Top 5 Best Practices for ServiceNow Integration Implementation

An understanding of the best practices for ServiceNow integration implementation helps organizations avoid technical debt, by getting the implementation right the first time.

The Value of ServiceNow Integrations

Organizations using ServiceNow typically use multiple other tools and applications to support IT service management (ITSM).

ServiceNow integrations can:

1. connect ServiceNow to external databases – so that ServiceNow data can be combined with other sources and/or fed into other solutions
2. synchronize multiple ServiceNow instances
3. synchronize ServiceNow with third-party solutions such as AWS, BMC Remedy and Zendesk.

For data-driven organizations, ServiceNow integrations are crucial as they help connect otherwise disparate teams, services, and applications to improve data availability, support data democracy and ensure top-quality and consistent service delivery. 

Well-planned ServiceNow integrations promote automated inter-application workflows, providing users with a streamlined means of automating tasks between applications.

As well as aligning disjointed tech stacks, this helps eliminate the need for manual data entry while facilitating real-time, dynamic updates across applications. 

All of these benefits work in tandem to provide with a single and consistent source of truth and unified ITSM ecosystem.

Things to Keep in Mind While Planning a ServiceNow Integration

For data-driven organizations, getting the right data to the right people, at the right time is fundamental to service delivery. 

Organizations that undergo an integration project typically do so to address issues such as data availability and quality.

Gaps in the data pipeline delay tasks such as reporting, case handling and resolution, and can lead an organization to making decisions on incomplete and/or inaccurate information.

Such issues negatively impact the quality of an organization’s operations and services, making time-to-value – among other factors – critical when implementing a new integration.

Types of ServiceNow Integration

There are various types of integration available for ServiceNow users, including:

• manual “swivel-chair” integrations – where employees of an organization manually extract from one system and copy it into another
• custom-built/DIY integrations – where an organization builds a new integration from scratch, without pre-packaged solutions
• Integration-Platforms-as-a-Service – pre-packaged solutions, typically implemented and maintained using internal resources
• Integrations-as-a-Service – integrations delivered, maintained and supported by a fully-managed service, by integration experts

Choosing the right implementation approach makes all the difference. 

For data-driven organizations in general, rapid implementation and time-to-value helps organizations get technical debt under control quickly, preventing tech debt issues from building up. Integrations that scale with usage – even at high data volumes – prevent tech debt issues from resurfacing.

Other requirements for integrations are influenced by the nature of the services offered by an organization and its existing enterprise architecture. 

The Hidden Costs

Many organizations opt for the integration that appears to be the most cost effective. However, with integrations that need to be implemented and maintained in-house, there are a number of hidden costs that are difficult to quantify ahead of time. 

For example, while integration platforms as a service mean organizations do not require internal resources to build, they often require significant resources to maintain, including dedicated teams for support and maintenance.

Additionally, maintenance costs swell if implementing the integration goes poorly, creating a technical debt that must be addressed, and a huge drain on resources.

Top Six Practices to Ensure a Smooth ServiceNow Integration Implementation 

The following best practices for ServiceNow integration implementation encourage smooth and fast implementation:

1. Consider managed services

Today, it makes sense for organizations to outsource integration implementation and maintenance to trusted third parties. For data-driven organizations, integrations are critical to operations, meaning disruption should be avoided where possible. 

They are also resource and time-consuming. Outsourcing to integration providers offering 24×7 support and maintenance services lets organizations benefit from the experience of integration experts. This helps ensure the integration can be delivered efficiently by experts, and frees up internal resources for more proactive tasks.

2. Use a native integration application

Native integration applications benefit an organization and its employees by providing a familiar user-interface to interact with, monitor and manage the integration. For ServiceNow users, native integration applications can leverage ServiceNow’s familiar interface for business-user friendly no-code integrations.

This reduces the learning curve required to make use of the integration and cuts the associated costs, helping organizations enjoy a shorter time-to-value. 

Native integration applications are also less-prone to error. They are built from the ground up to function with their host, requiring less configuration at the implementation stage. 

Some native integration applications also let organizations benefit from “push” technology-based integrations. Unlike API/web-services-based integrations, “Push” integrations do not need to make calls to ServiceNow to retrieve information. 

Instead, transactions are initiated by the central – or host – server, subverting the need to compete for ServiceNow’s operational bandwidth and avoiding the associated performance degradation. This allows organizations to benefit from significantly higher throughput than API/web-services-based integrations. 

3. Take a business goals-oriented approach

Working towards and achieving goals should improve outcomes for the organization.

Simply connecting systems should not be the goal of an integration because simply “connecting systems” does not account for how those systems are connected. 

For example, reporting may be delayed because the integration does not meet the organization’s requirements for throughput. In such a case, integrated data takes too long to transfer from source to target, negatively impacting employees and customers of the organization.

Instead, integration goals should focus on what the integration is intended to achieve, such as improving the employee and customer experience by making data more readily available.

In this example, the team implementing the integration understands the timely availability of data is a requirement. This information should then influence which method of integration the organization opts for.

Lacking a business goals-oriented approach to implementing integrations leads to:

• poor implementation
• failure to meet your organization’s demands
• considerable technical debt

4. Avoid manual intervention

Organizations implement integrations to introduce an efficient and repeatable process for transferring data between systems. 

Any manual intervention undermines this efficiency, as manual data entry is a huge drain on internal resources, and is both time consuming and error-prone. 

With the right automated integration solution, organizations can move and synchronize data between systems in real-time, without manual intervention. 

Organizations working with an integrations-as-a-service provider can further limit the amount of manual work required from employees, by offloading implementation and maintenance work to expert integration service providers. 

6. Understand your organizations requirements

The right integration solution will depend on the organization’s requirements. 

Before choosing an integration solution, organizations should consider the following: 

• The volume of data and the velocity (speed) at which it must be processed (throughput), i.e. real-time data synchronization and replication
• The necessity for integrations supporting bi-directional synchronization between multiple ITSM solutions
• The time-to-value of the shortlisted integration options
• The availability of internal resources to implement, manage and maintain integrations
• The experience and technical skills required of the integrations stakeholders
• The data, fields and tables that need to be integrated
• The events/circumstances that will trigger data extraction, replication and synchronization

Make ServiceNow Integration Implementation a Hassle-free Experience with Perspectium

If you’re looking for an integration solution that encompasses all the industry standard best practices for ServiceNow integration implementation, Perspectium is the right choice. It is a ServiceNow-native integration solution delivered as-a-service, by trusted ServiceNow partners and integration experts. 

Perspectium was created specifically by the founding developer of ServiceNow, David Loo, for integrating ServiceNow to a number of targets seamlessly, without hampering ServiceNow’s performance. Instead of relying on web-services and API calls to ServiceNow to request transactions, Perspectium leverages “Push” technology for massive throughput.

Perspectium’s DataSync simplifies ServiceNow integration by helping you extract large volumes of ServiceNow data in bulk, and replicate it to an external database.

Organizations use DataSync for a range of use cases including data lake building, backup/disaster recovery and feeding ServiceNow data into other systems such as AI, BI and ML solutions. 

Perspectium’s ServiceBond is a ServiceNow ebonding solution that synchronizes ServiceNow with other complementary solutions including other ServiceNow instances, AWS, BMC Remedy, and Jira. 

The SIAM-enabling synchronization allows ServiceNow workflows to extend into other solutions dynamically, increasing the scope for automation between the platforms. 

• Learn more: Enabling SIAM via Integrations

Perspectium solutions are fully-supported, managed, and maintained by Perspectium experts with thorough knowledge of the Now ecosystem. So organizations need not build, implement, or maintain integrations internally.