Orchestration activity designer
Summarize
Summary of Orchestration Activity Designer
The Orchestration Activity Designer allows users with theworkflowadmin,activitycreator, orworkflowcreatorroles to create reusable activities tailored to their organization’s needs. Access to this feature requires activation of ServiceNow Orchestration.
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Key Features
- Reuse custom activities across multiple workflows.
- Upload and download custom activities from the ServiceNow Store.
- Parse data from standard input formats.
- Test input variables against target hosts and inspect payloads.
- Automatically map values from test payloads to output variables.
- Share data among activities and view previous versions of activities.
- Utilize pre-defined activities grouped into packs for specific business needs (e.g., Active Directory, Azure AD).
- Create custom activities using specified templates, known as activity elements, which minimize coding needs.
Key Outcomes
By leveraging the Orchestration Activity Designer, customers can optimize their workflows through better data flow management, reduced complexity, and improved code reuse. Custom activities can be published and shared with others, enabling collaboration and efficiency within the organization. The introduction of activity elements enhances operational effectiveness while limiting dependencies on traditional core activities.
The Orchestration activity designer enables a user with either the workflow_admin or activity_creator and workflow_creator roles to construct reusable activities that suit an organization's business needs.
Activities created by the activity designer offer the following advantages over core activities offered in previous releases:
- Reuse custom activities in multiple workflows.
- Upload and download custom activities from the ServiceNow Store.
- Parse data from standard input formats.
- Test input variables against a target host or endpoint and inspect the payload.
- Automatically map values from a test payload to an activity's output variables.
- Share data between activities.
- View previous versions of an activity.
Access to the activity designer requires activation of ServiceNow Orchestration. For instructions about managing transitions and conditions for all activities, see Workflow activities.
Orchestration provides numerous pre-defined activities, which are reusable components that can be used in numerous workflows without having to understand the complexities of the underlying system. These activities are grouped into activity packs, which address specific business needs, such as: Active Directory, Azure AD, Exchange, Infoblox DDI, and PowerShell. There are other ServiceNow applications which provide and maintain their own separate activity packs, such as Security Incident Response, Cloud Management, or Release Automation.
Customers can also build their own activities and activity packs. You can construct custom activities with a specified template through the Orchestration Activity Designer. Custom-built activities built with the Activity Designer are referred to as activity elements. Activity elements provide optimal operations, enable code reuse, and minimize the need to write code. They also enable you to follow the flow of data within a given workflow across orchestration activities. Incorporating activity elements limits the dependency on the scratchpad which reduces problems in complex workflows. Limit the use of core activities, like ‘Run Script’, unless you need direct access the scratchpad, for example, for a counter. Activity elements do not have direct access to the scratchpad. You can, however, pass scratchpad variables as inputs into your activities.
- Can be uploaded and shared in the ServiceNow App Store
- Use the databus, which allows the activity to have well-defined inputs and outputs
- Share data across activities within a workflow
- Use versioning
- Provide a consistent approach for activity development regardless protocol
For instructions on using activities to construct a workflow, see Add an activity to a workflow.