Working with automation in Creator Studio

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 5 minutes to read
    • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Working with automation in Creator Studio

    Automation in Creator Studio helps ServiceNow customers simplify and streamline task fulfillment by using playbooks—automated workflows that guide agents and fulfillers through processes from start to finish. Playbooks create consistent processes, consolidate business decisions, and improve customer experience by automating task assignments and approvals based on triggers such as record status changes.

    Show full answer Show less

    Before building automation, ensure your app's forms are completed since playbooks are based on these forms. Multiple playbooks can be added to an app to handle different workflows.

    Key Features

    • Playbooks: Ordered sets of activities triggered by specific events (triggers) like form submissions or status updates.
    • Activities: Automated steps within a playbook, such as assigning tasks, requesting approvals, sending emails, or creating new tasks. Custom activities can be created by admins.
    • Decisions and Branches: Conditional logic that creates different workflow paths based on outcomes, enabling dynamic task handling.
    • Parallel Processes: Activities or stages that run simultaneously within a workflow.
    • Connectors: Tools to link activities and decisions, allowing flexible workflow design.
    • Board and Diagram Views: Two interfaces for managing playbooks—Diagram view for visualizing and editing workflow order and decisions, Board view for rearranging activities and editing details.

    Practical Use and Workflow

    Playbooks run within the ServiceNow AI Platform's Request App Workspace, guiding users through tasks in the Catalog tasks tab of each record. The typical workflow for building automation includes:

    • Adding an automated playbook triggered by record creation or updates.
    • Adding or copying playbooks to reuse existing workflows.
    • Incorporating activities to define specific automated steps within the playbook.
    • Adding decisions to branch workflows based on conditions.
    • Creating parallel processes to handle multiple activities simultaneously.
    • Editing triggers to control when playbooks start.
    • Activating playbooks to enable automation on non-production instances before deploying apps to production.
    • Deleting playbooks when they are no longer needed.

    Why It Matters

    Using automation with playbooks removes manual steps, reduces errors, and ensures that tasks are assigned and processed consistently according to business rules. This helps your fulfillers focus on their core responsibilities and improves overall operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

    Additional Notes

    • Creator Studio does not support optional activities directly; optional steps require using placeholders or Workflow Studio for complex configurations.
    • Admins can customize activities and control visibility of standard activities, tailoring automation to your organization's needs.

    How do you simplify and streamline tasks for fulfillers? Use automation! For example, you can have a task assigned automatically to someone based on what type of request it is. We’ll use playbooks to accomplish adding this automation to your app.

    Summary:
    After reading this section, you'll understand how to use automation to do the following things:
    • Use playbooks to guide agents and fulfillers through processes from start to finish, improving the customer experience and the way tasks are carried out.
    • Create a consistent process for your tasks or activities to be carried out.
    • Consolidate business decisions and processes across the organization.
    Note:
    Because playbooks are based on forms, you should finish building out your app's forms before you start working on automation.

    Playbooks are a set of activities that occur in order based on a trigger. Each activity is more like a step in a chain of steps. You can add multiple playbooks to an app if you need to.

    Key terms:
    Activity
    Activities in a playbook complete automated tasks, such as obtaining approvals, assigning records, and sending email.
    Automation
    Tasks or requests moving through a workflow without manual intervention.
    Playbook
    A set of actions based on an initiating action called a trigger.
    Record
    A task or request that must be acted on. All rows in ServiceNow tables are individual records. Records have different states depending on what actions have been taken.
    Trigger
    The event that starts making the playbook run.
    Workflow
    The path a record takes from creation to completion.

    What is automation?

    Automation in Creator Studio enables you to create simplified playbooks, which are basic, automatic workflows. Simple playbooks consist of a trigger (such as a record changing states, or a user choosing a specific answer for a question) and an activity (such as the record being assigned to a new person). Playbooks enable you to add the following:
    • Activities to your automation to define the workflow’s path.
    • Decisions to create different paths, or branches, depending on the decision's outcome.
    • Custom activities defined by your admin or ServiceNow AI Platform owner.
    Playbooks take the guess work out of assigning tasks and help users focus on the tasks and information that matter to their job. A well-designed playbook can do these things:
    • Automatically start or trigger changes for different types of records, such as task assignments.
    • Reuse activities and business decisions from other workflows you’ve already created.
    • Clearly show the next steps that fulfillers must take to move to the next step of completing the record’s life cycle.
    There are several types of activities that you can add to playbooks that, when paired with decisions, remove the manual thinking behind what to do next when addressing tasks. Depending on your configuration, some of the activities you can add include:
    • Request approval for a task
    • Assign the task to someone
    • Create a new task as a next step
    • Send an email
    • Choose a custom action configured by your admin
    Note:
    In addition to creating custom activities, your admin can also hide standard activities, so you may not see all of the above options.

    You can also use a placeholder activity for more complex activities that must be configured outside of Creator Studio, or for another activity to be swapped in later. Complex activities are configured in a different tool called Workflow Studio.

    What goes into building automation?

    Automations in Creator Studio include the following parts.
    Table 1. Automation parts
    Concept Description
    Playbook An automatic workflow that guides users through tasks based on the record's status changes. Find out more about creating playbooks in Add an automated playbook to an app in Creator Studio.
    Trigger The event that specifies when the playbook should start running, such as when a form is submitted or updated to a specific status. Check out Edit the trigger for a playbook in Creator Studio for more information.
    Activity The thing that happens during the playbook, such as assigning a task or requiring approval.
    Note:
    If you're already familiar with optional activities in playbooks, that’s great! However, to keep automations streamlined and simple, Creator Studio doesn't support optional activities. If you must create optional activities, you can add a placeholder activity in Creator Studio and then edit the placeholder in Workflow Studio or swap it out for another activity later in Creator Studio.

    Additionally, admins can create custom activities for you to include in a playbook.

    Learn how to add activities in Add activities to an app's playbook in Creator Studio.
    Decision A series of inputs, conditions, and results that create different branches, or conditional paths that users follow based on the decision's outcome. Get the scoop on adding decisions in Add a decision to an app's playbook in Creator Studio.
    Branch A distinct path from a decision's outcome, or what happens for each of the decision's possible choices. For more information, see Add a decision to an app's playbook in Creator Studio.
    Parallel process Branches for activities and stages that run in parallel to another branch of activities. Learn about parallel processes in Add a parallel process to an app's playbook in Creator Studio.
    Connectors Lines that connect activities and decisions in a playbook that enable you to add more activities, decisions, and parallel processes. You can drag connectors between activities to create parallel activities.

    Board and Diagram views of a playbook

    Creator Studio offers two ways of working with playbooks: the Board view and the Diagram view.

    The Diagram view is a visually intuitive diagram that shows you the order that activities occur in the playbook. When you select an activity, such as the trigger or a decision, a modal pops up where you can edit its details. You must use the Diagram view to add decisions.
    Figure 1. Diagram view of the playbook
    A playbook in Creator Studio in Diagram view
    The Board view is a more traditional layout, which shows each activity as a card in the navigation panel. When you select an activity, for example a task, its editable details appear in the canvas for you to work with them. You must use the Board view to rearrange activities.
    Figure 2. Board view of the playbook
    A playbook in Creator Studio in Board view

    This help document will primarily give instructions using the Diagram view, with alternate directions on how to complete automation tasks in the Board view.

    Where do playbooks run in the ServiceNow AI Platform?

    Users work on requests in the Request App Workspace on the ServiceNow AI Platform, which lists a record for each request. The playbooks run on the specified records in the app's workspace category.

    Specifically, the Catalog tasks tab of the record details walks users through the activities they must do to complete the task and close the record.