ServiceNow (Marketplace Application)

ServiceNow <-> AlertOps Integration

ServiceNow is a powerful platform-as-a-service, which offers advanced automation and process workflow for the enterprise environment. Integrate AlertOps’ alert management platform with ServiceNow to receive and respond to critical alerts through email, SMS, push notifications (iOS and Android), and phone alerts. AlertOps ensures that alerts received from ServiceNow always reach the correct, available team member by utilizing escalation policies and on-call schedules. This integration also serves to sync groups from ServiceNow to AlertOps and incident updates along with the addition of notes. You can seamlessly do configurations to map ServiceNow Incidents to AlertOps and vice-versa within ServiceNow itself. Our marketplace app is easy to install, and simple to set up as well.

Get the AlertOps App from the ServiceNow store here or search for 'AlertOps' in the ServiceNow Store

Refer to the documents in the ServiceNow Store page for AlertOps for more specifics/detailed information on the Integration.

AlertOps Configuration

1) Navigate to ‘Configuration’ > ‘Integrations’, to the right of ‘Inbound Integrations’ click ‘+Add API’ 

*1.1 Before Creating the Integration, navigate to 'Configuration' > 'Administration'. Under 'Custom Alert Fields' , click 'Standard Alert' (if Standard Alert is not there, add alert type)

Add two custom fields - SysId, (of type Short String), and SNOW Incident ID (of type Short String)

2) From the list select ‘ServiceNow’ 

3) Associate the integration with an Escalation Policy, and a Recipient Group. Click Save. Copy the Inbound Integration API Endpoint

4) Ensure the Mapping under 'Rules for Opening and Closing Alert' is as follows,

You can add further values for opening and closing alert based on the numeric mappings as shown below,

Scroll down, and you should find the custom fields you created 'SysId', and 'SNOW Incident ID'. Type in 'sys_id' for SysId, and 'number' for SNOW Incident ID. This will map the Sys Id , and the incident number which will be used in other operations.

5) Now go to your User Profile and grab the User API Key under the ‘Profile’ section (preferably an App Admin/Owner user in AlertOps). 

6) Make a note of your AlertOps Account subdomain as well.

<The Outbound Integration guide can be found after the 'ServiceNow Configuration' section>

ServiceNow Configuration

Please Refer to the 'Additional Notes' section in the case you encounter errors/ for more specifications.

1) Once you get the update-set/application from the ServiceNow store, go to the Navigation pane, search for 'AlertOps' > 'Setup/Configuration' and click 'Create New'

2) Click on the lock icon, and input the Inbound Integration Endpoint for Webhook URL, the User API Key and AlertOps Subdomain.

You can check the box ‘Enable Manual Alert Creation for Incidents’ if you want a ‘Create AlertOps Alert’ UI action within an Incident (for manual alert creation)

3) The ‘Group Sync enabled for’ is a section where you can see the Groups that are sync-enabled with AlertOps.

4) Once you add this, owing to the Business rule, incidents created in ServiceNow will trigger alerts to AlertOps. You can create/edit and fine tune conditions for alerting, filter rules etc. (steps below) You can now create multiple integrations and all these can be viewed / edited within ServiceNow itself under the ‘ServiceNow to AlertOps – Inbound Integration Settings’ module of the AlertOps App.

6)  Within the ServiceNow to AlertOps – Inbound Integration Settings module , you can check if the ‘Initial Webhook URL/API key’ is configured, if not you will be asked to navigate and add them. 

7) You can select an integration to view what it does, edit /disable alerts or you can create a new integration directly within ServiceNow (minimal to no configuration within AlertOps). You can also ‘Test Connection’ to an integration to see if it pings to AlertOps. You can see a record under ‘Configuration > Integrations > Inbound Log’ in AlertOps. 

8) The Integration Overview summarizes what are the integration settings / alerting conditions. You can see this, and then edit it if required. You can also disable alerts for a particular integration. When you click ‘Edit’ the selected integration is prepopulated with the configurations and can be modified as required 

9)  If you want an entirely new integration / alerting config, you can create a new integration. Select the drop-down on the left pane, and click ‘Create New Integration’ 

10) If you want to delete an integration, you will have to navigate to AlertOps and delete it, There is a small redirect icon to the right of ‘Integration Overview’ that redirects / links you to the integration in AlertOps as well. 

11) Now you should be able to see ‘Alerts’ created in AlertOps when Service Desk incidents are created in ServiceNow. Test this out by creating an Incident with the status ‘New’. Once created, you should see a ‘Work Note’ added to the incident indicating the Alert ID in AlertOps. You also have a section within the incident where the Alert ID is logged.

12) An alert is created if the mapping conditions in AlertOps Inbound Integration are satisfied (the correct Incident State value numbers are given for alerts that need to be opened). If there is a status mismatch you should see a work note with the following error. You would have to re-verify settings within the Inbound Integration in AlertOps.

13) Closure of the incident in ServiceNow will add a work note saying the alert was closed and the corresponding AlertID. 

14) Work notes added in ServiceNow, will also be added to the Alert’s notes in AlertOps  

15) In general, you can map any incident states / values in AlertOps. 

16) You can find more information on Mapping in the AlertOps-ServiceNow Inbound/Outbound Integration Guide or the AlertOps knowledge base or feel free to reach out to AlertOps support. 

17) Adding an Assignment Group and Assigned to, will map them to AlertOps, and autoassign user / group (Optional).

AlertOps to ServiceNow (Outbound Integration / Action Templates in SNOW)

You can define Outbound Integration/Action mappings within ServiceNow itself. (If you do not have the ServiceNow Store App, to do it in AlertOps refer to the 'AlertOps-ServiceNow Outbound Integration Guide')

1) When an alert is created in AlertOps (for example, through a monitoring tool), we can define action templates in ServiceNow itself, to create Incidents with the alert information, update incidents on assignment and closure of the alerts. Through this module, you just must define the mappings for each incident action in ServiceNow from AlertOps (creation, assignment, closure and general status update), and all the methods, workflows are created in AlertOps automatically.

2) Select ‘AlertOps to ServiceNow – Outbound Integration Settings’ from the Navigation menu in ServiceNow.

3) You can select an existing ServiceNow Outbound integration to edit mappings/templates, or you can Create a new Outbound Integration Template.

4) Give the action template / outbound integration a Name.

5) You would need credentials of a user in ServiceNow with sufficient API permissions (to create / update incidents in ServiceNow). If you select Basic Authentication, you would have to input the username and password of the user, else you can use OAuth 2.0 in case you have a dedicated Client Credentials/Password setup to authenticate to the ServiceNow API

6) Now select each ServiceNow trigger to define the mappings (how you want the incident to be created when an alert is open, what state you want to update the incident when it is assigned, closed)

7) You can also define custom key-value mappings if you want to add values for custom fields for an incident as well. 

8) Use ‘+ Add Variable’ to insert AlertOps fields to include the alert information from AlertOps in the incident.

9) Save or Create New Template. This will add all the Outbound Integration methods, including an ‘Add Note’ method in AlertOps (View it in AlertOps under Configuration > Integration > Outbound Integrations). It will also create workflows automatically to create, assign, close, add note, and add delivery status updates to the work_notes in an Incident. (View these in AlertOps under Configuration > Workflows)

10) To ensure these actions work, make sure you associate the ‘Workflows’ within the ‘Automation‘ tab of the ‘Escalation Policy’ that you will be using in AlertOps

Manual Alert Creation (Create AlertOps Alert)

1) Within an existing incident, you can create a manual AlertOps alert to pull in/page users or groups in AlertOps. It is useful if you want to ad hoc alert some users or groups for, let’s say, a major incident that requires assistance from users and groups, in addition to the general recipients/on-call specified in the integration. 

2) For this UI action to be available within an incident, ensure the checkbox ‘Enable Manual Alert Creation for Incidents’ is enabled under AlertOps > Setup / Config

3) Navigate to a ServiceNow incident, click ‘Create AlertOps Alert’. This will open a popup where you can input Recipient User(s), Recipient Group(s), a Topic, escalation policy and modify the subject/message of the alert 

4) A Topic is a pre-built message template within AlertOps (Topics)  If you are unsure about a topic, just select ‘Custom’, and type in a name for the topic (You can consider this the title for the alert)

5) Note that Topics in AlertOps are associated with a priority, and only escalation policies of the same priority as the topic will be displayed within the Escalation Policy drop-down. 

6) If you are unsure, just select Custom for the topic, so all the Escalation Policies, irrespective of the priority is displayed. 

7) Topics in AlertOps are associated with a Subject and a Body that will be pre-populated on selection if available (this can also be modified). 

IMPORTANT NOTE: Escalation Policy in AlertOps should have the 'Quick Launch' checkbox selected for it to display in the popup

ServiceNow Group Sync

The AlertOps integration with ServiceNow can sync Groups from ServiceNow into AlertOps with the click of a button. Users or group members within a Group in ServiceNow are automatically added to AlertOps along with their contact information from ServiceNow, thus reducing the overhead of manual user addition in AlertOps. Just add/remove users from a Group that is synced in ServiceNow, and the rest is done automatically. 

1)  Go to ‘User Administration’ > ‘Groups’ in the ServiceNow navigation menu. 

2) (Optional) You will find a button called ‘Retrieve All Groups from AlertOps’. This is to retrieve all the groups from AlertOps and add them to ServiceNow. If the group in AlertOps has members, then those members will be added as Users in ServiceNow with just the Email contact methods (the rest of the contact methods like Phone, has to be added in ServiceNow for the user manually), and added as Group Members to the group. 

3) Click on any group. To sync the groups from ServiceNow into AlertOps, click the ‘Enable Sync to AlertOps’ button. This might take a few seconds, just wait for a popup that says ‘Sync Enabled, Pushed Existing Members to AlertOps’. 

4) Once the sync is enabled, you can go to AlertOps and check that the group has been added and the corresponding users (Under Configuration > Groups and Schedules). Th group’s name in AlertOps will be trimmed to lower case characters. Once Sync is enabled, you should see the button ‘Disable Sync to AlertOps’ within the group in ServiceNow 

5) The users will be added to AlertOps as well along with all their Contact methods (email, phones) 

6) You can click the ‘Edit’ button within the group in ServiceNow and add / remove users and this will correspondingly add users to AlertOps and add/remove them from Groups as well. 

7) If you click ‘New’ within the Group Members tab, and add a User it will add the user in AlertOps as well along with the Contact Methods (and add it to the Group as well) 

8) You should also be able to see the Group(s) in ServiceNow synced to AlertOps, by navigating to ‘AlertOps’ > ‘All’ and opening/previewing the record. 

View AlertOps On-Call in ServiceNow

Within the AlertOps application in ServiceNow, select the module ‘AlertOps On-Call’. You can select a Group within AlertOps to view the current first person on-call , the groups members (along with their roles, and types), and the on-call calendar of the group based on the schedules setup in AlertOps. The Calendar View corresponds to your system time zone.

Additional Notes (Important)

There are some pointers that are important for the integration and the working of the AlertOps App to be successful and seamless,

• When installing the app from the ServiceNow Store, or through import of the update set, if you encounter errors during the preview (possibly one for Crypto Module Key Policy), select that particular record), and either skip the remote set, or remove it.
• It is recommended to have just one record for Setup /Config in ServiceNow for seamless functioning of the integration.
• Ensure the ‘Custom Fields’ are created within AlertOps. (SysId, and SNOW Incident ID)
• Create a very baseline Inbound Integration in AlertOps for ServiceNow initially and just map the custom fields. The rest can be configured within ServiceNow itself
• Every user in ServiceNow that may be added as a User in AlertOps should have an ‘Email’ contact method
• To enable the sync of the group to AlertOps, there should be at least one group member in the group in ServiceNow
• Username of the User in ServiceNow cannot have spaces since AlertOps does not allow spaces in the username
• The Sync from ServiceNow is at the ‘Group’ level, hence users are to be added/updated/removed through the ‘Group Members’ tab in the Group in ServiceNow
• When the ‘Enable Sync to AlertOps’ button is clicked, it may take some time for the Sync to be completed. 
• Loading of users / groups / topics in the Create Alert function may take a few seconds, please don’t click on search as it is loading, since this may cause a rate limit issue.
• The Integration Settings page may take a few seconds to load, since it preloads all the integrations, users, groups, escalation policies.
• After configuring Outbound Action Templates in ServiceNow, ensure that based on what workflow action you want, you add the corresponding workflow to the Escalation Policy that you will be using in AlertOps.
• The On-call calendar view for a group in AlertOps in ServiceNow is based on your System time zone. The current on call person is the first person who is on-call and will receive the alert.
• The ‘Retrieve Groups from AlertOps’ function will add the group with the users in ServiceNow but note that the users will have only the Email contact method. The other contact methods (Example: Phone) need to be added manually.
• Once the sync is done to AlertOps, do not change the names of the users or the groups.
• Update Set can be given from AlertOps on a requirement basis on reviewing the needs.
• Note that all the Script Includes/Business rules for the application are within the AlertOps application scope in ServiceNow
• For any queries feel free to reach out to support@alertops.com 

AlertOps-ServiceNow Outbound Integration Guide

You can create an Outbound Integration for ServiceNow , templated within AlertOps, to ensure bidirectional communication with ServiceNow, from AlertOps. (Example - when an alert is closed in AlertOps, close/resolve the incident in ServiceNow)

1) In AlertOps, under Configuration , select Integrations. Under Outbound Integrations, click '+ Add Outbound'

2) Select 'ServiceNow'. Type in your ServiceNow domain,

Once you create an Outbound Integration, if you have an Inbound Integration for ServiceNow, go there, under 'Rules for Opening and Closing Alert' under Advanced Settings, find 'SNOW Incident ID' and 'SysId' and add the following values.

3) You should find Methods for ticket creation, assignment, closure, note addition. Input your Username and Password for the API user in ServiceNow, or any user with sufficient permissions.

For 'Create Ticket' you can edit the 'Request Data' JSON, and modify urgency,priority,severity and impact as needed,using the values below,

4) Once you create the Outbound Integration, you would have to associate them with Workflows which would trigger this Outbound Integration methods based on Conditions specified in the Workflow (For either assignment, closure, or opening of the Alert). You can refer to the legacy document for creation of 'workflows' 

5) Note that every method is customizable, and you can add more methods as needed. You can refer to ServiceNow's API specification and model methods as per your requirements. For information or help contact support@alertops.com

Links and References

1) ServiceNow App Store application

2) AlertOps Application General Specs

3) Integration Guide