Overview

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If you wish to have a form built for you, it's important to understand the process and what's possible. The ServiceNow team developers are the only ones who are able to create forms in the system. Forms are currently only available to customers with an Single Sign On (SSO) account with UCSD. 

General

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Step 1 - Know what a form is.

Forms in ServiceNow are more complicated than they appear. It's important to know how they work, what the involved steps are, and what is possible.

There are some sample forms available in the portal that showcase the three main options you have for portal forms:

1. A form where the customer hits submit and a single ticket is created.
2. A form where the customer hits submit and multiple steps are taken. It can be multiple tickets, approval tasks, or any combination of the two.
3. A collection of forms where the customer can select multiple to fill out at the same time.

If you are looking for a simple workflow where hitting 'submit' creates a ticket to an agent queue, you can skip to 'Step 2 - Know what you are trying to do.' below.

If you are looking for something more complicated than a two step process, let's go over terminology and possibilities!

When a customer hits submit on a form that has a mutlistep workflow, a ticket type called 'Requested Item' or 'RITM' is created. The customer will see a ticket number that starts with 'RITMxxxxx'. The RITM is the representation that a thing was requested. The system doesn't show the customer the workflow or all the steps that Agents need to take in order for their request to be completed, it only shows that there is a request. If a RITM has 3 approval steps and 5 tickets that need to be created for the request to be fulfilled, the customer will not see any of those steps. The customer will only see the RITM.

Every RITM has the ability to:

1. Create an approval
2. Create a task
3. Reach out to an integration to read or edit records

These actions can be repeated as many times as needed, in any order needed. Notifications are always created with approvals - both to the agent and the customer - and notifications are optional and customizable for the other two actions.  

Agents don't directly work on a RITM, they work on the Tasks created by the RITM. RITMs represent the customer requested something while the tasks represent the work needed to fulfill the request.

 

Step 2 - Know what you are trying to do.

With an understanding of the options available to you for requesting a form in ServiceNow, meet with your team and decide what you want built for you. We encourage you to look at any existing processes you have and look for ways to automate them or remove steps using ServiceNow's capabilities. Think of the conditional logic you want (if this is selected, then show these questions) (if this is selected, create a second ticket to this other assignment group)

 

Step 3 - First meeting! (optional)

If you are not comfortable with ServiceNow or what you are asking for, we can have a meeting with you to go over what we can and can't do and help you with directions and possibilities. Use our contact ServiceNow form at the bottom of the page to request a meeting.

 

Step 4 - Fill out the form templates.

If you are comfortable with ServiceNow and what you are asking for, make a copy of our template spreadsheet and fill it out and let us know when you are done. Think about who your customers are, what they will be requesting, any tips or instructions you'll want to give them. And review the example forms linked above!

 

Step 5 - Second meeting! (mandatory)

Once you are done with the template, let us know and we'll set up a meeting to review it with you. We will go through each line item and make sure we understand what you're asking, what the customer needs to see, what the agent needs to do, and review any extra information we may need from you. Once we're done with the meeting, we'll create a ticket in our development backlog for it. We never give out estimates or timeframes before creating a backlog ticket, but once we have this second meeting, we are usually able to give you a fair estimate of how long things will take before UAT and go live.

 

Step 6 - Testing and QA / UAT.

It will take some time for us to develop the form. Once we think it is ready for your eyes, we'll reach out to you with a link and ask for you to test it.

When testing, please submit the form multiple times with various options selected. If you need to approve a step in the process as an agent, we can give you and your testers the ability to approve for other people. In order to use this functionality - once we grant it - go to the RITM you submitted, scroll all the way to the bottom tabs, click on 'Approvers' and right click on the 'Requested' option to Approve it.

 

Step 7 - Go live!

Once you have tested and we've gone through a few rounds of enhancements and fixes, we're ready for release! We'll work with you on timing. We only release on Wednesday nights, so if you are looking to go live on a Monday, we'll usually release that previous Wednesday and hide the form in production until you are ready.