Creating a service desk integration for ServiceNow assets

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The Oomnitza plugin for ServiceNow associates incidents with assets and provides desk agents with the insights that they need to resolve incidents quickly. 

Check out the insights that the Oomnitza integration offers to desk agents:

• View ServiceNow tickets in Oomnitza and view Oomnitza assets in ServiceNow. 
• Display the devices that belong to the caller who raised the ticket.
• Resolve incidents efficiently and quickly by using Oomnitza to retrieve asset records and view the history of ServiceNow tickets.
• Display the devices that are associated with a ticket based on the set of custom attributes that you define. 
• Configure asset management fields to track the attributes that matter to you.
• Automate the tracking of hardware and software attributes so that you can get an asset’s details easily and efficiently.

Navigation

Installing the Oomnitza plugin

Connecting ServiceNow to Oomnitza

Configure ServiceNow roles

Integrating Oomnitza with ServiceNow

Using the integration

View an Oomnitza asset in a ServiceNow ticket

Attach an Oomnitza asset to a ServiceNow incident

Modify an Oomnitza asset in a ServiceNow incident

View ServiceNow incidents in an Oomnitza asset

ServiceNow integration security

About the plugin

The Oomnitza plugin for ServiceNow enables you to view and link assets associated with tickets in ServiceNow and Oomnitza. When you set up this service first, the plugin displays all the devices that belong to the incident caller and offer the ability to attach additional assets to the ServiceNow ticket. By default, the Oomnitza add-on for ServiceNow displays all devices linked to an incident. 

Installing the Oomnitza plugin

To make Oomnitza asset information available in ServiceNow, you must request the Oomnitza plugin. The plugin is available from the ServiceNow Store. Enter Oomnitza in the search panel and follow the prompts to install. For further information, refer to the ServiceNow documentation: Downloading an application from the ServiceNow Store.

Once you have installed the plugin, activate the application in ServiceNow. To activate the application, complete the following steps:

1.  Navigate to System Applications > All Available Applications > All.
2. Enter Oomnitza in the search panel.
3. Follow the prompts to install the application. For further information, refer to the ServiceNow documentation: Activate a ServiceNow Store application.

Tip
If you are using a free Personal Development Instance (PDI) or demo instance of ServiceNow, you cannot install plugins from the ServiceNow store. If you try to install a plugin, you will receive the following error: Sorry, you can’t login with this ServiceNow Id. However, you can contact Oomnitza directly in the ServiceNow store with your vendor instance name. Your vendor instance name takes the format https://dev123456.service-now.com/. Oomnitza can then push the plugin to your instance for you to install. Once you receive notification from Oomnitza that the plugin has been pushed to your instance, complete the steps above to search for and install the Oomnitza plugin.

Result

The Oomnitza plugin is installed. When you log into your ServiceNow instance, two additional tabs are made available:

• The Oomnitza Configuration tab
• The Oomnitza Support tab

Connecting ServiceNow to Oomnitza

1. In the side panel in ServiceNow, enter Oomnitza in the search field.
2. Select the Configuration tab.
3. Enter the URL of your Oomnitza instance such as https://<your_company_name>.oomnitza.com.
4. Click Save.

Configure ServiceNow roles

Once installed, you may can assign roles and permissions in ServiceNow to ensure the desired end users have access to the Oomnitza plugin. You can assign a role directly, or update an existing role to add or inherit the new role. You can also assign the role to a group.

• For users that will configure or interact with the Oomnitza app, assign the following role: x_333437_oomnitza.configuration_user.
• For users who require access to the asset information that the Oomnitza app provides within the ServiceDesk, assign either one of these roles: sn_incident_read, incident_manager , or itil.

Note: you may choose to add the Oomnitza app role as a child role of the existing incident_manager or itil role for users to automatically inherit access to the Oomnitza plugin, otherwise you can always assign the Oomnitza app role individually.

To create a role in ServiceNow, go to Users and Groups > Roles. 

To assign a role to a user in ServiceNow, go to  User Administration > Users

For detailed information, consult the ServiceNow documentation. 

Warning
You may encounter issues with the plugin if the Service Now roles listed above have been modified. This can take the form of the plugin erroring out unexpectedly. If this is the case you may need to add additional roles. Refer to the sys_user_role table in ServiceNow for a complete list of user roles. We recommend that you first test the issue by adding the admin role to the service account user to ensure that it is not a permission issue. 

Integrating Oomnitza with ServiceNow

Before you complete the integration in Oomnitza, you’ll need the following information:

• The URL of your ServiceNow instance.
• The username and password of the user account. The user must have been assigned the following role: x_333437_oomnitza.configuration_user.

Best practice
For the integration with Oomnitza, create a dedicated user account.

Setting up the integration

To integrate Oomnitza with ServiceNow, complete the following steps:

1. Log into Oomnitza.
2. From the menu, click Configuration > Integrations and click Block view
3. Scroll down to Service Desk Integrations, and click the ServiceNow tile.
4. Click NEXT.
5. Enter the URL of your ServiceNow instance https://dev123456.service-now.com/.
6. Enter the username and password of the dedicated user account that you created for the integration.
7. Click CONNECT.
8. Choose the fields that you want to display in the Oomnitza tab in ServiceNow. Select which fields are editable, and which are read-only.
9. Click FINISH.

Using the integration

The Oomnitza service desk integration for ServiceNow assets provides you with the ability to:

• View an Oomnitza asset in a ServiceNow ticket
• Attach an Oomnitza asset to a ServiceNow incident
• Modify an Oomnitza asset in a ServiceNow incident
• View ServiceNow incidents in an Oomnitza asset

Viewing an Oomnitza asset in a ServiceNow incident

To view an Oomnitza asset to a ServiceNow ticket:

1. Navigate to an incident record in ServiceNow. The list of Oomnitza assets associated with the incident caller is displayed in the Oomnitza tab. 
2. To view the asset details, click the arrow in the dropdown list. 
3. Select View in Oomnitza to view the assets in Oomnitza. 
   Figure 1: Attaching an Oomnitza asset to a ServiceNow incident

Attaching an Oomnitza asset to a ServiceNow incident

To attach an Oomnitza asset to a ServiceNow ticket:

1. Navigate to an incident record in ServiceNow and click the Oomnitza tab. 
2. Click the arrow in the dropdown list. 
3. Enter the details matching the asset in the Oomnitza fields and and click Apply. Alternatively, search for the asset in the search bar. Hover on the asset and select the paperclip icon. This will link the asset to the incident. You can hover on the asset and select the paperclip again to detach it from an incident. 

Result: Your asset is now attached to a ticket. 

Modifying an Oomnitza asset in a ServiceNow incident

Prerequisites: The Oomnitza field must be defined as Editable when following the steps in Setting up the integration.

To  modify an asset for an incident in ServiceNow, complete the following actions:

1. Navigate to an incident record in ServiceNow.
2. Select the asset you wish to edit. 
3. Enter a new value in the Oomnitza field you wish to change. If it is a text field, enter the new information in the textbox, and then click outside the text box to update. If it is a dropdown field, scroll through your list and select the necessary value from the list.  
   

Result: Your asset is now updated in ServiceNow and Oomnitza. 

Figure 2: Modifying an Oomnitza asset in an incident

Viewing ServiceNow incidents in an Oomnitza asset

To view incidents associated with an asset in Oomnitza, complete the following actions:

1. Navigate to the Assets tab in Oomnitza.
2. Open an assets record. 
3. Select the Tickets tab, and select the ServiceNow icon.
   
4. All of the incidents in ServiceNow that are associated with the asset are displayed. You will see the status, creation date, description, and a link to the incident in ServiceNow. You can also delete the association between the asset and the ticket by clicking the bin icon. 

ServiceNow integration security

Oomnitza uses several mechanisms for protecting integrations with external systems. These mechanisms allow Oomnitza to protect customer data from unauthorized access and from malicious or accidental changes.

Authentication

The Oomnitza plugin for ServiceNow utilizes SSO (and basic authentication, if enabled) over HTTPS. To use the plugin, the service desk user is required to have an authenticated session with Oomnitza and provide valid credentials in the plugin window.

ServiceNow User Authentication

Following authentication, Oomnitza creates and supports a standard user session. The session time is restricted according to Oomnitza instance session configuration, which is typically set to 20 minutes. The plugin receives the authorization headers Cookie and Oomnitza-session, which are stored in the browser.

Authorization

The authenticated Oomnitza ServiceNow plugin has the same level of permissions as the corresponding Oomnitza user and sends authorization headers with each request. The plugin does not update the information in ServiceNow, only in Oomnitza.

Connections

The plugin communicates with Oomnitza securely via HTTPS. This connection allows a seamless integration between user incidents and assets. In other words, this connection allows the plugin to send comments and fields from ServiceNow to Oomnitza if the corresponding mappings are configured. The following table describes the protocols used to host communication between ServiceNow, Oomnitza, and the Oomnitza for ServiceNow plugin: 

Direction	Protocol	Authentication
Oomnitza to ServiceNow	*443: HTTPS GET  requests	Basic authentication
ServiceNow to Oomnitza	*443: HTTPS POST/GET  requests	Cookie and Oomnitza-session

* The Oomnitza application has security built into its design. Connections between the Oomnitza application, Oomnitza ServiceNow plugin, and ServiceNow take place only over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) using the latest Transport Layer Security (TLS) version the operating system is capable of using.

Unleash the power of Oomnitza

To get valuable actionable insights that help you manage your users, learn how to:

• Configure dashboards for your users and software
• Configure custom reports about your users and software
• Create workflows to automate tasks

See  Getting started for more information.