Service provider connector

The service provider connector application is a reference design for creating a ServiceNow Store application for your customers to use to integrate with your systems. Service provider applications help you speed on-boarding and create standardized integrations.

Benefits of service connectors

When service providers (vendors, suppliers, partners) publish connectors, customer on-boarding is faster, which means faster billing. Integrated instances increase productivity, greater visibility in the ServiceNow ecosystem, and partner program benefits. Specific benefits are:

• Eliminates custom integrations, including the cost of services required to deliver and maintain them.
• Services are provider-defined within their ServiceNow instances and remove the need for the complexity and cost of custom integrations.
• Workflows and catalog requests can be synchronized, with the customer’s processes and approvals preceding the provider’s processes, so customers can follow their own processes.
• Any data created or modified (e.g. CIs) for the customer on the provider’s instance can be synchronized back into the customer’s instance for their visibility and use in processes.

Key features

Feature	Description
User Interface	A service connector should include the following UI components at a minimum: Reports/Dashboards – Reports and dashboards pre-defined by persona help with visibility. Menu and modules – The customer should be able to find the application via descriptive Menu Provider XYZ Services. Roles – Every connector requires user and admin roles to ensure access can be controlled by the customer. For example, “x_snc_xyz_user” or “x_snc_xyz_admin”. On-boarding – Rapid on-boarding is essential to a good customer experience and should be included via playbook, guided setup, or catalog item in such a way that no professional services are required for the customer to go live. (Professional services are available, but on-boarding can be achieved without it). Configuration – Data points should be built into processes to account for most of the normal process configuration a customer needs to achieve. This eliminates professional services as much as possible. Documentation – Thorough documentation increases customer satisfaction and ease of use. Support integration or contact info – The customer needs an easy way to stay in contact with the service provider for any issues, questions, or requests.
Tasks	Use the Service Exchange (legacy) application for tasks, such as incidents, case, changes, problems, and so on, should be predefined in the connector. These integrations are built using Flow Designer and Integration Hub to ensure the highest level of resiliency and performance.
CMDB	Core data synchronize such as the CIs required for proper ITIL processes should be kept in sync between provider and customer instances.
Workflows	All workflows should be designed in Flow Designer to ensure resiliency and performance.
Catalogs	The provider’s catalog that the customer requests from should be included in the application as a record-producing catalog. The request generated by the item in the customer’s instance should be eBonded with the provider’s instances. The provider’s workflows keep the request updated and synchronize back to the customer’s instance.
Customer Processes	Any mechanisms for syncing requests with the provider’s instance should allow for customer processes to interact with the requests before they are sent to the provider’s instance. During provider processing, approvals can be sent to the customer’s instance as needed.
Integration	Integrations should be built using Flow Designer and Integration Hub to ensure the highest level of resiliency and performance.

Possible components you can include in a Service Connector

Component	Description
Instance data replication (IDR)	When replication is the goal: Can be used for process integration, but can be too rigid depending on the complexity integration logic based on state transition To learn more, see Instance Data Replication
IntegrationHub	When process integration is the goal: Easier to inject in the middle of a process, as part of complex or conditional step in the middle of a flow To learn more, see IntegrationHub
Global Work Queue (Virtual)	When task federation is the goal, and storing data externally is not acceptable: Used where agents are working across multiple ServiceNow instances and need to see all open work assigned to them Rows returned should be limited to less than 1000 To learn more, see Global work queue
Remote Tables	When external data usage without storage is the goal: Used to connect an instance to third-party sources, or to another instance, to retrieve external data and optionally cache it in the memory. The data is treated as a table in the instance for read-only purposes such as group, sort, aggregate, and filter. To learn more, see Retrieving external data using remote tables and scripts
Flow Designer	When process design is the goal Used for automating processes in a single design environment. Process owners can use natural language to automate approvals, tasks, notifications, and record operations without coding. To learn more, see Flow Designer

Learn more about the Service Connector proof of concept on the ServiceNow Knowledge site.