anyone approves from the list. Then, click the pill picker icon () to open to dot-walker. Navigate, or dot-walk, to Trigger - Service Catalog > Requested Item Record > Opened by > Manager and select Manager to add this data pill to the field.
    Due Date	Leave as None.

    Now, you've successfully set up a conditional action that will automatically ask for approval from the requester's manager for any catalog item they request that has a price greater than $1,000.
18. Click Done to finish adding the conditional Ask for Approval action within the If flow logic of your flow.
19. Select Add an Action, Flow Logic, or Subflow.
    Then, select Flow Logic and choose Else from the flow logic picker.
20. Under your Else flow logic, select the plus icon () and then select Action.
    From the action picker, select the Update Record action.
21. Add the following values for the Update Record action's inputs:

    Input	Action
    Record	Click the pill picker icon () to open the dot-walker. Then, navigate, or dot-walk, to Trigger - Service Catalog > Requested Item Record and select Requested Item Record to add this data pill to the input.
    Table	Leave as Requested Item [sc_req_item].
    Fields	Select + Add field value. Then, select the Approval field and choose Approved as the field's value. Next, select the State field and choose Closed Complete as the field's value. Finally, select the Close notes field and enter Request automatically approved, as requested item's value is less than $1,000 for the field's value.

    Now, you've successfully set up a conditional action that automatically approves and closes the catalog item request if the requested item's price is less than or equal to $1,000.
22. To finish adding the conditional Update Record action within the Else flow logic of your flow, click Done.
23. In the main header, click Save to save the changes you've made to your flow.
    Your flow should look similar to the following example:

    

24. To test your flow and see if it triggers and runs properly without any errors, go to the main header and click Test.
25. In the Test Flow window, select a Requested Item record that has a price greater than $1000, then select Run Test.
    For example, select the requested item record that you previously created from the service catalog (RITM0010001).
    You can select the Create new record icon () to create a new requested item.
26. Select Your test has finished running. View the flow execution details.
27. On the Execution Details page, see the values that populated for the trigger and each automated action in your flow.
    For more information, see Flow execution details.
28. Navigate back to your flow.
29. In the main header, click Activate so that your flow's trigger fires whenever a user on your instance creates a new Service Catalog Item Request record.

What to do next

Your flow is now active and will run whenever it's triggered. Next, you can manage your flow every time it runs by viewing your flow's execution history. To view this history, open your flow in the Flow Designer design environment and click Executions in the main header. The resulting page shows you the state of completion for each flow execution as well as how long it took for each flow execution to run, or its runtime. To troubleshoot a flow execution for errors, select an execution from this list to open the Flow execution details.