ServiceNow Integration with Simpplr

Table of Contents

• Application registry setup
• CORS rule
• ServiceNow integration with Simpplr
• Notification settings
• Toggle ServiceNow KnowledgeBase
• Add your company's logo to ServiceNow
• Security
• How does the KnowledgeBase search work?
• How does the Incident Management work?

App managers can integrate ServiceNow accounts with Simpplr to enable employees to search KnowledgeBases and raise support tickets within the intranet.

You can integrate ServiceNow by:

• Downloading Simpplr in the ServiceNow app store

Application registry setup

1. As the serviceNow admin user, open the ServiceNow Service Management.
2. Search for Application Registry in the search bar and navigate to Application Registry.
   
3. Click New.
4. Click Create an OAuth API endpoint for external clients. You'll be routed to “OAuth client application details”.

Note:

If you are on ServiceNow release Tokyo or higher and have the REST API Auth Scope plugin installed, you'll need to add useraccount as auth scope in the Application Registry setup.

1. Enter the required details as:
   
   
   
2. Click Submit.
3. Click the lock icon next to Client Secret.
   
   
4. Copy the Client ID and Client Secret. Paste them both somewhere you'll remember. You'll need them later.
5. Enter copied details in Simpplr. To do so, navigate to the Simpplr app, and from the user profile image, click Manage > Application > Integrations. You also need to enter your ServiceNow URL.

CORS rule

1. Back in ServiceNow, search for CORS in the search bar and navigate to CORS Rules.
2. Click New.
3. Enter details as:
   
   
   

   Note:

   Your domain will be your Simpplr URL if using Simpplr's domain, or it will be your instance domain if using custom domains.
4. Enter * under Exposed headers.
   
5. Click Submit.

ServiceNow integration with Simpplr

After completing the instructions above, App managers can integrate ServiceNow accounts with Simpplr to enable employees to search KnowledgeBases and raise support tickets within the app.

1. In Simpplr, from the user profile image, go to Manage > Application > Integrations > Support & ticketing and enter the client ID and secret key you generated in the steps above.
   
2. The App manager should be able to select up to 15 KnowledgeBases from ServiceNow to be searchable within Simpplr. To do so, click Connect account. You'll be taken to your ServiceNow account to complete this step. Note that if the user connecting the account does not have access to a certain KnowledgeBase in ServiceNow, end users won't be able to search that KnowledgeBase when they connect. Simpplr uses tokens to pull your org's KnowledgeBase list. Any non-admin user can connect, but that user will be able to pick only the KnowledgeBase(s) they have access to. 
3. All users (all roles) are now able to connect their user accounts to ServiceNow using their own ServiceNow credentials from the Profile & settings > External apps section of their user profile.

If ServiceNow is enabled, the 'ServiceNow tickets' item should be displayed in the user menu.

Note:

Where SSO is being used, users will have to connect to ServiceNow through SSO first. Upon clicking Connect in Simpplr, the user will be automatically authenticated and redirected back to Simpplr in the connected state.

ServiceNow Notifications

To receive ServiceNow ticket response/status update notifications in Simpplr, App managers will need to install the Simpplr app from the ServiceNow App Store.

Whenever a ticket is updated in ServiceNow with either a response or status change, concerned users in Simpplr will be notified by way of an in-app activity notification. Notifications on ticket status are independent of the source where the ticket was created. For instance, if a user creates one case in Simpplr and two cases in ServiceNow, the user will receive notifications for all three cases in Simpplr. 

This is an example:

To install ServiceNow for Simpplr:

1. Navigate to the ServiceNow App Store.
2. Search for Simpplr. You should see the Simpplr Notification App.
   
   
3. Navigate to the App detail page.
4. Click Get to install the app. Follow the on-screen instructions until the app is installed successfully.

Toggle ServiceNow KnowledgeBase

For organizations that wish to connect ServiceNow to Simpplr but do not wish to have users access/search the SNOW KnowledgeBase, App managers have the ability to toggle off the KnowledgeBase features for this integration.

The default setting is enabled which works as the standard integration today, whereby users that have connected their SNOW accounts can type in the global search bar and see a tab for ServiceNow KnowledgeBase results.

Disabling the KnowledgeBase function will leave other SNOW-Simpplr integrations intact while removing the ability for users to query Simpplr and the SNOW KnowledgeBase.

Toggle ServiceNow Ticketing

For organizations that wish to connect Simpplr to the ServiceNow KnowledgeBase but not connect to the Simpplr-ServiceNow ticket features, App managers can toggle on/off the ticketing integration only.

The default setting is Enable which will act as a standard implementation, allowing users who have connected their SNOW account to Simpplr to use the ticketing features within Simpplr.

Toggle ticket creation ability

For organizations that do not wish to allow users to create new ServiceNow tickets within Simpplr but wish to connect to other ticketing features, app managers can toggle on/off the create ticket feature within Simpplr.

Add custom URL pattern for linking tickets and KnowledgeBase articles

Simpplr supports App managers adding in custom URL patterns for links so that the given organization can control which user interface that Simpplr links to for either KnowledgeBase articles or tickets.

Instead of the default (standard implementation today) URL path, app managers can now choose custom and enter in the path the organization needs with calculated values (such as the KnowledgeBase article ID above) wrapped in `{{ }}` a pair of curly brackets.

This feature is available for both SNOW KnowledgeBase and ticketing to give the organization the granular control they need.

Add your company's logo to ServiceNow

To add your company's logo, first you need to make sure you have a publicly hosted URL; something like https://static.simpplr.com/assets/img/simpplr-logo-teal.png.

From ServiceNow, go to Application Registry > ServiceNow for Simpplr and find the Logo URL field. Click the lock icon to open it and input the logo URL. Click the lock icon again to lock, then select Update.

 

Security

API secrets are obscured and are never passed to the Simpplr UI. To interact with the secret, on hover App managers will be given the option to edit. Once clicked they will be able to update the secret but never see what it currently is.

Simpplr uses the permissions assigned in ServiceNow to provide access to the org's users. An employee will only be able to access the same KnowledgeBase(s) in Simpplr that they have access to in ServiceNow, regardless of Simpplr site membership.

Since many of our customers require passwords to change after a certain period, it's important to note that if the service account used to set up the integration has an expired password, the token will no longer be valid. The integration will need to be reconnected after a new password creation. If the password is changed before the expiration date as required by your organization, the integration will not be effected. 

We recommend resetting the Admin user's password every few months for added security. Changing the admin connection password will not effect the integration or any user access in any way on Simpplr. for instructions on resetting your ServiceNow password, click here. 

How does the KnowledgeBase search work?

Each user is required to connect their ServiceNow account using the OAuth workflow, and all requests to the ServiceNow instance are made using the logged in user’s access token, so all requests are executed with the permissions that the currently logged in user has.

1. User makes a request by entering the search term in global search in Simpplr UI.
2. The request is forwarded from AWS API gateway to Simpplr App in a secure VPC.
3. The Simpplr App retrieves the access token for the logged in user from Hashicorp vault application.
4. The Simpplr App prepares the request using the search term, access token and the ServiceNow instance URL and hits ServiceNow rest API.
5. ServiceNow API passes the response back to the Simpplr App.
6. Simpplr App code processes response received from ServiceNow converting it into the format that UI can render and sends it back to browser.

How does Incident Management work?

The workflow for incident listing is same as the KnowledgeBase search. Each user is required to connect their ServiceNow account using the OAuth workflow, and all requests to the ServiceNow instance are made using the logged in user’s access token so all requests are executed with the permissions that the currently logged in user has. One does not need to connect their ServiceNow account twice. The same connection is used for both features.

1. The user makes a Get/Create Incident request from Simpplr UI.
2. The request is forwarded from AWS API gateway to Simpplr App in a secure VPC.
3. The Simpplr App retrieves the access token for the logged in user from Hashicorp vault application.
4. The Simpplr App  prepares the create request using incident info, file metadata, currently logged in user’s access token and the ServiceNow instance URLand posts the same to ServiceNow API endpoint.
5. ServiceNow API passes the response back to the Simpplr App.
6. The Simpplr App code processes the response received from ServiceNow converting it into the format that UI can render and sends it back to the browser.
7. For new incident creation, there is an additional connection between the user's browser and ServiceNow, where the users can upload files directly to ServiceNow from the browser. Once files are uploaded, ServiceNow endpoints return file metadata to the browser, which along with other incident information, posts this to the Simpplr App.