ServiceNow plugin

For more information about what this plugin does and the data streams it retrieves, see:

ServiceNow

Monitor the Incidents and Change Requests from your ServiceNow environment.

To add a data source click on the + next to Data Sources on the left-hand menu in SquaredUp. Search for the data source and click on it to open the Configure data source page.

You can also add a data source by clicking Add data source on the Settings > Data Sources page, but pre-built dashboards are not added when using this method.

Before you start

The ServiceNow account must use yyyy-MM-dd date format for the data streams to populate the date columns. The date format is configured in the ServiceNow account profile. This requirement applies to both authentication methods.

When configuring the data source, you must select the authentication type to use to connect to ServiceNow.

The default and recommended method is supplying a ServiceNow API key, to which you have applied the required authentication policies.

However, if you cannot use an API key to authenticate then you can instead choose Basic authentication and supply log in credentials. In this case, the account you log in with will require specific permissions configured.

Configuring API key authentication

To authenticate the data source using the recommended API Key method, you must assign the Aggregate API, Table API and GlideRecord API policies to a ServiceNow API key, which is itself assigned to a ServiceNow user you created.

When configuring the data source, you then supply that same API key in the plugin settings.

Creating a user in ServiceNow

  1. In ServiceNow, navigate to All > User Administration > Users.
  2. Click New.
  3. Complete the details for the user.
  4. Ensure the Date format is set to yyyy-MM-dd.
  5. Add the ITIL and rest_api_explorer roles to the user. See Configuring authentication permissions.
  6. Click Submit.

Creating an API key in ServiceNow

  1. In ServiceNow, navigate to All > System Web Services > API Access Policies > REST API Key.
  2. Click New.
  3. Configure the following:
    1. Name:
      Enter a name to identify the REST API Key.
    2. User:
      Specify the User you previously created.
  4. Click Update.

Creating an authentication profile

  1. In ServiceNow, navigate to All > System Web Services > API Access Policies > Inbound Authentication Profiles.
  2. Click New.
  3. Click Create API Key authentication profile when prompted to choose a profile type.
  4. Configure the following:
    1. Name:
      Enter a name to identify the authentication policy.
    2. Auth Parameter:
      Select the x-sn-apikey option of type Auth Header.
  5. Click Update.

Creating API access policies

  1. In ServiceNow, navigate to System Web Services > REST API Access Policies.
  2. Create the following three authentication policies, completing each field as described.
    Aggregate API policy
    Table API policy
    GlideRecord API policy
    Name
    Enter a name for the policy. For example, SquaredUp REST API Policy (aggregate).
    Enter a name for the policy. For example, SquaredUp REST API Policy (table).

    Enter a name for the policy. For example, SquaredUp REST API Policy (metadata).
    Active
    Ensure the checkbox is selected.
    Ensure the checkbox is selected.
    Ensure the checkbox is selected.
    REST API
    Select Aggregate API.
    Select Table API.
    Select GlideRecord API.
    HTTP Method
    Select GET.
    Select GET.
    Select GET.
    Version
    Select Latest.
    Select Latest.
    Select Latest.
    Resource
    Select /now/stats/{tableName}.
    Select /now/table/{tableName}.
    Apply to all resources
    Ensure this checkbox is selected.
  3. For each of the authentication policies you created, do the following:
    1. Open the policy.
    2. Click Insert a new row in the Inbound authentication profiles table.
    3. Add the authentication profile you previously created.

Configuring authentication permissions

When configuring the data source, the permissions of the ServiceNow account you are use will affect what you can see and do in the tile.

SquaredUp recommends using a service account specifically created to use with the ServiceNow plugin so you can tailor the required permissions. You can assign permissions in the following way:

  • ServiceNow permissions assignment with roles:
    Give the ServiceNow account the ITIL and rest_api_explorer roles.
  • ServiceNow permissions assignment with ACLs, in place of roles:
    If you don't want to use the ITIL role (for licensing or security reasons) give the ServiceNow account only the rest_api_explorer role and use ACLs to give the account more rights. Using accounts without the ITIL role may cause data streams to error.

Configuring the data source

  1. Display name:
    Enter a name for your data source. This helps you to identify this data source in the list of your data sources.

  2. URL:
    Enter the URL of your ServiceNow instance.
  3. Authentication Type:
    Select the method of authenticating the data source connection. Choose from:
  4. Custom classes:
    Optionally, specify the table names of any custom classes you want top import. By default, the data source imports the Business Application class (table name: cmdb_ci_business_app) and the Service class (table name: cmdb_ci_service).

  5. Restrict access to this data source:
    You can enable this option if you only want certain users or groups to have access to the data source, or the permission to link it to new workspaces. See data source access control for more information.

  6. Click Test and add to validate the data source configuration. SquaredUp will now attempt to connect to SquaredUp using the provided authentication method.

Next steps

Dashboards

The following pre-built dashboards can be installed with this plugin:

  • Active Incidents: Lists your active incidents and displays different count visualizations based on priority and state.
  • Active Change Requests: Lists your active change requests and displays different count visualizations based on priority and state.

Data streams

You can use these data streams to create new tiles to show data, or if there are preconfigured dashboards installed you can copy or edit those.

The following data streams are installed with this plugin.

Data stream
Description
Change Requests - Active
Returns all Active Change Requests from ServiceNow
Change Requests - Active (Anytime)
Returns all Active Change Requests from ServiceNow
Change Requests - All
Returns all Change Requests from ServiceNow
Change Requests - Inactive
Returns all Inactive Change Requests from ServiceNow
Incidents - Active
Returns all Active Incidents from ServiceNow
Incidents - Active (Anytime)
Returns all Active Incidents from ServiceNow
Incidents - All
Returns all Incidents from ServiceNow
Incidents - Inactive
Returns all Inactive Incidents from ServiceNow

Configurable data streams

The following data streams have configurable Parameters.

Data stream
Description
Parameters
Catalog Tasks
Returns Catalog Tasks from ServiceNow
  • Active:
    Select to filter by Active or inactive.
  • State:
    Select a State to filter by
  • Priority:
    Select Priority to filter by.
  • Assigned to:
    Enter usernames to filter by (e.g. firstname.secondname). Separate values with a comma.
  • Requested for:
    Enter usernames to filter by (e.g. firstname.secondname). Separate values with a comma.
  • Approval:
    Select Approval to filter by.
Catalog Tasks (Anytime)
Returns Catalog Tasks from ServiceNow
  • Active:
    Select to filter by Active or inactive.
  • State:
    Select a State to filter by
  • Priority:
    Select Priority to filter by.
  • Assigned to:
    Enter usernames to filter by (e.g. firstname.secondname). Separate values with a comma.
  • Requested for:
    Enter usernames to filter by (e.g. firstname.secondname). Separate values with a comma.
  • Approval:
    Select Approval to filter by.
Custom Table
Returns data from the custom table selected
  • Custom Table:
    Select a Custom Table
  • Number of records:
    Enter the maximum number of records to show.
  • Fields to show:
    Enter the field names (not display names) you want to show. This can be found by hovering over field name in the Data tab of results and removing the result string at the beginning. Separate values with a comma.
Table Query
Run a query for the change request table.

The ServiceNow account must use yyyy-MM-dd date format for the data streams to populate the date columns. The date format is configured in the ServiceNow account profile. This requirement applies to both authentication methods.

The following data stream presets are also available:
  • Table Query / Change Requests:
    The Table name parameter is preset to change_request.
  • Table Query / Incidents:
    The Table name parameter is preset to incident.
  • Table name:
    Specify the table name to run the query on.
  • Filter query:
    Optionally, enter a filter query to run. You can copy queries from the ServiceNow console by right-clicking thee query above the toolbar and selecting Copy query.
    Be aware that not all queries obtained this way will work properly in SquareUp (for example, if the query contains javascript:gs.getUserID()).
  • Timeframe column:
    Select a date column to apply the time / dashboard timeframe to. Note that this data stream also supports a timeframe of None.
  • Result type:
    Select how the query results are returned.
    • Full results:
      Returns the full rows requested from the table. This is the default behavior and enables the following parameters:
      • Column(s):
        Select the column(s) to return.
      • Top:
        Select to specify the the top n results to return.
    • Aggregate results:
      Aggregate the results via the ServiceNow Aggregate API by configuring following parameters:
      • Group by:
        Optionally, Specify a column to group results by, for example Severity. Aggregations are then performed on a group basis.
      • Show count:
        Select to return a count of the results. If the Group by field is populated then a count is returned for each specified group.
      • Sum:
        Returns the total sum of values for each column you specify.
      • Average:
        Return the mean value for each column you specify.
      • Min:
        Returns the smallest value for each column you specify.
      • Max:
        Returns the largest value for each column you specify.

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