ServiceNow Extension

This is a bidirectional extension integration between ServiceNow and Squadcast.

Prerequisites:

• Active subscriptions for both ServiceNow and Squadcast, with the Squadcast subscription being in the Enterprise plan.

• Full administrative permissions within Squadcast, equivalent to those of the account owner, are required to configure this extension integration effectively.

Capabilities of this ServiceNow Extension:

• Facilitates the creation of Squadcast Incidents for ServiceNow Incidents, and vice versa, either manually or automatically.

• Ensures synchronization of Incident statuses between the two platforms.

• Enables the synchronization of notes and attachments between ServiceNow and Squadcast.

• Synchronizes communication channels between the two tools.

• Provides the ability to map users seamlessly between ServiceNow and Squadcast.

• Allows mapping of Squadcast Squads and Escalation Policies with ServiceNow Assignment Groups.

• Offers the capability to map Squadcast Services with ServiceNow Configuration Items.

Step1 : Installing the Squadcast app in ServiceNow Marketplace

1. Install the Squadcast application from the ServiceNow marketplace.

2. Access the application and open the API Config Page.

Step2: Setting Up Integration User

Integration User in Squadcast

1. To set up the extension in Squadcast, the first step is to generate an API token for a user. This user is called an “Integration user” for this extension.

2. This user should have all the Squadcast org-level permissions and should have “Manage Team” and “Admin” access to the teams that should be accessed by this extension integration.

3. You can create a new “Integration User” for this extension or you can utilize an existing user as an “Integration User”.

4. We suggest you to create a new user account in Squadcast for this “Integration User”.

5. Once the user is created and all the necessary permissions are updated, generate an API token for this user.

Generating an API token

1. To generate an API token, navigate to Settings > API Token > Assign New Token > Select the integration user > click on Generate Token.

Note: Please make sure that this API token is not updated/deleted going forward.

1. The extension uses this user API token to create and manage entities in ServiceNow like users, squads, escalation policies, services, webhooks, teams, and communication channels.

2. Copy this “API token” and store it on the clipboard/somewhere.

Integration User in ServiceNow

1. Create a user account in ServiceNow to access this extension integration in ServiceNow.

2. This user’s credentials are used to validate and connect both tools.

3. Have the “username” and “password” of this user handy.

Step3: Setting up Squadcast

Navigate to Settings > Extensions > ServiceNow > click on “Integrate”

1. Enter the ServiceNow domain name. Example: instance_name.servicenow.com.

2. Enter the ServiceNow “username” and “password”.

3. Select how you would like to create ServiceNow Incidents for Squadcast Incidents

   • Automatically - This will automatically create ServiceNow Incidents for all Squadcast Incidents of selected teams.

   • Manually - From the Incident Details page, create ServiceNow Incidents for each Squadcast Incident manually. To create ServiceNow Incidents for each Squadcast Incident manually, navigate to an Incident Details page > Actions > ServiceNow > Create ServiceNow Incident.

4. Once all the details are entered, click on “Test Connection”. If all the entered ServiceNow details are correct and verified, you will see a success message else you will see an error message.

5. Once the test connection is successful, copy the “Integration Key” and store it on the clipboard/somewhere.

Step4: Setting up ServiceNow

Squadcast Details

1. In the API config page, enter the “API token” of the Squadcast user and the user’s name. This user’s name entered on ServiceNow is for your reference to know which user’s API token is used for this extension integration.

2. Enter the “Integration Key” copied from Squadcast and click on “Test Connection”. If the entered Squadcast details are correct and verified, you will see a success message else you will see an error message.

Retrieving Squadcast information and storing it in ServiceNow

1. Retrieve Teams - This option will retrieve all the Squadcast Teams and store them in ServiceNow.

2. Mark Required Teams - Use this option to mark the teams that can access this extension integration. All Squadcast information retrieved and Incidents sync will only happen for the active teams.

   • Making a team active for this integration can be done in two ways:

     1. On the team list page, select the teams, click on “Actions on Selected rows” and click “Make Teams active”.

     2. On the team details page, enable the Active checkbox.

Note: To remove a team from the extension integration, uncheck the active checkbox for that team.

1. Retrieve Users - This will retrieve all Squadcst users and validate the users with email addresses, if the email ID of the retrieved user is present in ServiceNow, Squadcast ID, and team information will be generated for the user and if the email address of the retrieved user is not present in ServiceNow, no new user account will be created in ServiceNow.

2. Retrieve Squads - This will retrieve all Squadcst Squads of the selected teams and store them in the ServiceNow. All the squads from Squadcast will be retrieved and if “Allow Squadcast Squads to be auto-mapped to SN-group” field on API config page is enabled, the name of the Squadcast Squad and ServiceNow Assignment Group matches the Squad and the Assignment Group will be mapped automatically and if the Squad name and Assignment Group name do not match, these Squads will go to the “Unmapped Squad” table in ServiceNow and you can map each Squadcast Squad to a ServiceNow Assignment Group from the Squad details page.

Under “Squadcast Squads” table, all the retrieved Squads will be listed.

• To map a Squadcast Squad with an Assignment Group, navigate to Squadcast Squad details page > under “Mapped Group”, select the Assignment Group > change the “Status” to “Mapped” and click on “Update”

1. Retrieve Escalation Policies - This will retrieve all Squadcast Escalation Policies of the selected teams and store them in ServiceNow. Each Squadcast Escalation Policy can be mapped to a ServiceNow Assignment Group.

   • To map a Squadcast Escalation Policy with an Assignment Group, navigate to Escalation Policy details page > under “Group”, select the Assignment Group and click on “Update”.

1. Retrieve Webhooks - This will retrieve all Squadcast Webhooks of the selected teams and store them in ServiceNow.

Pushing ServiceNow entities to Squadcast

1. On the API Config page, Would you like to push users from ServiceNow to Squadcast?

   1. If this is enabled, you can push ServiceNow users to Squadcast.

   2. Navigate to the Users list page, check you are in Squadcast View

   3. Select the users you would like to push to Squadcast

   4. Click on “Push Users to Squadcast” on the top right of the screen

Note: These users are pushed to Squadcast without any permissions and added to the default team with the default user access.

1. On the API config page, Would you like to push groups from ServiceNow to Squadcast?

   1. If this is enabled, you can push ServiceNow Groups to Squadcast.

   2. Navigate to the Squadcast Team details page.

   3. Select the Groups tabs at the bottom and click on edit.

1. Select the groups you would like to push to Squadcast

2. Click on “Save” on the bottom right of the screen

ServiceNow Incident Template

Select the ServiceNow incident template when the incident is created from Squadcast from the dropdown. Incident in ServiceNow will be created based on the template provided here.

Incident State Mappings

Incidents across tools will be synced based on this state mapping

1. Map the ServiceNow states against each Squadcast States

2. Each Squadcast State should at least be mapped to one ServiceNow State.

3. Each Squadcast State can be mapped to multiple ServiceNow States.

Other Configuration Details

1. Select the default resolution code when the incident is resolved from Squadcast from the dropdown.

   • In Squadcast, Incidents can be resolved without any resolution codes. Selecting this will automatically update the resolution code when the incidents are resolved from Squadcast

2. Enter the query for automatic incident creation in Squadcast for ServiceNow Incidents.

   • Provide the query for automatic Squadcast incident creation for ServiceNow incidents

   • Whenever this query matches the ServiceNow incident a Squadcast incident will be created

   • To generate a query, navigate to the Incidents/Squadcast Incidents page > Use the filter option and apply the right filters > click on “Run” filter > Right-click on the filter and click on “Copy query”. Generate and use this query according to your use case

1. Select the default user.

   • If any non-Squadcast or non-ServiceNow user takes any incident action, the action on the other tool will be taken by this user.

2. Would you like to create a new user in Squadcast if the incident in ServiceNow is assigned to a non-Squadcast user?

   • If this is enabled, and if the incident in ServiceNow is assigned to any non-Squadcast user, a new user account will be created in Squadcast.

   • Note: The new user will only be added to the Default Team in Squadcast.

Service Config Page

Navigate to “Service Config Page” to retrieve Squadcast Services and to map Squadcast Services with ServiceNow Configuration Items.

Open the “Service Config Page” and follow the steps

1. Select the “Classes” that need to be looked up with the Squadcast Service name.

2. Once the classes are selected, click on “Map Fields for Selected Tables”

3. For each selected table, select the column that needs to be checked

   1. If the column value and the Squadcast Service name match upon Services retrieval, Squadcast Service will be automatically mapped to that Configuration Item.

   2. You can also manually map the Configuration Item with Squadcast Services later on once the retrieval of Services is done

4. Once the column name is selected, click on “Save”

5. Click on “Retrieve Services”

Mapping ServiceNow Configuration Item with Squadcast Service Manually

To map a ServiceNow Configuration Item with Squadcast Service,

1. Navigate to the “Squadcast Services” page

2. Open a Squadcast Service record

3. Manually enter the “Configuration Item”

4. And the status to “Mapped”

Show Squadcast notes in ServiceNow

To show Squadcast notes in ServiceNow,

• Navigate to any one of the ServiceNow Incident

• Under "Activities" Click on the filter icon near the work notes

• Click on “Configure available fields”

• And enable “Squadcast Notes”

Incident Assignment, when a ServiceNow Group has both Squadcast Escalation Policy and Squadcast Squad, mapped to it

If the ServiceNow Assignment Group has both Squadcast Escalation Policy and Squadcast Squad mapped to it and when it is assigned to an Incident in ServiceNow, in Squadcsast, the Incident will be assigned to the Escalation Policy mapped to it. The Escalation Policy will take precedence over the Squad.

And if the ServiceNow Assignment Group doesn’t have Squadcast Escalation Policy mapped and only Squadcast Squad mapped to it and when it is assigned to an Incident in ServiceNow, in Squadcsast, the Incident will be assigned to the Squad mapped to it.

Assign roles to Users in ServiceNow to access the Squadcast Application and Incidents

Below are the roles required for users to access the Squadcast Application and Incidents in ServiceNow.

Squadcast Inbound Configuration Rules

Squadcast Inbound Configuration Rules will help you to update a ServiceNow Incident field record with a preset value or from a Squadcast payload. Create rules to dynamically attach values from Squadcast Payload to ServiceNow Incident fields.

Before creating the rules, let’s understand how you can get the payload.

1. Navigate to any Squadcast Incident record page in ServiceNow

2. Scroll to the bottom and click “Squadcast Incident logs”

3. There you can find payloads for Incident creation and updation

Creating Inbound Configuration Rules

1. Navigate to “Squadcast Inbound Configurations”

2. Click on New to create a new record

3. Select the “ServiceNow Incident Field” that you would like to update

4. Select the “Status” on when you would like this rule to execute

   • You can select from these three options

     1. Triggered

     2. Acknowledged

     3. Resolved

   • When any of these actions take place on Squadcast, the rules will be triggered

5. Select the “Type”

   • Set Default Value

     1. You can set a default value and whenever this rule is executed, this default value is added to the incident field.

     2. Set from Squadcast Payload.

        • Use this to set a value dynamically based on the Squadcast payload.

6. Provide “Order” and “Description”. Mark this rule “Active”.

7. If you want this rule to restrict to a specific Squadcast Service, you can select a “Squadcast Service”/

8. If you have selected, Set value from Squadcast Payload, In “Squadcast Payload”, provide the path of the variable

   1. Example:

      • Consider this as a payload

{
"alert_source": "Squadcast UI",
"assignee": {
"id": "6527ed2d5ab00b088a309fe9",
"type": "escalationpolicy"
},
"caller": "654b6ab662aed395203266b1",
"close_notes": "",
"communication_channel": [],
"description": "",
"notes": [],
"payload": {
"alertsourceid": "6077f7225fdc7075e371685f",
"assignedto": {
"id": "6527ed2d5ab00b088a309fe9",
"type": "escalationpolicy"
},
"attachments": [],
"createdby": "6459d6d161a3f1060175a042",
"description": "",
"message": "test incident",
"organizationid": "6527ed2d5ab00b088a309fe2",
"owner": {
"id": "6527ed2d5ab00b088a309fe7",
"type": "team"
},
"priority": null,
"serviceid": "658eae7339500834c0164b92",
"tags": {}
},
"short_description": "test incident",
"squadcast_id": "6593a2a0ace6e17cfd9dca59",
"squadcast_services_id": "658eae7339500834c0164b92",
"status": "triggered",
"tags": {},
"team": "6527ed2d5ab00b088a309fe7"
}

• And if you want the Assignee ID to be added to a ServiceNow Incident field, you can write this assignee.id.

11. If you want to run a lookup script, you can also provide the script.

12. Click on “Save”.

Validating the Squadcast Payload Path

To validate the Squadcast Payload Path that you have provided in the inbound configuration

1. Navigate to the Squadcast Inbound Configuration rule.

2. Click “Validate Payload”.

3. A modal will open, provide the “Path” and the “Squadcast Payload”.

   1. The Squadcast Payload varies for your use case and Incidents.

   2. To get a Squadcast Payload for your Incidents.

      1. Navigate to one of your Squadcast Incidents in Service and open the record.

      2. You can see the payload of the Incident under “Activities”.

      3. Copy the payload and paste the payload in the modal under “Squadcast Payload”.

1. Click “Test”.

2. Under “Evaluate Squadcast Payload” you can see the results. This result is applied to the ServiceNow Incident Field.

That’s it. Now that all the configuration is done. You can now start using this extension.

Enabling and Disabling ServiceNow Extension Integration

• When Enabled: Incident synchronization occurs seamlessly.

• When Disabled: Incident synchronization is halted, preventing the creation or mapping of incidents in both systems.

Note: Disabling the integration preserves all entered information in Squadcast; only incident synchronization ceases.