Flow Designer benefits

Flow Designer integrations

Expand the capabilities of Flow Designer with additional subscriptions and spokes.

Flow Designer components

Flow Designer consists of the following components:

Flows

A flow is an automated process consisting of a trigger and a sequence of reusable actions. The trigger specifies when to run the flow. The actions perform a sequence of operations on your data. For example, the VTB Sample Flow creates and assigns a VTB card whenever a priority 1 incident is created. Building and managing flows requires that you have some familiarity with the ServiceNow AI Platform tables and fields that the application or process uses. Process analysts can create flows using available actions or copy an existing flow to use it as a template. See Building flows.

Flow execution details

A flow execution details page allows a flow author to view run-time information about an action or flow directly from the design environment. You can view details such as the current state, actions or steps run, output values generated, and errors produced. See Flow execution details.

Flow error handler

A flow error handler enables a flow to catch and report errors from the flow execution details. Run a sequence of actions and subflows to identify and correct issues. For example, have flows log output values, send notifications, and run corrective subflows when they produce an error. See Flow error handler.

Subflows

A subflow is an automated process consisting of a sequence of reusable actions, data inputs, and outputs. In contrast to flows, subflows do not have a trigger but instead run when called from a flow, from another subflow, or from a script. Building and managing subflows requires that you have some familiarity with the ServiceNow AI Platform tables and fields that the application or process uses. Process analysts can create subflows using available actions or use an existing subflow as a template. See Building subflows.

Actions

An action is a reusable operation that enables process analysts to automate ServiceNow AI Platform features without having to write code. For example, the Create Record action allows process analysts to generate records in a particular table with particular values when certain conditions occur. ServiceNow core actions like Create Record require some familiarity with ServiceNow AI Platform tables and fields. Action designers can create application-specific actions to pre-set configuration details. For example, creating a Create Incident Task action ensures that the process analyst uses the correct table and field configuration each time the action is used. You can add application-specific actions by activating the associated spoke. See Flow Designer actions.

Spokes

A spoke is a scoped application containing Flow Designer actions and subflows for managing specific tables. For example, the ITSM Spoke contains actions for managing Incident and Problem records. You can activate additional spokes from the ServiceNow Store or activating the appropriate plugin. Building your own spoke requires familiarity with application development on the ServiceNow AI Platform. For a list of available spokes, see Spokes.

Steps

A step is a single reusable operation within an action. For example, the Create Record step allows action designers to specify the table and field values to use during record creation. Step configuration requires subject matter expertise with application tables, fields, and business logic. Application developers or IT generalists add steps to actions from the Action Designer design environment. Flow Designer provides a set of ServiceNow core steps to automate ServiceNow AI Platform processes. You can add application-specific steps by activating the associated spoke. See Flow Designer steps.

Flow Designer environment

The Flow Designer environment consists of the following interfaces:

Flow Designer landing page

Access or create actions, flows, subflows, or their execution details.

Flow Designer design environment

Create and edit flows by defining a trigger and adding actions. Test flows to see if they complete successfully and to review the runtime values they generate. Activate flows to make them available for execution on your instance and to preserve their current actions, inputs, and sequence as a snapshot separate from further configuration changes.

Action Designer design environment

Create and edit actions by defining inputs and adding action steps. Test actions to verify if they complete successfully and review the runtime values they generate. Copy actions to use existing actions as templates. Publish actions to activate them, which makes them available to activated flows and to preserve their current action steps, variables, and sequence as a snapshot separate from further configuration changes.

Flow and action execution details

View run-time information about an action or flow directly from the design environment, such as the current state, items run, and values produced. Open related records from embedded ServiceNow AI Platform editors or in a new tab.

Process automation

While learning Flow Designer, make sure that you understand how existing ServiceNow AI Platform automation processes work. Avoid creating conflicting or duplicate business logic. If you're replacing an existing automation process, deactivate it before replacing it with Flow Designer flows and actions. See the Architecture Overview to understand how Flow Designer works within the ServiceNow AI Platform.