ServiceNow and MS Office 365 integration

ServiceNow is an increasingly popular employee service platform that helps drive HR and IT self-service through automation and content. As a core part of the digital workplace, many organisations want to integrate ServiceNow into their core Microsoft 365 experience in order to deliver a more unified digital employee experience, as well as to deliver automation and workflow across different platforms. Although ServiceNow is not produced by Microsoft, there are multiple ways to integrate it into a 365-powered digital workplace. In this post, we’re going to explore some of the different options.

What is ServiceNow?

ServiceNow is a platform that many organisations are using as an employee service portal, delivering IT and HR support as well as other employee services. ServiceNow acts as a place for users to:

• Access a knowledge base of authoritative, service-related content
• Raise tickets with the helpdesk and view progress
• Ask questions and get answers
• Make requests and trigger appropriate workflows
• Access a chatbot and live chat
• View other service-orientated communications and updates.

ServiceNow is one of the most popular non-Microsoft platforms being used by larger enterprises today. When introduced successfully, it can significantly relieve the pressure on busy HR and IT helpdesks, help employees resolve issues more quickly through a self-serve approach and streamline support processes.

One of the best things about ServiceNow is that it allows teams to present content in a user-centred way more akin to an intranet experience through creating pages and defining a global navigation, for example. In some service-orientated portals and HR platforms, content publishing capabilities are an afterthought, but in ServiceNow, content can be presented in high-quality ways to drive effective self-service.

Integrating ServiceNow with Microsoft 365

Because ServiceNow is often used as the one source of truth for service-oriented content either for HR or IT support, or both – it needs to be easily accessible for employees. Integrating ServiceNow with Microsoft 365 has real value, helping to create a seamless experience that is more efficient and drives a less fragmented digital employee experience. It also helps to drive adoption of ServiceNow, and encourages the employee self-service that is often the ROI sought when acquiring the platform.

When we consider integration, it is usually about surfacing ServiceNow content and providing routes to ServiceNow across key Microsoft 365 channels such as a SharePoint intranet, Microsoft Teams or a user support Yammer community. However, it’s also possible that you may want to access elements of Microsoft 365 within ServiceNow too, even if this just entails introducing links to take you back to your SharePoint intranet.

It’s also worth noting that ServiceNow and Microsoft 365 have some overlapping features; it’s quite likely that a digital workplace team may not be using all the capabilities within ServiceNow because they are already using Microsoft 365.

Connectors

Microsoft 365 and the individual tools within the platform support out-of-the-box integrations with an ever-increasing number of other digital workplace platforms. Because ServiceNow is now a popular enterprise application, there are connectors which appear in different 365 stores and connector libraries, such as:

• Integrations with the Microsoft Graph to allow knowledge base items to appear in Microsoft Search
• Microsoft Teams that allows ServiceNow tasks to be carried out
• The Power Automate platform with a range of different flows.

On the other hand, there are also connectors to Microsoft 365 within ServiceNow, with further work on these in the pipeline.

These connectors mean that integrations are much more straightforward than they used to be, and are now geared towards the most popular use cases such as searching for ServiceNow content. Of course, the ability to use APIs to establish custom integrations is available as well.

Seven high value integrations with ServiceNow

There are several different popular integrations and links between ServiceNow and Microsoft 365 that deliver value. Let’s explore seven of these in more depth.

1 Single sign-on and Azure AD integration

Without doubt the most important integration that you can carry out with ServiceNow is with Azure Active Directory. This will enable single sign-on for your users, as well as automate the starters and leavers process governing access to ServiceNow. You can also leverage different AD groups to target ServiceNow content and establish workflows, such as for new hires.

2 Add favourite links

Most SharePoint intranets allow employees to access favourite links to popular tools, usually from within the homepage but also from a toolbar. For example, in the LiveTiles intranet product, the LiveTiles Everywhere toolbar allows employees to access key links to other platforms and tools. ServiceNow is a core system that employees use on a daily basis, so including a link to it by default on your intranet increases convenience and supports adoption efforts.

3 Search for knowledge base content in the intranet search

ServiceNow provides authoritative content on IT and HR services and processes through its knowledge base capabilities. Often, employees want to be able to access this know-how content within the intranet experience, and it make sense to be able to search for this content within the intranet or Microsoft search. Here, integration delivers a lot of value, so employees have just one search box and place to go to find the HR or IT content they are looking for with no duplication of content between systems.

4 Use the global navigation to navigate between channels

Increasingly, digital workplace teams are looking to provide a global navigation that spans across different digital workplace tools, establishing a way for employees to travel between platforms and applications in as frictionless a way as possible. Here, the global navigation of an intranet can support deeper links into different screens within ServiceNow, but can also work the other way round with links back to the intranet within the ServiceNow navigation. The LiveTiles Everywhere toolbar can potentially be accessed across different tools too.

5 View tickets in progress and submit tickets

A high value integration provides employees with the ability to view the status and information about ServiceNow tickets-in-progress and let them know if action is required. It can also be useful to have a call-to-action to submit a new ticket within ServiceNow, sometimes without having to even leave the system (such as a SharePoint intranet) that the person is in. For example, in our recent work for Entain Group, we delivered an integration with ServiceNow through the LiveTiles Everywhere toolbar that means employees can view the status of their ServiceNow tickets and receive related alerts within their core intranet experience. Further integrations with Workday mean that the toolbar is an essential part of the digital employee experience at Entain.

6 Support workflows and automation

ServiceNow supports automation and workflows related to employee services, and it makes sense to link these up with other workflows across Microsoft 365 tools. For example, you could update a SharePoint list, send out a specific type email via Outlook or add a piece of information to Microsoft Dyanmics based on an action within ServiceNow. Here, you can use Power Automate to link up workflows with ServiceNow. Other areas of the Power Platform, including PowerApps and Power Virtual Agents, can also involve integration with ServiceNow.

7 Interact through chatbots

ServiceNow comes with its own intelligent chatbot, but employees can find it hugely convenient to interact with bots outside ServiceNow, helping them perform simple tasks such as submitting a ticket in ServiceNow or searching the knowledge base. This has real value in Microsoft Teams where employees can perform actions without having to enter ServiceNow, bringing employee self-service right into the heart of the daily flow of work.

Want to know more? Get in touch!

Integrating ServiceNow into your core Microsoft 365 digital workplace has real value for employees and support functions. If you’d like to discuss integrating ServiceNow and Microsoft 365, then get in touch!