How to Integrate ServiceNow with the Orion Platform

SolarWinds^® Orion^® Platform products integrate with ServiceNow^®, allowing you to automatically open ServiceNow tickets based on critical events defined within Solarwinds Orion Platform software.

With this integration you can:

• Automatically create incidents in ServiceNow based on alerts that trigger in the Orion Platform.
• Synchronize the acknowledgement of Orion alerts and ServiceNow incidents.
• Automatically update, close, and re-open ServiceNow incidents.

This video will demonstrate how to enable this integration.

First, make sure to review a few prerequisites before moving forward:

• This integration will require NPM 12.0, SAM 6.2.4, or any other Orion Platform product running Core version 2016.1 or later.
• The communication between the SolarWinds server and the ServiceNow instance uses HTTPS port 443. Be sure to open this port for outbound communication.

After that, download the ServiceNow integration application from the ServiceNow App Store. (© 2016 ServiceNow, available at https://store.servicenow.com, obtained on November 17, 2016.) This can be accessed by going to https://store.servicenow.com. (© 2016 ServiceNow, available at https://store.servicenow.com, obtained on November 17, 2016.)

In the search bar at the top, simply search on SolarWinds. You will see the Solarwinds Alert Integration app.

This application enables the communication between your SolarWinds server and the ServiceNow instance.

• After downloading the app from the store, deploy the application in ServiceNow.
• Navigate to your downloaded system applications.
• Locate the SolarWinds Alert Integration application and click Install.
• When the installation is complete, the caption of the Install button will change to

  Installed.

SolarWinds then recommends that you create a new ServiceNow integration user with

Web service access only, to be utilized for communication between the two systems.

1. First, navigate to the

   User Administration

   section in ServiceNow, and create a new user.
2. Next, provide a user ID, a password, and other required information.
3. Specify that the new user should have Web service access only.
4. Finally, edit the newly created user and add the

   x_sow_intapp.integration_user

   role to the role list. You can search on x_sow, and find it quickly on the list. Click

   update

   and you are all set.

Great! After installing the integration application, and creating an integration user, you can now configure the integration with ServiceNow in your SolarWinds Orion server.

Once these step are completed, you will be able to configure the integration to automatically create, update, and resolve alerts that were raised in your Orion Platform product from your ServiceNow instance.

1. First, in the Orion Web Console, click

   Settings > All Settings.

2. In the Alerts & Reports group, click

   ServiceNow Instances.

3. Click

   Add Instance.

4. Now, enter a name and the URL for the ServiceNow instance.
5. Enter the ServiceNow credentials:
6. The user name for the account should be the one you just configured for the SolarWinds integration role. (SWUser)
7. Enter a password.
8. Test the connection to your ServiceNow instance. If the connection is not working, you will receive a detailed message to help you resolve the issue.
9. If you are accessing your ServiceNow instance through a HTTP proxy, select

   Use a HTTP proxy server, and click the

   Configure your HTTP proxy settings

   link to edit the details. For more information on how to do this, please refer to the admin guide for steps on configuring Web proxy settings.
10. When you are finished, click

    Save.

Both systems are now integrated, so let's walk through an incident life cycle.

From the Orion Web Console, you will now have an additional trigger action available to you. This alert management action is only available if the integration with ServiceNow is enabled.

1. First, navigate to

   Alerts,

   Manage Alerts, and select a specific example.

   I have an alert created for a rebooted system. In order to send information to ServiceNow, I need to tell the Orion Platform to send data to that system.

2. When editing or adding an alert, click

   Add Action

   in the Trigger Action or Reset Action section of the Alert Wizard.
3. Next, select

   Create ServiceNow Incident

   and click

   Configure Action.

4. Under

   Select ServiceNow Instance,

   specify where you want to create the incident.
5. Under

   Incident Detail,

   define the properties of an incident template that will be used for new incidents. For example, you can define the

   Assigned to

   or

   Assignment group

   fields,

   Impact,

   Short Description, and

   Urgency.

6. Text areas can hold macro variables to add information about alerts and alert objects. In my example, I want to add a couple variables to customize the description. I want to use the node name, of course, the last boot time stamp, and a couple custom properties that tell me where this node is. I use

   Business Unit

   and

   Region.
   If you want even more detail, you can add text to the description.

   
   **If the property you want is not displayed in the Incident Detail section, click

   Select Properties

   at the bottom of the section, and select the property from the list. This list is automatically populated from your ServiceNow instance.
7. Under

   State Management, you can define the status of the incident when the incident is reset, (PAUSE) reopened, (PAUSE) acknowledged, (PAUSE) or closed. You can also specify notes to be added to the incident.

8. You can schedule the action by selecting

   Time of Day > Use special Time of Day schedule for this action.

   This schedule will only apply to the alert action you are editing. This feature is often used to prevent an action from occurring during specific windows.
9. You can then select how frequently this action will occur for each triggered alert in

   Execution Settings.

10. Click

    Add Action.

You can test the new action using the

Simulate

button. When the trigger or reset conditions of the alert are met, an incident will be created or updated in the specified ServiceNow instance.

Let's enable this alert and test it from the system.

I can pull up the node details page to SE-AUS-MGOM-02 and hit reboot.

From here, you can see that the last boot time changes.

If I log into my alerts, I am able to see that the Orion Platform certainly did trigger an alert, and actually includes the incident number generated from ServiceNow.

By clicking the incident number, I am automatically taken to the Incident view within ServiceNow. For now, let's go back to the Orion Web Console and acknowledge from here. By doing it this way, ServiceNow will validate that the appropriate state has been automatically changed to

Active.

If you scroll down in the notes, you can also see workflow activity, and who acknowledged the alert.

I can add notes and resolve incidents, which will show my incident list again, and the new state of this particular case. Integration handles ticket creation, acknowledgement, update, closure, reopening, and permanent closure. Reopening is particularly important for flapping issues. It's much more efficient and easier to understand a single ticket with a history of flapping rather than dozens of tickets opened and closed separately!

Seamless integration allows for fast, reliable, two-way communication between SolarWinds and ServiceNow. Automatic queue assignment helps ensure that action items are routed to the correct team right away. Acknowledgments, changes in behavior, or issue closures are synced so you have the latest status at your fingertips, regardless of which system you are in.

To learn more about ServiceNow integration and other features, please go to support.solarwinds.com.

Disclaimer: Please note, any content posted herein is provided as a suggestion or recommendation to you for your internal use. This is not part of the SolarWinds software or documentation that you purchased from SolarWinds, and the information set forth herein may come from third parties. Your organization should internally review and assess to what extent, if any, such custom scripts or recommendations will be incorporated into your environment. You elect to use third-party content at your own risk, and you will be solely responsible for the incorporation of the same if any.