ServiceNow focuses on iPaaS through IntegrationHub and Flow Designer-blog

The ServiceNow platform is expanding every year, and the company’s focus is expanding. In ServiceNow’s virtual event Knowledge 2020, we noticed that IntegrationHub and Flow Designer have received great attention. ServiceNow hopes to use these two products to conquer the iPaaS market.

The integrated platform market is growing rapidly. More and more companies are choosing multi-cloud and multi-vendor solutions instead of a system of record. This provides the best application experience for the company, but it also brings different data islands. To avoid this, all these solutions must work together and be integrated so that data can be exchanged. Most importantly, this should ensure the best user experience in various applications and provide more intelligence by integrating all the data together. ServiceNow responded to this through IntegrationHub and Flow Designer. It immediately became a participant in the so-called iPaaS market.

ServiceNow platform makes iPaaS work

ServiceNow is an expert in automating and making IT service management, IT operation management and IT business management more efficient. One of the ways ServiceNow does this is by creating workflows that automate things and free tasks from you. With the latest version of IntegrationHub and Flow Designer, ServiceNow really hopes to position itself as a mature integration platform or iPaaS solution. Companies such as Boomi and MuleSoft have been warned.

With its IntegrationHub and Flow Designer, ServiceNow no longer wants to be limited to integrating ServiceNow solutions and creations with third parties, but really hopes to connect independent third-party applications through the Now platform to compete with large iPaaS participants. . Starting from ServiceNow’s no-code and low-code mindset, the goal is to allow each business user to establish integration (branch) between different solutions so that they can optimize their tasks.

Citizen Developer of ServiceNow

If we use the ServiceNow demo as the basis, then we will understand the idea of ​​ServiceNow. It is very easy to build a workflow using Flow Designer that links certain services together. Through some simple training and demonstrations, your business users, the so-called citizen developers, can learn how to build workflows. The IT department will have to prepare certain things, such as accessing APIs for certain services. In an enterprise organization, not everyone can access this level, which violates compliance rules. This can still be organized and is equally applicable to other iPaaS solutions.

IntegrationHub is the standard configuration of the store, which already includes many integrations with well-known services. ServiceNow calls it a spoke. For example, Spoke is an integration with Salesforce, SAP or Workday. As a citizen developer, you don’t have to describe the API yourself, but you can link directly to the API and you will see the available fields.

If there is no spoke for a specific service, one must be created. This is more challenging and not feasible for every citizen developer, although it can of course be done with the right training. ServiceNow can build branches (integrations) by itself, which is good. ServiceNow also insists on adding spokes to the store after construction so that other customers can take advantage of it.

Low code no code

If you, as a company, want to integrate with the ServiceNow platform, you can do it through low-code and no-code methods. It depends on whether IntegrationHub already has a spokesperson for the service to be integrated with. If spokes are available, you can use Flow Designer without code through some drag and drop operations to build a complete integrated workflow. However, if it turns out that you have not spoken yet, you must define it yourself. Then, you end up with low code, you have to write a few lines of Javascript to capture and define the values ​​in ServiceNow IntegrationHub. This is not very difficult, but for a citizen developer, this may be a step too far. As mentioned earlier, some training can be done.

We believe that ServiceNow can take more steps through machine learning to make it easier in the next version. Ultimately, it should be possible to automatically build many integrations by scanning documents or using the technical specifications of the API​​.

Focus on more integration

At present, ServiceNow has dozens of integrations, which can provide out-of-the-box functions and some third-party speakers. There are a total of 75 spokes, and few really compete with the iPaaS platform with thousands of integrations. However, during Knowledge 2020, the focus was clearly placed on IntegrationHub. Now, this seems to be receiving more attention, and the development of new spokes will undoubtedly gain momentum.

Customers can also use Flow Designer to create spokes themselves, which can also facilitate more integration. Although there will be some customers who think this is the responsibility of ServiceNow. In the end, ServiceNow is best to use machine learning to scan the APIs and API documents of many well-known services themselves so that branches can be added automatically. For example, Mendix also uses this method to integrate with third parties. This allows the company to greatly lower the threshold and make it more widely available to citizen developers.

The main advantage is a platform and lower cost

If your company is looking for an integrated platform, then Boomi or Mulesoft will be more able to convince you than ServiceNow. If ServiceNow wants to change it, it still has a lot to do. For completely different reasons, companies that have become ServiceNow customers can benefit from IntegrationHub and Flow Designer. If the company uses ServiceNow instead of a third-party solution, it can save a lot of costs. Participants who have not yet begun to build integration can do well on the ServiceNow platform.

If the number of integrations can still be managed, the ServiceNow platform is fine. We hope that you as a company can grow with IntegrationHub in the ServiceHow platform. ServiceNow is now preparing for the iPaaS market, and it will require investment in the next few years to continue.

Universal workflow platform

As mentioned earlier, the integrated platform market is growing rapidly. Therefore, we think it is wise for ServiceNow to focus on this. What they call a “platform or platform” can play an important role in it. Of course, because ServiceNow has provided many (internal) workflows for many companies. It is still clear if you can also add integration between all the different services.

However, the iPaaS market is also highly competitive. We believe that the foundation is now the foundation of IntegrationHub. ServiceNow will now have to continue and invest in IntegrationHub and Flow Designer in order to greatly increase the number of branches (integrations). Ultimately, it must compete with market competitors specializing in this field and take the lead. It just needs more integration. Due to the high demand, there is also motivation now. For ServiceNow, it is very important to maintain its position as a platform in the next few years.