ServiceNow has just rolled out an early sneak peek of the Vancouver updates last month, and Unifii is here to give you an insider scoop on the brand-new release. We’ve selected a few of our favourites from ServiceNow Vancouver and will dive into how these gems can change the game. Join us on the ride and discover the must-see highlights! 

All You Need to Know: ServiceNow Vancouver 

Flow Designer

If you’re no stranger with ServiceNow, then you’ve likely crossed paths with Flow Designer, the feature for designing automated processes, e.g. approvals, tasks and notifications, with natural language instead of coding. In ServiceNow Vancouver, major changes have been implemented to make the beloved feature even better. 

Homepage 

A new filter on the homepage is now available to allow an easier location of flows created by you, you can simply choose between "Created by me" or "All work".  

You will see the option "Pick up where you left off" on the right-hand side and can open the recent workflow that you’ve been working for, improving usability. Check "Flow Execution Metrics " to see recent activities and data involving the workflow designed by you. 

The "Resources" section provides direct access to ServiceNow documents, support videos and community discussion to help you with building the process, without the need to go on to a separate, new tab. The improvement of accessibility is expected to boost efficiency when creating new flows.

Subflow 

You will be able to add and configure Subflows in the formats of diagrams. A "View" option is available for switching between normal and diagram view. 

The functionality of Subflow Stages was launched in Utah, applying only to flows. In Vancouver, we have it available for Subflows which can be presented in diagram view as well. 

Data Pill 

We can now add data pill in the action through dot walk, while dot-walked data pill values can be edited in both normal and diagram views. 

Go Back To 

You can now select a specific action in your flow and start re-running from the point, though it is still not possible to jump to another branch, in-between steps, and steps after the “Go Back To” call. Beware that “Go Back To” will not work on flows that are employed in the Error Handler Limited Access.  

Virtual Agent

The AI-powered chatbot now supports Dialog Acts for conducting conversations that sound more natural to your end-users. ITSM topics have been enhanced to leverage Dialog Acts advancements by changing the toggle from node-level to topic-level.  

Enjoy a new admin console experience for Issue Auto Resolution (IAR) covering configuration and simulation, while a new Issue Auto Resolution model has been introduced to support tuning the default IAR intents in the NLU Workbench before returning to the IAR Admin Console. 

You may also install Contact Flows in Conversational IVR using the Contact Cloud Formation templates. Performance and user experience are improved by tracking aggregate in-app activity. 

Security Incident Response 

Enhanced to support the CrowdStrike Falcon Insight integration and the McAfee ePO integration. You can now use the DLP Severity Mapping to configure and synchronize mapping between Symantec and Now Platform incidents. 

Next Experience/ UI Builder 

The Next Experience UI is all about bringing you an intuitive and personalised experience through the ServiceNow adventure. Let's zoom in and see what's fresh in the product suite have just been added to further drive productivity and improve engagement, discover how you can make the most of these!

Guided Tour 

Customer Blocker for Next Experience has now been removed, so that a user or a customer can run existing or create new guided tours on Next Experience and Workspace.

Email in Activity 

If you wish to compose an email, you can do so directly from the "Details" section by selecting the new button "Email", placed just beside "Comments, Work notes".  

Modal 

Within the UI Builder, ServiceNow has introduced a new feature named “Modal”. Modals can be used with components to provide alerts or calls to action for a user, saving us some time and effort. 

You can choose from 6 types of Modals in total, which are Alert, Confirm, Confirm and Destroy, Custom, iframe, and Modal viewport. 

Popovers 

Use popovers on a UI Builder page to overlay contextual information or functionality to help users complete tasks. A popover is a small window or dialog box that appears above a UI Builder page and contains additional information, options, or actions related to the content or task at hand.

Undo/Redo 

Improved Undo and Redo allow users to backtrack on any action within UIB such as the adding, removing, and editing of components and configurations. Keyboard shortcuts are now available and works across saves.

Automation Engine

Integration Hub: Import Enhancements 

Import integrations by mapping source data to multiple target tables in a single integration. Configure transform settings for your data mapping. Specify batch size and empty-field handling, enable verbose mode, or run a script before or after the integration.

Stream Connect

Configure the relative weight for Stream Connect consumers. The relative weight specifies how much processing time a consumer gets compared to other consumers. You can configure the relative weight when you create a Kafka stream or, when using Flow Designer, through the flow execution settings.

You can also create and delete Kafka topics from within the Now Platform. Topics created will be added automatically to both Kafka Topics [sys_kafka_topic] table and Hermes, while deleting them will result in removal from both Kafka Topics [sys_kafka_topic] table and Hermes. 

Generate the endpoints that the third-party applications use in their webhooks to trigger the flows that you set. 

The JSON portion of the Payload Builder step is depreciated and replaced by the JSON Builder step. 

Document Intelligence 

Document Intelligence 3.0 includes an updated schema to support its transition from a scoped application to a Now Platform plugin.

• Duplicate, export, and import use case: Easily copy, export, and import trained use cases right from the use case page. 

• New document classification features: Expedite the classification of documents by defining document categories, labelling documents, setting up or training a document classification model, and verifying or correcting classification predictions. 

• Required fields: Define a document’s required fields to support the full automation of document processing. 

• Data normalization: Standardize data extracted from documents with the following improvements. Base system support to transform common field types (e.g. dates, numbers) into a normalized format. Interface for agents to visualize applied normalizations and modify them as needed. Integration setup approach to seamlessly transfer normalized data to a workflow.

RPA Hub 

The capabilities configured by you will be included in your automation through Generative AI Controller and the InvokeCapability component in RPA Desktop Design Studio. 

• Code quality check: RPA release managers or admins can determine code quality check rules from a pre-defined set in the RPA Hub instance. 

  RPA developers can perform a pro-active code quality check on a package in the RPA Desktop Design Studio, by inspecting an activity or a complete automation project for any issues using the Code Quality Check feature. 

• Track scheduled maintenance days on robot calendar: Track scheduled maintenance days on the robot calendar for an optimum functioning of the bot processes and to take preventive measures. 

• Robot Pool in RPA Hub: Create a Robot Pool Record in RPA Hub from the Robot Pool menu for optimum allocation of robots and execution of bot processes. Beware that you can no longer upload a zip file of the automation package in the RPA Hub Workspace, as you can now import the attachment automatically instead. 

Access Analyzer  

It can be found in the context menu of every form, facilitating administrators and developers to analyse users and their corresponding role access to records and fields. With the plugin, you can debug ACLs and data filters without having to impersonate users or elevate issues to the security admin. 

You can analyse access of individual users, roles, and groups. Simply select an entity and choose a table, then Access Analyzer will show you what “create”, “read”, “update” and “delete” operations that the user, roles or groups have access to. The tool automatically logs all queries so that users can revisit them later when needed, making it useful for modifying ACLs or data filters and performing re-tests on access. 

Summary

Thanks for staying with us as we unwrapped the ServiceNow Vancouver release's most thrilling features. From transformative workflow enhancements to intuitive AI-driven capabilities, this update is set to bring your service management to new heights.  

There's so much more to explore in this Release, waiting for you to dive in and customise it to perfectly fit your unique needs. If you're itching to know how these features can work their magic in your organisation, don't hesitate to get in touch with Unifii. We're here to be your trusted guides, every step of the way.