Introduction

ModelOp Center provides the ability for a Model Life Cycle to create and manage tickets within an existing ServiceNow system. The ticket types supported include change requests and incidents created and managed using the Table or Import Set APIs. This guide details the steps to enable integration.

ServiceNow Integration Setup

Prerequisites

This guide is based on using the distribution moc-configuration for helm. If you do not have the distribution moc-configuration, please request download instructions here.

Before configuring, ServiceNow will need a service account created and configured. For an example of how to set up a service account see the instructions at https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=b4fca2a5dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961900. This guide assumes that the service account uses the email "servicenow@modelop.com".

For instructions on installing helm, see: https://helm.sh/docs/intro/install/

moc-configuration ServiceNow Configuration

The configuration properties for ServiceNow are located in application.yaml. Edit the following properties:

modelop:
  moc-center-url: # this should be the external name of MOC; this url will be the base for urls from ServiceNow back to moc center entities
  service-now-url: # this should be the external name of ServiceNow
  service-now-user:
  service-now-password: 

As an example, these properties might look as follows:

modelop:
  moc-center-url: foo1.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com:8090
  service-now-url: https://foo.servicenow.com
  service-now-user: servicenow@modelop.com
  service-now-password: servicenowpass

where foo1.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com:8090 is the external URL to the gateway, https://foo.servicenow.com is the ServiceNow URL, servicenow@modelop.com is the user name, and servicenowpass is the password.

Next, ensure the configuration is active in the fleet.

• If using sscs backed by git, commit the changes and refresh the actuator or restart mlc-manager

• If using a configmap, run helm upgrade, restart sccs, and refresh the actuator or restart mlc-manager

ServiceNow Task Monitor Configuration

The ServiceNow task monitor is a background task that periodically queries the state of tickets in a ServiceNow and reacts appropriately to that state. The ServiceNow task monitor comes with defaults but values can be configured to meet customer needs.

The default ServiceNow Task Monitor Configuration is located in mlc-service.yaml and is defined as follows:

  servicenow-task-monitor:
    poll-rate: 5000
    user: ${modelop.service-now-user}
    password: ${modelop.service-now-password}
    url: ${modelop.service-now-url}

The available configuration properties, not already discussed, are defined below.

poll-rate - The amount of time in milliseconds between checking the status of ServiceNow tickets.

retry-config - (Not shown in default config; default: 4 retries with a 60 second timeout) A list defining the retries and retry timeouts when an error occurs. The list is evaluated in order where retry is the number of retries and retry-timeout-millis is the length of time to wait between retries on that level. If retry-timeout-millis is less than poll-rate then poll-rate will take precedence. An example of what this might look like is shown below.

    retry-config:
      - retry: 4
        retry-timeout-millis: 60000
      - retry: 3
        retry-timeout-millis: 300000

In the example configuration above the ServiceNow task monitor will retry 4 times with 1 minute between each retry. After those retries are exhausted the task monitor will then retry 3 times with 5 minutes between retries. When all retry levels are exhausted an incident will be raised. After the retries on each level are exhausted a dashboard notification is created indicating the error.

After setting these properties ensure the configuration is updated in the fleet as described above.

Security

As mentioned in Prerequisites we recommend using a service account for the ServiceNow integration. Limit the access rights of the service account to just those needed for the integration and only use the service account for the integration. The security advantages to using a service account are explained here.

The integration uses Basic Authentication to authenticate REST calls to ServiceNow. The credentials can be set up using SCCS config, Kubernetes secrets, or Vault.

ServiceNow Ticket Customization

The integration provides a variety of parameters to allow customization of ServiceNow ticket creation and lifecycle management within a Model Life Cycle. Some of these parameters are discussed in more detail below.

Ticket Creation

SERVICENOW_API - The API to use when creating tickets (table or import). The integration supports both the Table API and the Import Set API for ticket creation. (For more information on the Table API see https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/tokyo-application-development/page/integrate/inbound-rest/concept/c_TableAPI.html. For more information on the Import Set API see https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/tokyo-application-development/page/integrate/inbound-rest/concept/c_ImportSetAPI.html. In both cases, be sure to switch to appropriate release version.)

SERVICENOW_TABLE_NAME - The table to create new tickets in. This is the path parameter of the API being used. This is usually change_request, incident, or the name of an Import Set.

SERVICENOW_CUSTOM_FIELDS- A JSON string containing any custom fields to send with the creation request. By default the implementation will provide data for a few fields and this parameter allows setting as many fields as needed. The custom fields can also be used to override the value traditionally sent for that field. One exception to the override functionality is the description field. If the description field is overridden, the custom override value will be used as a notification message within the description and the default description template will still be used to ensure that links back to the appropriate entity are included in the description. If a uuid or u_uuid field is required per request, including retries, then set the field to empty string and the integration will generate a random UUID to use for each request.

Ticket Updates

SERVICENOW_UPDATES - A JSON string specifying additional updates to make to the ticket after creation. Some workflows require additional automated updates to the ticket after creation. This field includes the required information to make those updates. UUID generation works here the same as for SERVICENOW_CUSTOM_FIELDS. If a field needs to use the value from the current state of the ticket include that field in the payload and set the value to empty string. The integration will replace the value with the value of the field in the ticket. The structure of the JSON is shown below:

[
  {
    "serviceNowApi" : "(table|import)",
    "serviceNowTableName" : "tableName",
    "serviceNowCustomFields" : {
      "field1":"value1",
      "replacement": "",
       ...
  }
  ...
]

Ticket Lifecycle

SERVICENOW_EXIT_STATUS_FIELD - The field on the ticket to watch for an exit state. The Model Life Cycle waits until this field reaches a desired SERVICENOW_EXIT_STATUS. By default the integration watches the state field. The display_value of the field is watched.

SERVICENOW_EXIT_STATUS - A string listing out the exit statuses for the ticket. When the SERVICENOW_EXIT_STATUS_FIELD reaches one of the exit statuses in this parameter the Model Life Cycle will stop watching the ticket and proceed.

SERVICENOW_EXIT_CONDITIONS - A string listing out statuses and exit conditions that must be met for each status to be realized. Some workflows require considering multiple fields to determine if the ticket has met its exit status. This field uses a CSV-like format to list out conditions. Specifically,

Status1,ConditionType1,Condition1
Status2,ConditionType2,Condition2
…

where commas are used as a separator. Commas are permitted in the condition. A new line indicates the beginning of a new condition. Both juel and spel conditions are supported.

As an example, a workflow may require watching the state field to reach canceled or for the approval field to reach approved or rejected. The conditions for such a workflow could look like the following.

Canceled,juel,\${ticket.state.display_value.equalsIgnoreCase('canceled')}
Rejected,juel,\${ticket.approval.display_value.equalsIgnoreCase('rejected')}
Approved,juel,\${ticket.approval.display_value.equalsIgnoreCase('approved')}

The conditions are evaluated in the order they are listed. The ticket variable is provided for expression evaluation by the integration and represents the current state of the ticket. The \$ is escaped in the example above so that Camunda itself will not attempt to evaluate the juel conditions. When a condition is satisfied the TICKET_STATUS variable will be set to the matching status for further use in the Model Life Cycle.

Only one of SERVICENOW_EXIT_CONDITIONS and SERVICENOW_EXIT_STATUS will be used when determining if a ticket has reached exit status with the following priority order:

1. Local SERVICENOW_EXIT_CONDITIONS variable

2. Local SERVICENOW_EXIT_STATUS variable

3. SERVICENOW_EXIT_CONDITIONS variable

4. SERVICENOW_EXIT_STATUS variable

In cases 2 and 4 SERVICENOW_EXIT_STATUS can be set to null to indicate that there should be no wait after creation and update. If SERVICENOW_EXIT_CONDITIONS is used then SERVICENOW_EXIT_STATUS_FIELD has no effect.

UPDATE_STORED_MODEL_FIELDS - A map used to update values in the stored model from fields in the ServiceNow ticket. As an example, a mapping from u_model_risk to modelMetaData.modelRisk would update modelRisk to the value of the ServiceNow u_model_risk field.

UPDATE_DEPLOYABLE_MODEL_FIELDS - A map used to update values in the deployable model from fields in the ServiceNow ticket. This works the same way as UPDATE_STORED_MODEL_FIELDS but targets a deployable model instead of the stored model.

Raising/Managing Change Requests

To use a change request within a Model Life Cycle a notification must be created and stored and then the ticket created and the lifecycle managed. Examples of how to use the different notifications are provided in mlc-building-blocks. A simple example is shown below.

The Simple Notification requires the following parameters.

NOTIFICATION_MESSAGE - A message to include in the notification. This message will appear on the ModelOp dashboard. It will also appear as part of the short_description and in some cases description of the ServiceNow ticket unless those fields are overridden using SERVICENOW_CUSTOM_FIELDS.

NOTIFICATION_SEVERITY - The severity of the notification (INFO, WARN, ERROR, etc.). This will be reflected in the ModelOp dashboard notification.

SERVICENOW_API - The API to use for creating the ServiceNow ticket (table or import).

SERVICENOW_TABLE_NAME - The ServiceNow table to create the ticket in. If using the Table API this will be change_request. If using the Import Set API this will be the name of the import set.

Supplying these parameters correctly will result in a dashboard notification and a ServiceNow ticket being created. After ticket creation, however, the Model Life Cycle will continue on and not wait for any specific status of the ticket. In some cases this is desirable but often waiting for a specific status is the desired behavior. The SERVICENOW_EXIT_STATUS variable can be used to set the the status to wait for. For example, if set to “Closed,Canceled” then the Model Life Cycle will wait until the ticket’s state.display_value has reached either the closed or canceled status before continuing. The final status will be set in the TICKET_STATUS variable which the Model Life Cycle can use to determine different paths of execution. See ServiceNow Ticket Customization for more parameters for customizing ticket creation, updates, and lifecycle management.

In order to keep Model Life Cycles visually simple the three steps of this sub-process can be combined into a single activity as show below. For this example, all above parameters are moved to the external task (the final step, which could also be renamed) and the first two steps can be removed. An additional parameter of NOTIFICATION_TYPE must be set to PROCESS_NOTIFICATION to indicate the type of notification to create. The create and store steps will be executed as part of the external task. When specifying a NOTIFICATION_TYPE be sure to provide all needed parameters for that notification type.

Raising/Managing Incidents

Raising and managing an incident is nearly identical to Raising/Managing Change Requests. Ensure that SERVICENOW_TABLE_NAME is set to either incident (if using the Table API) or the name of the appropriate import set. That’s it! An incident will be created instead of a change request. Update any other parameters as needed to manage creation, updates, and lifecycle.

MLC Example Usages

The ServiceNow integration is present in two locations in the RunAssociatedModelMetricsServiceNow Model Life Cycle. Some examples are:

• If performing an associated model run fails a ServiceNow ticket is created detailing the error

• If tests fails a ServiceNow ticket is created detailing the failure

Each created notification appears on the Notification dashboard. Notifications also appear on context specific pages (E.g., Model Review Notifications will appear on the snapshot page). The display includes a link to the ticket and displays the ticket’s current status. The status is synced back periodically while waiting on the ticket’s exit status. An example is shown below.