Escalation With ServiceNow

3 minute read

An escalation workflow integrated with ServiceNow using SonataFlow.

Workflow diagram

Escalation with serviceNow workflow diagram

Prerequisite

An available ServiceNow instance with admin credentials.
Prerequisite data being available on ServiceNow instance with setup instructions found here
Janus-idp notifications service is deployed and functionally running with instructions found here.

Specifics about Notifications service

Add the manager user in notifications-backend/users.yaml and your file could look something like this

apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1
kind: User
metadata:
  name: guest
spec:
  profile:
    displayName: Guest User
  memberOf: []
---
apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1
kind: User
metadata:
  name: manager
spec:
  profile:
    displayName: Manager Approver User
  memberOf: []

Restart the notifications service

yarn start:backstage

Be sure the create notification call from the command line works successfully.

curl -X POST http://localhost:7007/api/notifications/notifications -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"title": "My message title", "message": "I have nothing to say", "origin": "my-origin", "targetUsers": ["default/manager"]}' | jq '.'

An example response could look like this

{
    "messageId": "942b0aa0-79d4-46a7-a973-47573fa19543"
}

Workflow application configuration

Application properties can be initialized from environment variables before running the application:

Environment variable	Description	Mandatory
`SN_SERVER`	The ServiceNow server URL	✅
`SERVICENOW_USERNAME`	The ServiceNow server username	✅
`SERVICENOW_PASSWORD`	The ServiceNow server password	✅

How to run

Start the workflow application

mvn clean quarkus:dev

Trigger/start the workflow

Example of POST to trigger the flow (see input schema in servicenow-escalation-schema.json):

# This is a request sent to the workflow instance
CREATE_CR_RESP=$(curl -XPOST -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:8080/servicenow-escalation -d '{
    "description": "<ServiceNow change request description>",
    "short_description": "<ServiceNow change request short_description>",
    "comments": "<ServiceNow change request comments>",
    "state": "new",
    "assigned_to": "<ServiceNow Approver user sys_id> e.g. 950597b6973002102425b39fe153af41",
    "additional_assignee_list": "<ServiceNow Approver user sys_id> e.g. 950597b6973002102425b39fe153af41",
    "assignment_group": "<ServiceNow Approver group sys_id> e.g. e50597b6973002102425b39fe153afb2",
    "sn_url": "https://<ServiceNow URL>"
}');
echo $CREATE_CR_RESP |  jq '.';

You should see a response similar to the following, which provides newly create change request information.

{
  "id": "99203918-3e8c-46a6-ba43-9a025172f8c2",
  "workflowdata": {
    "description": "Requester requesting an item",
    "short_description": "Requester requesting an item in short",
    "comments": "Requester requesting an item in comments",
    "state": "new",
    "assigned_to": "950597b6973002102425b39fe153af41",
    "additional_assignee_list": "950597b6973002102425b39fe153af41",
    "assignment_group": "e50597b6973002102425b39fe153afb2",
    "createdChangeRequest": {
      "result": {
        "sys_id": "6dfa4ff7973002102425b39fe153afed",
        "state": "-5",
        "number": "CHG0030045"
      }
    }
  }
}

From the response above extract the sys_id of the newly created change request.

CREATED_CR_SYS_ID=$( jq -r  '.workflowdata.createdChangeRequest.result.sys_id' <<< "${CREATE_CR_RESP}" );
echo "${CREATED_CR_SYS_ID}";

Trigger the newly created change request for approval by changing its state to assessment state.

TRIGGER_CR_CMD="curl --location --request PUT 'https://dev143716.service-now.com/api/now/table/change_request/${CREATED_CR_SYS_ID}' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Basic <your auth header value>' \
--data '{
    \"state\": \"-4\",
    \"approval\": \"requested\"
}'";

eval $TRIGGER_CR_CMD | jq '.';

Wait for a minute or two before proceeding to the next step, to view notifications created by the workflow, to remind the approver to approve the created change request.
- In the current implementation this reminder is generated every 30s by the workflow.
After this wait, login to notifications service’s postgres database console.
You will see reminder notification(s) created by Notifications service as shown in the following example.

                  id                  |                               message                               
--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------
 8a3c945d-9009-4188-a28e-17ceee853a99 | Manager, please approve the change request: CHG0030045

End the workflow by approving the change request

Login to the ServiceNow instance UI with manager user and credentials.
Click All -> My Approvals menu item, in the resulting list, click the change request that was created.
In the change request detail screen, set the State to Approved and click Update.
As the change request is approved, you will see a thank you notification created by Notifications service as shown in the following example. Note: this may appear after a few seconds, as the workflow needs to wait for completion of the timeout event of 30s, before this notification is created.

                  id                  |                               message                               
--------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------
 3e9cd0a6-c4c8-4ea1-973a-dbb063279397 | Manager, thanks a ton for approving the change request: CHG0030045

Tips:

Visit Workflow Instances
Visit (Data Index Query Service)[http://localhost:8080/q/graphql-ui/]

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Last modified March 28, 2024: Restructure menus and content (e4a92e7)