TechNow Ep 67 | Explore New York Platform Features

[Chuck Tomasi]

The New York release of the Now Platform has a lot of great capabilities. These range from no-code features like Guided App Creator to predictive intelligence in Virtual Agent to enhancements on the script editor. All of these make it easier for you to configure and create solutions for your organization while providing a great experience and unlocking productivity. Join the TechNow team as they show you around the new tools to add to your toolbox!

Originally aired: August 20, 2019 8:00 AM 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".

Max Pham is a SC Development Manager for ServiceNow. Prior to joining the ServiceNow team, she worked mainly in the public sector where she held many roles, including Enterprise Solutions architect, Agile coach, Scrum Master, Engineering-Jack-of-All trades, and Space Ace. She was a ServiceNow customer when the current version was called “Berlin” and  attended her first Knowledge event in 2015. She was also a finalist for the 2015 ServiceNow Hackathon.  She has a BS in Computer Science and resides in Washington State with her husband, two kids, and two rescue dogs known as neurotic and derpy by friends and family.

Kreg Steppe is a Training and Certification Program Manager 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.

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Questions and Answers

How does openapi compare to json schema? is it a similar purpose and does it have more inertia? -- Raymond Ferguson
OpenAPI has been around for a while (formerly known as Swagger - https://swagger.io/docs/specification/about/). It's used to define the APIs. JSON is typically used to define the request/response payload format. -- Chuck Tomasi

In VA what is reusable conversation blocks? -- Brent Kimsey
You can define blocks of your conversation (e.g. sets of questions or actions to perform) that can be reused across topics. Sorry if this wasn't clear in the video. -- Chuck Tomasi

Is Remote Tables just for displaying data or can you retrieve a report from an EDW site for example? -- James Higgins
Yes, It allows you to retrieve and display information as if it were in a table, but it's not actually stored in the database. -- Chuck Tomasi

Any New features related to Operational Intelligence in New York Version ? -- Karthick Nagarajan
https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/newyork-release-notes/page/release-notes/summary/rn-summary-upgrade-info.html

is IDR a re-branding of eBonding? Does it require Integration Hub? -- Erik Ohlin
IDR is a simple configuration way to set up data replication between ServiceNow instances. Yes, it requires IntegrationHub as it is an integration and uses transactions from IH licensing. -- Chuck Tomasi

If there is a child task created from the parent task through flow designer Action , Is the parent task field gets auto populated in the child task form -- Abakas Sahoo
By default, the tasks are separate records. If you want data shared between them then you would have to define that as part of your flow. -- Chuck Tomasi

Can we define email client templates that include attachments? -- John Feist
Not at this point. Great idea. I recommend you submit an enhancement request. -- Chuck Tomasi

Has there been any improvements made to the VMWare vRA/vRO plug in? I understand there have been challenges around this for our auto-server provisioning. What, if any improvements have there been made? -- Jenny Zeppenfeldt
I recommend reaching out to an ITOM expert. This session is about the platform features. Sorry we don't have any information around ITOM. -- Chuck Tomasi

Do you intend to integrate Virtual Agent with Flowdock or is that capability already available? -- Tracy Larson
I'm not sure what Flowdock is. Do you mean Flow Designer? -- Chuck Tomasi

Heard that we could also Automate Clone in London wanted to confirm how that would work -- Vyjayanth Uttanoor
Yes, you can schedule cloning. https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/newyork-platform-administration/page/administer/managing-data/task/schedule-cloning.html -- Chuck Tomasi

Hi Everyone -- Chaithra Srinivasamurthy
Hola! -- Kreg Steppe

ServiceNow USB Sticks are all well and good. But when do we get to see the Chuck T. Signature Bow Tie Collection? -- Michael Alexander
That was lip balm. Bow ties - maybe. -- Chuck Tomasi

Hi there! -- vivek verma
Hi Vivek! -- Max Pham

Does QUick API timeouts consume space in the API queue or are they held elsewhere? -- Steve Cornett
I'm afraid I don't understand the question entirely. What is the "space in the API queue" you are referring to? -- Chuck Tomasi

Hello, -- Marc Mouries
Hi Marc! -- Max Pham

you said the trigger is the email message. Can the trigger be the email subject or the email sender ? -- Marc Mouries
Yes, you can include if conditions on the trigger. -- Kreg Steppe

Can App Creator be used for Global App -- Mohit Kochar
https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/newyork-application-development/page/build/guided-app-creator/task/gac-activate-global.html "By default, Guided Application Creator doesn't include the option to create applications in the global scope. Instead, you can add a property that lets you create applications in the global scope." -- Max Pham

Dynamic Input... can that be utilized for reporting? -- malaya maithani
At this point it's part of Flow Designer and IntegrationHub used to manage complex (JSON) objects. If you feel it would be helpful in reporting, I invite you to open an enhancement request. Our product managers DO listen. -- Chuck Tomasi

Does ATF still require a dedicated computer with active user session? -- Marc Clasby
You need a client set up somewhere so it can run the tests. This could be a farm of different operating systems and browsers, or it could be someone's laptop. -- Chuck Tomasi

is the open api part of integration hub? -- ravish shetty
https://developer.servicenow.com/blog.do?p=/post/ny-integration-hub-part-1/ -- Max Pham

Is excel spreadsheet looked upon as a "remote table"? -- John Wiese
Not at this point unless you have some way to do a REST API to a Sharepoint site containing the Excel sheet. An XLSX file sitting on your laptop hard drive is not accessible from the instance. -- Chuck Tomasi

is there a limit for how many times it retries -- Vyjayanth Uttanoor
If you are referring to the retry policy, that's configurable by you in the policy record. -- Chuck Tomasi

Any good documentation on in-line scripts? -- Matt Brusco
https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/newyork-servicenow-platform/page/administer/flow-designer/concept/inline-scripts.html -- Max Pham

Virtual agent - Does it allow us to work with different languages? -- Susie Woodward
Yes. -- Kreg Steppe

Are scripted inbound email actions able to manage inline vs attached attachments? Use case - we want to get rid of signature inline attachments. -- Kerri Gibson-Tutt
Scripted inbound email actions do not discern the content-disposition like Flow Designer does as far as I know. If I recall, you can tell it to disregard attachments below a certain file size (e.g. 2K) as many signature icons are small and most attachments are not. -- Chuck Tomasi

Did we get any improvements when it comes to integration with third party services? -- Karimuddin Mohammed
Yes. IntegrationHub has many improvements and new spokes are being released each month -- Chuck Tomasi

Are there any alternative training for Flow Designer... I find the online training module to be incomplete and not easy to transcribe into my own needs. -- Kenneth SHAW
https://www.servicenow.com/services/training-and-certification/flow-designer-fundamentals.html Also have you looked our labs from Knowledge 19: https://developer.servicenow.com/app.do#!/event/knowledge18/LAB1009/knowledge_18_LAB1009_lab_21__use_flow_designer_to_set_up_the_integration Quite a few have Flow Designer workshops. ALso there is communities, etc. -- Max Pham

Hello everyone! -- Sam Salameh
Hello! -- Max Pham

Does the Flow Designer support Orchestration? -- Sam Salameh
Orchestration is called from Workflow. You can call a workflow from Orchestration - so yes. -- Chuck Tomasi

Is Classic retired? -- Michael White
No. This is in addition to. -- Kreg Steppe

Will New York have any features that helps admins analyze the system logs? -- Hector LaPrade
On slide 69, Chuck will show some enhancements related to session logs and script debugging. -- Stacey Bailey

Is there away to block the attachments of icons in email signatures? -- Robert Meister
Yes. In Flow Designer you can use the content-disposition -- Chuck Tomasi

How do get our hands into this out-of-band releases for Integration spokes? Is there a release plan for what's been release and what's coming? -- Christianne Souknary
The releases will be available in the Store. Just like apps on your phone from the App Store. you can install at any time. Not sure there is a release plan. -- Kreg Steppe

Inbound Email Flow Trigger - can you set field values from the email body? For example, if the body of the email contains a line of Foo:bar, you can access the value of Foo by doing email.body.foo -- Miguel Calderon
No parsing is available on the body insofar as I'm aware, but it wouldn't take much to build an action to do something like that. -- Chuck Tomasi

Is the data sync is similar to what Perspectium company do? -- Sam Salameh
While I'm not entirely familiar with the Perspectium product line, I believe this is similar to some basic functionality they do between ServiceNow instances. -- Chuck Tomasi

In near future, is there a possibility to retire Workflows and go with just Flow Designer? -- Ramesh Babu Elagandula
Workflows will continue to be available for quite some time yet. We are not removing them from the system, we just aren't adding any new features or fixing any (non-sev1) bugs. -- Chuck Tomasi

Is virtual agent integrated with MS Teams? -- Jarrod Puleo
Yes, you can access VA through MS-Teams. https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/newyork-performance-analytics-and-reporting/page/administer/virtual-agent/task/install-va-integrations.html -- Chuck Tomasi

Does IDR have any additional costs? -- Mike Morales
https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/newyork-servicenow-platform/page/administer/instance-data-replication/task/request-instance-data-replication.html#request-instance-data-replication I would contact your ServiceNow Account Manager to see if you're already licensed for it. -- Max Pham

Will there be Reporting fuctionality on Dashboards? -- Kristian Campbell
I'm not sure I understand your question. Perhaps you can clarify in the comments below. Dashboards are made up of separate individual reports, so yes, dashboards are reporting functionality. Let me know if I am misunderstanding. -- Chuck Tomasi

Can we hear from the Dalek please? I would like to hear their thoughts -- Jon Arnold
EXTERMINATE! -- Chuck Tomasi

Are there going to be micro-certifications / training's available for Now Mobile? -- Alle Amos
I haven't heard, but it would make sense since it is a specialty development skill (in my mind anyway.) -- Chuck Tomasi

Will you be giving examples of the complex objects using arrays? -- hgh hh
https://developer.servicenow.com/blog.do?p=/post/ny_flow_designer_2/ -- Max Pham

Dashboard Reporting: Currently, I am only able to schedule individual reports out of ServiceNow. Will New York offer the ability to schedule/email dashboards as an Out Of The Box feature in ServiceNow? -- Kristian Campbell
I haven't heard of any plans for publishing an entire dashboard. I can see several challenges in doing that (e.g. interactive dashboards, how to display it in a PDF or printable format (esp when scrolling may be involved in a widget.) That doesn't mean it won't happen, just that it doesn't exist today. If you feel strongly about the idea, I invite you to submit an enhancement request. Our product managers DO listen. -- Chuck Tomasi

Does the Inbound email trigger handle HTML tags, when the email is sent in HTML only? -- Stan Swartwood
It appears to. I was doing a test with a simple 1-line email and although the body had HTML tags, it was parsed as if it didn't. Could have just been my simple example, but I invite you to do some testing on your own. -- Chuck Tomasi

Can conditional encoded queries be used in the "Inline Scripts"? -- Hector LaPrade
Yes. You can. -- Kreg Steppe

For the JSON Object type input variables - is there any limit of the levels we can have the data (label: value pair) buried down under? Can we have a combo of array and objects? -- Hitesh Patel
I haven't found a depth limit yet (after four or five) and yes, arrays are supported. -- Chuck Tomasi

By Any chance Can ServiceNow expose the Machine Learning Algorithms used for Intelligent Apps -- Karthick Nagarajan
They are not available at this time. I don't know if they are considered intellectual property, patented or what. I recommend you ask your account team or customer support. Please let us know what you find. -- Chuck Tomasi

Is there a way to enable easy Import and make it accessible via Service Portal ,as well as allow non-admins to use Easy Import functionality? -- Jonas Richard
I don't see Easy import making its way to Service Portal lists as a standard feature. It's not something you normally want an "end user" doing. You can grant one of the import roles (import_admin I believe) to a user to give them easy import capabilities. -- Chuck Tomasi

I'm on an integration project where i need to convert data from xml into EDI/Text format - and push this message as an MQ message to a third party.. SO need a translation engine and tool to push this messge. possible? -- Vikram Patil
That would require custom development. We don't have anything like that out of the box as of New York. -- Chuck Tomasi

with some of the changes in madrid around custom tables and licensing, is there tooling in NY that makes inventory & controls of custom table sprawl easier to manage? -- Steve Cornett
For licensing questions, I recommend speaking to your account team. That being said, ask about usage analytics. https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/newyork-platform-administration/page/administer/subscription-management/concept/usage-analytics-module-subscription.html -- Chuck Tomasi

Is there one for SharePoint? -- Marisol Tomey
I believe so. http://bit.ly/2ZeiL5m -- Kreg Steppe

do we have list of langs? -- Waseem Ahmed
Yes, I recommend you start here. https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/newyork-platform-administration/page/administer/localization/concept/c_LangInternationalizationSupport.html -- Chuck Tomasi

Is this webinar session being recorded? I'd like to share with a coworker. -- omar sanane
Yes, you can find all the previous (including this one) episodes in the Community https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=4d6eaeaddbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961964 -- Kreg Steppe

Is IDR bi-directional, e.g. can it replace ebonding? -- John Feist
I see one restriction is that you cannot use IDR across instances owned by separate companies, which eliminates one of the primary use cases for ebonding. -- Stacey Bailey

I am getting mixed responses on Instance Data Replication. Can this be used to make sure that data is the same between DEV/PROD environments? -- Edgar Pliaskis
https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/newyork-servicenow-platform/page/administer/instance-data-replication/concept/instance-data-replication.html -- Max Pham

Chuck, how did you like your visit to Green Bay? Was great seeing you at the User Group meeting -- David Miller
Loved it! Would love to do it again. -- Chuck Tomasi

Does the Flow support Orchestration? -- Sam Salameh
If you mean Workflows, they are two separate products. -- Kreg Steppe

When flows stop processing, does that also bypass the scripted inbound actions?? -- Steve Hill
Yes. When your notification triggered flow stops the processing, it says "I'm done, nobody else needs to be concerned about this message" and scripts are not going to be processed either. If it didn't, then you could have conflicts/errors with flows and scripts trying to process the same message. -- Chuck Tomasi

"servicenow.com/success" - shows 400 Bad Request -- Ramesh Babu Elagandula
Interesting...I went there and it redirected me to https://www.servicenow.com/success.html -- Kreg Steppe

I migrated my dev instance to New York already. Why does it say GS Sept 5th? -- Marc Mouries
General Release for customers to upgrade their production instances is September 5th. Developer instances do get early access. -- Max Pham

can you provide an example using the new inbound email feature? -- Efra Pruneda
https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/newyork-servicenow-platform/page/administer/notification/reference/r_InboundEmailActionExamples.html https://developer.servicenow.com/blog.do?p=/post/ny_flow_designer/ -- Max Pham