Set Up ServiceNow® Extension

Learn how to set up, load data, and configure concepts for the ServiceNow® Extension.

Introduction

In this quick set up guide, you will learn how to seamlessly integrate your ServiceNow data into the Visier platform. By following this guide, you'll learn how to set up, create, and run the tasks needed to extract the data from your source system. After loading data, you'll configure concepts to connect your data values to Visier's analytic model.

Objectives

First, you need to get the extension added to your tenant. Then, we will take you through setting up a data connector. After the data connector is created, we will show you how to schedule and monitor a data load by running a quick extraction job to generate a data version. Once the new data version is generated, you will configure selection concepts. Then, you can preview the solution to start analyzing the content. From there, you can start creating your own unique analyses, concepts, metrics, and more.

By the end of this tutorial, you will have successfully set up the extension to use in the solution.

You will learn how to:

  • Set up a data connector
  • Run a job to generate a data version
  • Configure selection concepts
  • Preview the data in the solution

Prerequisites

  • A Visier account that has the following profiles. If you don't have an account, contact your administrator.

    • Data Engineer

  • A Visier account with a permission that allows the user to access guidebooks, analyses, the Explore room, and data access to view the data you’re loading. For more information, see Permission Management.

    • Ad Hoc Analysis

    • Create Analysis Context

    • Change Analysis Context

    • Guidebook

    • View Details

  • Your connector credentials. Contact your IT department to get your connector credentials. When you set up the data connector in Studio, you need to provide the following credentials to Visier so that we can retrieve data from your source system. To get the credentials, you need to create an integration user in ServiceNow. For more information, see ServiceNow®.

    Credential

    Description

    Example

    Domain name

    The URL of the ServiceNow instance that was used to create the client application.

    https://dev212754.service-now.com

    Client ID

    The unique identifier of the client application you created.

    alphanumeric string

    Client secret

    The client secret of the client application you created.

    alphanumeric string

    Username

    The integration user's username.

    integration.user@company.com

    Password

    The integration user's password.

    Password1234

Steps

Add the ServiceNow Extension module

Visier Extensions are included with your purchase of Visier People Extend. If you are interested, file a support ticket with Visier Technical Support to add the appropriate Visier Extension module to your tenant. For more information, see How to Submit a Case to Technical Support.

Set up data connector

  1. In a project, on the navigation bar, click Data > Connectors.
  2. Click Create Connectors.
  3. Select a credential from the list or create a new one. To create a new credential, do the following:
    1. In Select or add credential, click Add new.
    2. Select ServiceNow and click Next.
    3. In Authenticate ServiceNow, set the Domain type to ServiceNow.
    4. Enter your connector credentials and click Next. After you create the connector credential, a pop-up may appear from ServiceNow. Enter the credentials for the integration user, and then click Allow to connect the ServiceNow account.

      Result: The credentials are saved and ready to use. To finish the workflow, move on to steps 4 and 5.

  4. In Add Basic Information, type a display name and description for the connector.
  5. Click Create.

Run a quick onboarding extraction job

Quick onboarding automatically includes tables that are recommended for a selected topic. As part of this workflow, all the necessary data loading and data processing objects, such as data categories, sources, and mappings will be created. Then an extraction job will run to retrieve data through the connector.

  1. In the connector, click Quick onboarding.
  2. In the Quick onboarding dialog, do the following:
    1. In Data topic, select ServiceNow Extension.
    2. In Data history, select Past 6 months. You can adjust the data history when needed.
  3. When finished, click Next.
  4. In the next page, click Run to start the extraction job. You can also click Back to change the job configuration before running the job.
  5. Review the progress of quick onboarding. Once complete, click Go To Jobs.

Monitor data load and generate new data version

  1. In the Jobs room, click the Refresh button to track the status of your data extraction and get the most up-to-date load information. If successful, the data load job generates a new data version. Take note of the data version number.
  2. On the navigation bar, click Data > Data Categories.
  3. Confirm that the same data version shows under the ServiceNow Extension data category. If the data version is different, see Set the Data Version.

Configure selection concepts

  1. On the navigation bar, click Model > Concepts.
  2. Search for the following selection concepts:
    • Customer Support Agent
    • Closed Support Case
    • Escalated Support Case
  3. For each concept, navigate to the Configure tab.
  4. In the list of data members, select the values that are relevant to the selection concept. For example, for the Customer Support Agent selection concept, you may select job names such as Customer Support Representative and Customer Support Coordinator.

Preview your project

  • On the navigation bar, click Preview Solution.

    Result: The preview of the solution will open in a new tab.

Next steps

You've successfully set up the ServiceNow Extension! This tutorial walked you through how to set up, create, and run the tasks needed to extract the data from your source system. You also configured concepts to select the relevant data values.

Now, you can preview the solution to start analyzing the content. Check out the following analyses in the Visier Extensions Guidebook > ServiceNow® Extension topic:

  • What is the state of the support case backlog?: Review how much work is in the support case backlog.
  • Learn About Support Case Metrics: Learn about the different types of support case metrics available in the ServiceNow® Extension.
  • Support Case - Validation: Validate the support cases that support agents are working on.

From here, you can start creating your own unique analyses, concepts, metrics, and more. If you want to learn about the design decisions behind the ServiceNow Extension, see How We Designed the ServiceNow® Extension.

Optional: Validate mappings

You can validate the mappings generated by the connector by doing the following:

  • In a project, on the navigation bar, click Data > Mappings.

If you notice that some objects are unmapped, you may not have data for that column, or you may have a custom column that needs to be mapped. You can download the ServiceNow® Extension data dictionary to see the required, recommended, and optional fields for data loading.

For more information on the Mappings room, see Mappings.

Publish the project

At this point, you might choose to publish your project so that the changes are available in production. For more information, see Publish Project Changes. If you choose not to publish, only you and anyone with access to the project can see your changes.