Flow Designer
Flow Designer
The ServiceNow Flow Designer is a platform capability that allows
users to automate business processes in a single drag-and-drop design
environment without the need for complex code.
It enables the creation of digital workflows that can automate tasks,
notifications, and record operations across the enterprise.
Here are some key features and benefits of the Flow Designer :
Key Features:
● Drag-and-Drop Environment: Users can create and automate workflows
using a visual interface, making it accessible to both technical and non-
technical users.
● No-Code Automation: Automate processes without writing a single line
of code, allowing business users to focus on high-value work.
● Reusable Actions: A library of reusable actions and subflows can be used
to build and extend workflows, reducing development costs.
● Integration with Third-Party Systems: Connect workflows to third-party
systems using the Automation Engine, enabling RPA-powered
automations.
● Natural Language: Use simple, natural language to automate approvals,
tasks, notifications, and record operations.
● Visualization: Display workflows as diagrams to help users understand
the available paths and connections.
Content Types:
● Flows: Automated processes consisting of actions and subflows
triggered by events.
● Subflows: Sequences of reusable actions and data inputs that can be
started from flows, subflows, or scripts.
● Triggers: Activities that initiate flows, such as creating records or
scheduling jobs.
● Actions: Single reusable operations executed by the system, such as
creating REST integrations or updating field values.
● Conditions: Statements that determine when or how actions run, e.g.,
running an action only if a field value exceeds a certain threshold.
Benefits:
● Efficiency: Automate repetitive tasks to improve efficiency and user
experiences.
● Accessibility: Enable non-technical users to understand and create
workflows using natural language.
● Visualization: Display workflows as diagrams to facilitate understanding
and building.
● Scalability: Scale workflows with separate subscriptions for integrations
and RPA functionality.
● Cost Reduction: Reduce upgrade costs by using upgrade safe Now
Platform logic and reduce development costs with a library of reusable
actions.
Architecture Overview
A flow consists of a trigger and one or more actions. The trigger specifies
when to start the flow, which can be record-based, schedule-based, or
application-based. Record-based triggers run a flow after a record has been
created, updated, or deleted.
Flow processing
1. Flow processing occurs in this sequence.
2. When the flow trigger conditions occur or an API directly calls the flow,
the system creates an entry in the event queue to start the flow.
3. The scheduler processes the event and starts the flow in the background.
4. The system builds a process plan from the flow.
5. The system runs the process plan using the record that triggered the
flow.
6. The system stores the execution details in a context record.
Action Designer
Use Action Designer to automate a repeatable task within a flow as a
sequence of related steps. Enable flow authors to add actions to multiple flows
with minimal configuration.
Using Action Designer, you can:
⇒ Create application-specific actions with pre-set configuration details,
enabling process analysts to easily add actions to a flow with little
configuration.
⇒ Create scripted actions that appear code-less when added to a flow.
⇒ Build integrations using Integration Hub.
Core actions:
ServiceNow Core actions that come with your instance cannot be viewed
or edited from the Action Designer interface.
Inputs:
Inputs are data variables used in your action.
For example, if an action step creates a record in the incident table, your input
might be a reference to the incident table.
Outputs:
Outputs are data variables that represent the results of the action. These
results are available to other actions in a flow.
Steps:
A step is a single reusable operation within an action. For example, the
Create Record step allows action designers to specify the table and field
values to use during record creation. Step configuration requires subject
matter expertise with application tables, fields, and business logic.
Action Designer design environment
Create and edit actions by defining inputs and adding action steps. Test
actions to verify if they complete successfully and review the runtime values
they generate. Copy actions to use existing actions as templates.
Domain separation and Flow Designer
Domain separation is supported in Flow Designer. Flow Designer supports
domain separation of business logic, which lets each tenant domain have its
own flows, actions, and subflows. Domain separation enables you to separate
data, processes, and administrative tasks into logical groupings called
domains.
Support level: Standard*
⇒ Includes Basic level
⇒ Business logic: Processes can be created or modified per customer by the
service provider. The use cases reflect proper use of the application by
multiple service provider customers in a single instance.
⇒ The owner of the instance needs to be able to configure MVP business
logic and data parameters per tenant as expected for the specific
application.
Spokes
A spoke is a scoped application containing Workflow Studio content
dedicated to a particular application or record type. For example, the ITSM
Spoke contains actions for managing Task records such as the Create Task
action.
Spokes are activated when their parent application is activated. For example,
the ITSM Spoke is activated when the Incident, Problem, and Change
applications are activated.
Additional spokes are available with an Integration Hub subscription.
Change a flow or action's default title
Change the default title for a flow, subflow, or action by adding styled
and dynamic text.
Procedure
1. Navigate to All > Process Automation > Flow Designer.
2. On the Flow Designer landing page, click New and then select Flow,
Subflow, or Action from the list.
3. In the Flow Designer main header, click the more actions icon (More
Actions icon).
4. Click Change default title.
5. On the Change default title screen, enter a title.
a. Use any combination of the following options to create a styled title:
b. Add dynamically generated text for your title from an input, output,
action, or action step by clicking the data pill picker (Data pill picker)
and selecting the input, output, action, or action step that you want to
include in your title.
6. Click Submit.
Use Cases:
● Create a table for requesting some items, then create a field category
and based on category value it should be sent approvals to respected
groups.
1st approval needs to trigger for the manager.
2nd approval needs to trigger for the above condition group.
3rd approval for Two Hardcode Approvers
▪ Abel tutor
▪ Joe Employee
● Then open 2 consecutive tasks and Trigger notifications on completion
of tasks:
1. One task for Procurement.
2. One task for Shipping and installation.
Flow Design for above requirement is:
Navigation All > Flow Designer > Flow > Click on new Flow.
1. We need to give a name to create a flow.
2. A trigger needs to select, so it can start the flow when the trigger is
triggered.
Trigger types are:
Here we select records created.
3. Next section we have actions, here we can add action, Flow Logic,
subflows.
4. If we want to send a mail to the user who requested for items by selecting
● action > Sent Email.
● We can use the Data pill picker for “To” in mail.
5. After mail, we can send approval to the manager of the user who
requested it.
6. And then after 1st approval is approved then we can send 2nd approval
based on the condition.
7. After the 2nd approval is approved, then we need to sent the 3rd approval.
8. Completion of approvals we need to create two tasks one by one.
9. And completion of each task an email should be trigger.
