ServiceNow releases a new version of “Quebec” with new features to make codeless development smoother

On the 12th, ServiceNow Japan GK released the latest version of the cloud platform “Now Platform” “Quebec”. It will be available from the same day.

ServiceNow releases a new version every six months, and each version has its own development goals. According to Takuy​​a Takahashi, general manager of the product marketing department of the ServiceNow Japan marketing department, Quebec’s development goal is to become a “platform supporting 21st century enterprises”, “innovation”, “business agility” and “production capacity”. . “It is said that there are elements that accelerate the three “sexuals.”

Quebec added hundreds of features, but Takahashi first mentioned three features added to the IaaS Now platform itself: AI search, process optimization, and labor optimization.

AI Search is a search function that can be searched in natural language, and it also supports Japanese. In addition, artificial intelligence will automatically analyze the context based on personal characteristics and provide highly relevant search results.

Process optimization helps to optimize the workflow. So far, we have provided workflow optimization tools, but process optimization “visualizes the processes that affect the business, identifies bottlenecks in the process, identifies inefficient jobs and identifies them. I will propose a solution,” Takahashi explained .

Workforce optimization optimizes human resources within the company. “For example, if you manage the staffing of customer service staff in Excel, you may not be able to take good breaks or vacations, or you may not understand why the performance is poor. With Workforce Optimization, the entire team’s work is in addition to being able to monitor progress in real time. , You can also manage shifts, assign work processes before breaks, and establish a mechanism for the person in charge to take appropriate breaks,” Takahashi said.

Introduce the creator workflow

Now the platform is PaaS, but the platform has three SaaS: “IT workflow”, “customer workflow”, and “employee workflow”. In Quebec, in addition to these three, a new “creator workflow” has emerged.

Creator Workflows is a solution that supports codeless development. Among them, we will provide a new application called “App Engine Studio”. App Engine Studio says that even people with no coding experience can use an intuitive guided visual development environment to build applications.

So far, ServiceNow has always emphasized that it is a platform that can achieve low-code development, but the difference so far is that “ServiceNow can traditionally be developed without coding, but it is a data model. Some things, such as configuration Tables and tables must be approved by IT developers. Through App Engine Studio, a template for building high-quality applications is provided. The person in charge of the business is responsible. It can be developed by others.”

Mr. Takahashi pointed out that “data needs to be put back into the application” is a common problem in the development of non-IT departments, but “if you use App Engine Studio, it is in ServiceNow. Since the data in the site can be accessed as it is, the person in charge of the site can Use templates to develop the processes required for his/her work.”

Regarding concerns about application governance, “IT departments can control whether to release applications,” Takahashi said. “App Engine Studio will enable us to successfully connect existing developers with citizen developers on the ServiceNow platform,” he said.

3 SaaS enhancements

In addition, various functions have been added to the three SaaS provided so far.

“Engagement Messenger” has been added to the customer workflow as a self-solving function through self-service. ServiceNow already provides similar functions, but requires a combination of ServiceNow’s portal, knowledge, and virtual agent. In this Engagement Messenger, “You can now call virtual agents and knowledge from third-party portals you are already using. ServiceNow’s faster compatibility with existing environments is available,” Takahashi said.

“ITOM Predictive AI Ops” has been added to the IT workflow, enabling you to predict events. This is a function that allows machine learning to automatically analyze past events and changes that have caused problems, and detect signs of future events. The functions of Loom Systems were acquired by ServiceNow in January 2020, implemented on ServiceNow and linked to the existing functions of ServiceNow.

The “Universal Request” for unified management requests has been added to the employee workflow. In this way, you can apply for cross-departmental applications in batches, and you can receive notifications every time the status of an application ticket is updated.

In addition, Mr. Takahashi introduced “Legal Service Delivery” as a new product of employee workflow to support the work of the legal department. This was announced in the previous version of “Paris”, but it was only released in North America. Quebec will add features such as “digital forensics” to simplify the legal e-discovery data collection process, and it will also be available in Japan.

In addition, ServiceNow has adopted the version names of cities around the world, in the order of ABC, the next new version in September will be “Roma”.