Add activities to an app's playbook in Creator Studio
Add activities to an app's playbook to specify what the automation does to the designated record type. An activity defines what actually happens when a playbook executes.
Before you begin
To add activities to a playbook, you must be given permission to work on the app.
About this task
The activities that you can add to a playbook are limited by your administrator to ensure you use the correct ones for your organization. Your admin may have created some custom activities for you to choose from, or hidden some standard activities.
Procedure
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Select to Preview how different forms appear in various experiences, or select the View or Edit button to view or edit
the application experience.
Select different previewing options if you want to make sure that you've selected the correct application and see how it will appear in the following formats:
- Portal (see a preview of how it'll appear on a desktop website)
- Now Mobile (see a preview of how it'll appear on a mobile phone or device)
- Virtual agent (see a representation of how it'll appear on a chatbot interface) Note:Your organization should have the correct plugins installed to see how the form will appear in Virtual Agent. If you're interested, ask your admin and see Catalog builder preview topic conversation for more information on previewing forms and their catalog items in Virtual Agent.
The View button displays forms that have been published and doesn't explicitly create a new draft form for development. The Edit button takes you to a development form, for example, a new draft version of a form that's already been published.
Figure 1. Preview the app's experience You can also check out a representation of how the form submissions workspace will appear by selecting the Submissions preview, as well as the records your app generates for it (by selecting the Record preview).
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Check that you're editing the correct playbook in your app by selecting it from the Automations tab.
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Select the add icon
on the connector where you want to add an activity and choose the square Add an activity icon (
) in the menu that pops up.
Table 1. How to add an activity in Board and Diagram views View Steps Diagram - Select the + icon in the stage.
- In the mini-picker, select the square icon () to add an activity.
Board Select + Add activity. -
Choose the type of activity that you want from the Activity library pop-up.
Note:In addition to the following standard activities, you may see some custom activities that your admin created.
Table 2. Types of activities Activity type Description Request approval Ask someone for permission to accomplish a task. Assign to Choose a person who should fulfill the task. Create task Specify a process that must be done as part of the playbook. Send an email Send an email to one or more people. You can specify images and enrich text for the email that gets sent automatically. Placeholder Set an undefined activity to be specified later, or a more advanced activity such as an email notification, when an activity is completed. Placeholder activities don't have any logic assigned to them yet, and must be edited in Workflow Studio. Or, you can swap them out later for another type of activity in Creator Studio.
Figure 2. Activity library for a playbook Your new activity and its Activity properties panel appear, where you define what the activity is.
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Enter the basic details for the activity.
Table 3. General activity details Field Description Name Unique, user-facing name for your activity, which appears to agents and fulfillers while the playbook is running. Description Optional details about what the activity accomplishes. Figure 3. Activity details panel -
Enter details for specific types of activities.
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For Send an email activities, specify the recipients and contents of the email.
- Enter the name (for ServiceNow AI Platform users) or email address for people who should receive the email in the To and Cc fields.
Select the Requester option for the To or Cc fields to include the person who made the request in the email's recipients.
- Enter the email's subject in the Subject field.
- Enter the body of the email in the textbox. Select the additional toolbar buttons icon (
) to display more formatting options. For example, you can add images, tables, and links to the email.
- Enter the name (for ServiceNow AI Platform users) or email address for people who should receive the email in the To and Cc fields.
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For Send an email activities, specify the recipients and contents of the email.
What to do next
Continue adding activities and decisions, as well as connectors and parallel processes if needed, to finish creating your playbook. For more information on decisions, see Add a decision to an app's playbook in Creator Studio.