Automating at every opportunity

At ServiceNow, we run our enterprise efficiently by using automated workflows. Robotic process automation (RPA) is a way to program robots, or bots, to interact with software and perform tasks that would otherwise have been manual.

Our teams created bots using third-party RPA technology from UIPath to solve for use cases in finance, risk, and compliance; however, we realized that UIPath was not well integrated into our ServiceNow platform. Siloed from our workflows, our bots required overhead maintenance work from our automation teams, blocking end-to-end value. 

Using our own technology

As customer zero, we knew that we could build and manage our bot system with native ServiceNow RPA capabilities.

We wanted to:

• Standardize processes

• Enhance scalability

• Build cross-platform integrations

To achieve this, we chose ServiceNow RPA. It was a chance for us to re-engineer existing automation and optimize bots for better performance, maintainability, and future adaptability on our own Now Platform.

RPA became our platform solution

Our RPA strategy uses several tools on the Now Platform.

RPA Hub is our centralized console to execute and monitor all our RPA bots. We used the RPA hub to pick tasks for each bot to run, providing parameters and schedules to successfully execute workflows.

RPA Design Studio is our low-code tool used by developers to build RPA bots. Our developers can simply drag and drop design components and connect them into workflows. Additionally, these components were re-used and shared with other bots.

RPA Hub Spoke allowed us to invoke bots from within Workflows using Flow Designer. The spoke lets us trigger a bot, assign parameters, and add work to a queue while the bot is running on its current system.

How we made RPA work better for us

1. Templatize: First, our automation teams templatized a migration strategy. We targeted mission-critical bots and identified medium-complexity and low-risk bots for future phases of the shift.

2. Redesign: We used RPA Design Studio to redesign bots for our workflows, integrating them into our Now Platform for seamless interactions.

3. Reuse: Throughout the migration, a library of 1300+ ready-to-use bot functions allowed our developers to reuse functions between bots for various use cases.

4. Valdate: Finally, we validated our changes and ran RPA processes in both UIPath and RPA Hub to compare results and ensure scalability. ServiceNow, where employees go to submit tickets. This positioned GenAI to offer smart search results and suggestions that helped customers self-serve, rather than opening a ticket. The result was an upsurge in GenAI assisted self-service and a 14% boost to employee deflection rate. 

Enhancing our automation experience

To the scale that we’re growing as a company, ServiceNow RPA has helped us migrate entirely from siloed technology and onto our own Now Platform.

We achieved 100% migration; all 66 bots from UIPath have successfully been migrated into our ServiceNow workflows. These range from very simple to highly complex levels of automation. By utilizing our own platform, we’ve cut licensing costs while also saving $200K and 2.5K hours every quarter in productivity and efficiency gains. Our bots experience 95% efficiency and stability, and we have over 1300+ ready-to-use components to reduce the time to value for future RPA initiatives.

RPA is more powerful when embedded into our workflows. Beyond silos, our bots are efficient and ready for our next automation opportunity.