Organizations have policies with multiple internal and external business processes. A business process is a definition of steps involving different people and tasks to be performed by people to deliver a service.
Here are few examples of business processes:
The process of issuing a new laptop for an employee
The process of onboarding a new customer
The process of upgrading customer systems
These predefined process definitions help organisations to carry out their business efficiently because they know in advance what to do and how to do it. ServiceNow assists companies with their digital workflows to deliver their processes efficiently. Let’s try to understand what ServiceNow workflow is and how this relates to business processes.
Workflows as ServiceNow concept
A workflow is the automation of initiation, transition, and completion of a process or group of processes altogether. Consider a defined business process to issue a laptop:
Approval by finance department head if the cost is greater than $500
Issuing by the procurement team
Configurations by the IT team
This process can be carried out manually or can be automated in the ServiceNow workflow. Here is a comparison of both:
Issue new laptop (manual process):
All of the activities are started manually by an employee initiating an email and the IT team forwarding the email to the next relevant person or department involved if and when needed.
Employee sends an email to IT team for a new laptop
IT team loops in the finance department for approval if the cost is greater than $500
Finance head replies with approval/rejection
After finance approval, the IT team loops in the procurement department
The procurement department person on duty initiates the procurement and replies back with an update and/or completion
After the procurement completion email, the IT team start to configure the procured laptop
The IT team completes configuration and sends an email to the employee that the laptop is ready
The employee knows from the email from IT that the laptop is ready to be picked up
Issue new laptop (ServiceNow workflow)
All of these activities can be managed by a ServiceNow workflow where people only have to take care of their own actions (approval, mark completion, etc) and the system will progress automatically.
Employee submits a new request in ServiceNow
The system checks if the cost is greater than $500; if it is, an approval request is automatically sent to the finance department head
The finance department head marks the request as approved/rejected in the system
After finance approval, the system assigns a task to the procurement group
The procurement group agent on duty initiates the procurement and marks the task closed on completion
The system assigns a task to the IT group for configuration
The IT team configures the laptop and marks the task closed on completion
The request is fulfilled and marked closed, and the employee is notified by the system that the laptop is ready to be picked up
Benefits of ServiceNow workflow
As seen in the example above, implementing the processes using ServiceNow workflows is much cleaner. It offloads administrative responsibilities and overhead from people while the system takes care of the most part. A ServiceNow digital workflow enables businesses to:
Automate the processes in the system
Track ongoing processes and report on pending actions
Remove manual overhead
Increase business efficiency
Improve turnaround time
Implement service SLAs
Generate accurate process efficiency KPIs
Reuse automated processes across different business areas
Workflows as ServiceNow capability
ServiceNow’s workflow capability allows any business workflow to be implemented into a technical workflow design. A workflow in ServiceNow is configured by developers or administrators according to the requirements given by the business process owners. Here is a link to understand the technical implementation details of the ServiceNow workflow in the platform.
Workflows as ServiceNow solution
ServiceNow groups its products together into four high-level solution categories. These solutions are targeted to optimize different business areas and contain relevant digital workflows, including IT, employee, customer, and creatorworkflows.
ServiceNow provides many reusable workflows out-of-the-box with the ability to create new ones for business needs. ServiceNow workflows enable businesses to drive efficiency in all their business processes. The company proudly promotes its state-of-the-art digital workflow features with its motto “Let’s workflow it!”
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