TechNow Ep 56 | Extend IntegrationHub with Custom Spokes

[Chuck Tomasi]

IntegrationHub offers no-code capability to connect to third party APIs using Flow Designer. These integrations, known as spokes are easy to configure and enable you to quickly add powerful actions without the need to write script.

Join Kreg Steppe - Sr. Curriculum Developer, Chuck Tomasi - Sr. TPMM, and Stacey Bailey – Principal Curriculum Developer, for a lesson in building custom spokes to go beyond the standard ServiceNow integrations. Create reusable blocks of code that non-developers can use in Flow Designer to quickly build powerful solutions.

Quick tip: List fundamentals

Originally aired September 25, 2018 8:00AM PT

Featured Experts

Chuck Tomasi is a Sr. TPMM for ServiceNow. He is a computer science major with over 35 years of IT experience. As a former ServiceNow customer, Chuck won the first Innovation of the Year Award at Knowledge 10. Since joining ServiceNow in 2010 as a Technical Consultant, he has done many large scale ITSM implementations and custom applications, acted as an adjunct instructor for Education Services, created and lead the Technical Best Practices program, makes appearances on Live Coding Happy Hour, created dozens of fit for purpose custom applications, and co-hosts the ServiceNow series "TechNow".

Kreg Steppe is a Senior Curriculum Developer within ServiceNow developing and supporting cloud training infrastructure. He specializes in developing integration solutions, automating repeatable processes and Cloud Management in ITOM. Kreg's prior experience includes operating his own ISP, developing web applications in PHP, network integration, managing network support, Application Development on cloud based networks, DNS and email server maintenance. He is a Linux enthusiast and enjoys Photography. 

Stacey Bailey is a Principal Curriculum Developer for ServiceNow with over 20 years of IT experience in various roles. Since 2009 she has been working with the ServiceNow platform customer, partner, and employee. She has earned numerous awards in her career including: ITSM MVP 2017, InfoWorld Top 100 Award, DCI Portal Excellence Award, Financial Times Award for Excellence in E-Learning. Stacey proudly refers to herself a s a "gadget girl". In her spare time she likes trying new gadgets, learning new forms of art, playing in the makerspace, collecting new / unique skills, listening to audio-books, trying new life experiences, and hosting parties to build communities.

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LIST ALL EPISODES

Questions from the live stream:

is that part of the platform? -- Jared johnson
REST API Explorer? If that's what you're referencing, it sure is. To play with the REST API Explorer, go to any list, right-click on a column and Configure > Table. In the Related Links, you'll see an option to "Explore REST API." Click that and have fun. -- Stacey Bailey

Where was that encyrption whitepaper? -- Ben Blackburn
https://www.servicenow.com/nonstop-cloud.html --- bottom of the page. ServiceNow Trust ebook. -- Stacey Bailey

I cannot find the slack spoke in my instance, how do I get that spoke -- Kevin Mauriello
Slack requires the IntergrationHub license. If you want to explore it for free, you can get a personal developer instance at developer.servicenow.com and try it out. For information on licensing, please discuss with your account team. -- Chuck Tomasi

I have a personal instance, what plugin do i need to activate for integration hub -- Kevin Mauriello
From the developer portal, go to the Manage> Instance menu and use the Action menu to turn on the IntegrationHub plugin -- Chuck Tomasi

Can we configure email inbound action in flow designer? -- Kavitha Raydurga
I think this is feasible. London introduces the ability to trigger a flow via script. You should be able to call that script from the inbound action. -- Stacey Bailey

Will we get a recording of this session to review back to? -- Timothy Haroutunian
Yes. They will be posted to the community at http://bit.ly/servicenow-technow in a few days. -- Chuck Tomasi

Is the recommendation to convert some of the existing workflows to use flow designer ? -- Naveen Chakilam
I wouldn't expect most customers to go through the labor of converting legacy workflows to Flow Designer. There's really no need if the existing workflow is working for you. The legacy workflow is not going away, it just isn't receiving any additional enhancements or updates. If you have net-new work to do (start a new workflow) then I strongly urge you to consider using Flow Designer. -- Chuck Tomasi

does a scoped app have to be created when creating a new spoke/using the integration hub -- Kevin Mauriello
Yes -- Chuck Tomasi

Will it support Scoped HR when we are required to use Spoke Application ? -- Vimal Priya S
Yes. -- Chuck Tomasi

are you in kingston? -- Jared johnson
That screenshot was from London. The AD spokes were introduced in that version. You can check all of the London spokes out in a personal developer instance. -- Stacey Bailey

Can I get documentation about MID server? -- Daniel Rosales
Yes. You can find more information on our docs site here. https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/london-servicenow-platform/page/product/mid-server/reference/r-MIDServer.html -- Chuck Tomasi

What are best practices for something like the example in this demo using business rules and workflows vs using Flow Designer. -- Michael Rakowski
I've become of the mind that you should start thinking of Flow Designer first before defaulting to Business Rules and graphical Workflow. In a recent exercise, I replaced about 150 lines of code with a simple Flow. -- Chuck Tomasi

Will you be able to expand that spoke? Or do we need to recreate our own? -- Timothy Haroutunian
There are options to copy existing actions, which should allow you to copy and make your own. The protection policies will likely prevent you from expandinb base instance actions, though. -- Stacey Bailey

Do you guys have any lab for doing this? -- Dopdyel Tseten
I've got a couple of labs written for the Platform Implementation training class to create custom actions. I've got a no-code option and a coding option. I'll look around for other options to get experience with custom actions as well and include those in the show notes. Also, you can reverse-engineer the actions included in the platform. That approach is excellent for learning. -- Stacey Bailey

Does it commit updates when Testing the Flow or just show what results would be? -- Dennis Magnuson
Yes, test results are saved/committed. -- Chuck Tomasi

Can this be installed and tried on a lower instance to try out? Or does it have to be a personal instance? -- Kevin Owens
As long as you're running Kingston or London, you can try this out on a lower instance in your stack. -- Stacey Bailey

Is Integration Hub and Flow Designer under Orchestration Licensing? or generally available on the platform (eg. standard ITSM base licensing)? -- Tim Towstego
Flow Designer is a platform capability available with no additional subscriptions included. ITSM actions are available directly in that. Check with your sales rep about IntegrationHub licensing if you currently have Orchestration and want to use IntegrationHub capabilities. -- Stacey Bailey

Ohh yes i found that as "ServiceNow IntegrationHub Installer"Thanks -- Anubhav Kapoor
Excellent! Enjoy exploring IntegrationHub. -- Stacey Bailey

Can I get a link to the REST API explorer episode? -- Dustin Spain
Sure Dustin. https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_question&sys_id=d0da8a3ddb7597004837f3231f96196a -- Chuck Tomasi

flow esigner would be like Nintex? -- saritha kannaiahgari
In a sense. This is a drag-n-drop UI to build workflows similar to IFTTT or Zapier. I took a quick look at Nintext, so I assume so. Flow Designer is built in directly to the ServiceNow platform to work across the enterprise. -- Chuck Tomasi

What are the performance implications of the designer over traditional methods? -- Michael Rakowski
None that I'm aware of. -- Chuck Tomasi

Will you see these triggers that are created from Flow designer from the table -> configure all (Business Rules, Client Scripts, etc) or do you have to go to Flow designer/Studio to see these items? -- Christopher Martineau
Flows are configured via the Flow Designer menu or via Studio. They do not show up on Configure> All as there is a graphical element to it. -- Chuck Tomasi

Off topic - Where to I get tutorials about London that would prepare me for the new delta certification non-proctored test. -- Edward Parker
I recommend contacting our training department to get full information on that. training@servicenow.com -- Chuck Tomasi

Will you cover how to use the ForEach. I will have a question if you do. -- Timothy Haroutunian
I don't think Kreg's example has a For Each use case as he's only getting and setting one record. If we don't get to it, you can always ask in the community at community.servicenow.com -- Chuck Tomasi

how can you use nested JSON as query parameters ? -- Dopdyel Tseten
I haven't seen nested JSON as a query parameter requirement yet. Usually more complex data types are done in the request body (for post/patch/put modes.) That being said, you could stringify it and add it to the query parameters and hopefully not overload the URL. -- Chuck Tomasi

like easy to drag and drp to desing -- saritha kannaiahgari
Yes, it's a wonderfully intuitive interface. The Developer portal just released a Flow Designer course last week you may enjoy: https://developer.servicenow.com/app.do#!/training/article/app_store_learnv2_automatingapps_kingston_flow_designer/app_store_learnv2_automatingapps_kingston_flow_designer_objectives?v=kingston -- Stacey Bailey

Is Integration Hub available on Personal Developer instance? -- Anubhav Kapoor
Yes. When you go to the Manage menu to manage your instance, you can choose Activate a plugin from the Action menu, locate IntegrationHub and turn it on. -- Chuck Tomasi

Could you show us a demo using MID Server and Rest service? -- Daniel Rosales
Hi Daniel, while REST via MID server on IntegrationHub is available on London, we likely won't have time to cover that today. Suffice it to say, you can do it. -- Chuck Tomasi

Is there a way to convert data-types? As in read in an integer and convert it to a float, in order to output a decimal number... -- Rick Cloud
Yes, you would do that with a script step using standard Javascript operations like parseInt() or parseFloat() or toString(). -- Chuck Tomasi

Is the flow designer new to London or is it in Jakarta and Kingston -- Jed Blanks
Flow Designer was introduced in Kingston. There have been some enhancements added in London such as sub-flows, phases, and annotations. -- Stacey Bailey

link to available integrations? -- Jared johnson
You can find more information here. https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/london-servicenow-platform/page/administer/integrationhub/reference/spokes-list.html -- Chuck Tomasi

Is there any known plans for a VSO spoke? -- Levi Dempsey
None that I am aware of, but you can always keep an eye on our docs page. With each release there is new information. https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/london-servicenow-platform/page/administer/integrationhub/reference/spokes-list.html -- Chuck Tomasi

Is it possible to reuse same actions in Flow designer? -- Kavitha Raydurga
Absolutely! That's the idea. There's a ton of power embedded in the Action Designer that allows you to develop easy-to-use reusable actions. -- Stacey Bailey

Is this being recorded for later viewing? -- Rick Cloud
Yes. We will email you the link to the on-demand webinar shortly after today's session. Thanks for joining us. -- Brandy Rowden