Third-party data integration components

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Third-party data integration components

    This content explains how ServiceNow customers can configure third-party data integration components to use with Agent Workspace for Customer Service Management (CSM). The integration enables seamless server-to-server API interactions between ServiceNow instances and external API providers, facilitating real-time data access from third-party applications without requiring user intervention.

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    Key Features

    • OAuth 2.0 – JWT Bearer Grant Type: This grant type supports secure server-to-server authentication. ServiceNow generates a JWT using the third-party application admin as the subject claim to request an access token, which authorizes REST API calls to retrieve data from third-party application tables.
    • Credentials and Connections Management with IntegrationHub: IntegrationHub uses aliases to manage credentials and connection information efficiently. This eliminates the need to configure multiple credentials for different environments, as the alias dynamically resolves the appropriate credentials during runtime.
    • Remote Tables: Remote tables in ServiceNow represent external data sources with mapping to third-party application tables. These tables reside in the ServiceNow AI Platform and store external records temporarily in memory during user sessions to optimize performance.
    • Remote Table Script Definitions: Script definitions retrieve and cache remote table data by executing scripts against external sources. These definitions include key parameters such as name, active table, script, cache TTL (time-to-live), domain, and domain path, enabling controlled data refresh and access.

    Practical Considerations for Customers

    • Configuration Required: System administrators must configure OAuth JWT Bearer authentication, IntegrationHub aliases, remote tables, and script definitions to enable third-party data integration.
    • Cache Interval Management: Choose an appropriate caching interval balancing data freshness and minimizing unnecessary API calls. Too short an interval may overload the third-party system, while too long may present outdated data in Agent Workspace.
    • Data Access and Performance: Remote tables cache external data in memory for display, enhancing performance while ensuring real-time access through IntegrationHub-managed connections.

    These components require configuration by the system administrator to use third-party data integration with Agent Workspace for CSM.

    OAuth 2.0 –JWT Bearer grant type

    JWT Bearer is the OAuth 2.0 grant type supported for the third-party data integration feature. It allows server-to-server API interactions between the ServiceNow instance and external API providers without requiring any user intervention.

    The third-party application admin is used as the subject claim of the JWT that the ServiceNow instance creates and passes to the third-party application instance. This is done to get the access token which is used to make the REST API call to fetch records from the third-party application table.

    Credentials and connections

    IntegrationHub takes advantage of aliases to manage connection information and credentials when integrating with external systems. Using an alias eliminates the need to configure multiple credentials and connection information profiles when using multiple environments. IntegrationHub only requires an alias, which then resolves to use the correct credentials and connection information during runtime.

    For more information, see the following topics:

    Remote tables

    The Tables (sys_db_object) table contains a record for each table in the database, including remote tables. For remote table records, the Remote Table flag is checked on the record form.

    The columns in a remote table are mapped to the columns in a third-party application table from which the data is being pulled. The remote table script definition stores this information. Table definitions for remote tables reside on the ServiceNow AI Platform. The table rows, or external records, are stored in memory while a user views the data in a list or form.

    For more information about remote tables, see Create a remote table.

    When creating a remote table for use with IntegrationHub, pay special attention to the caching interval and choose an interval based on your workflow and the volatility of the third-party data. If the caching interval is too short, this can result in unnecessary connections to the third-party application. If the caching interval is too long, this can result in out-of-date third-party data being presented in Agent Workspace for CSM.

    Remote table script definitions

    Use a script definition to retrieve and cache data for a remote table by running the script against an external data source. Remote table script definitions store the following information:
    • Name
    • Active
    • Table
    • Script
    • Cache TTL
    • Domain
    • Domain path

    For more information about script definitions, see Create a script definition for a remote table.