Is ServiceNow Creator Workflows right for your low code application development?

Organizations use ServiceNow as an intelligent Low Code Application Platform that leverages Creator Workflows. This approach enables organizations to automate and digitize business processes that transform digital workflows and modernize core applications with tailored solutions. These solutions are flexible, scalable and go far beyond first-generation cloud platforms.

In this blog post, we'll explore the opportunities on how Creator Workflows can maximize your ServiceNow investment and accelerate outcomes.

What is ServiceNow Creator Workflows?

ServiceNow Creator Workflows is part of a collection of offerings on the Now Platform designed to help organizations streamline their business processes and build custom digital workflows. Creator Workflows empowers citizen developers to create, manage, and optimize workflows with ease through an intuitive interface. App Engine is another offering that provides a more comprehensive set of tools and capabilities for developers to build complex applications and integrations to solve nearly any business challenge. As part of the ServiceNow Platform, Creator Workflows and App Engine enable organizations to undergo digital transformation across all business lines. Teams can innovate on the platform to increase operational efficiencies, enhance collaboration, and improve the overall user experience by automating manual tasks and eliminating process inefficiencies.

Creator Workflows offers a comprehensive suite of tools and features that simplifies application development and promotes collaboration across various teams within an organization. Its low-code development capabilities enable:

• Professional developers and non-technical users to create and customize workflow apps quickly
• Organizations to reduce the reliance on internal IT resources for app development
• Acceleration of the development process
• A wider range of solutions that address challenges across the organization
• Increased accessibility to accommodate specialized audiences

By leveraging Creator Workflows, organizations can automate and digitize manual processes to automate workflow and approvals, and optimize service delivery.

What problems does ServiceNow Creator Workflows address?

Organizations often struggle with various challenges, including:

• Painful, manual, and error-prone processes, leading to increased costs and risk, poor employee experience, inefficiencies, and decreased productivity
• Lack of visibility into process performance, making it difficult to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement
• Dated, frustrating experience and resource-intensive maintenance for legacy applications that fall short of customer expectations, impose high costs, and increase technical debt
• Inability to scale and meet demand with outdated systems that don’t seamlessly connect with the enterprise
• Inefficient islands of automation, leading to manual workarounds and hindering business performance
• Significant budget, time, and resources required to achieve business outcomes due to developing custom applications without the inherent capabilities and integrations with ServiceNow
• Lack of informed decision making because current applications don’t provide accessible and actionable data and analytics

ServiceNow Creator Workflows and App Engine address these issues by providing a Low Code Application Platform to create digital workflows that automate tasks, streamline processes, and enhance end-to-end functionality. Key benefits include:

• Simplified workflow creation, management, and optimization, reducing reliance on internal IT resources and empowering teams to drive innovation and efficiency
• Built-in analytics and reporting capabilities that enable data-driven decisions for continuous improvement
• A single, unified platform for managing business processes, breaking down silos, and improving collaboration
• An organized, easy-to-use, self-service portal providing consumer-grade user experiences, resulting in improved customer and employee satisfaction
• Rapid delivery of business value realized through custom applications, enabled by the efficient development capabilities provided through Creator Workflows / App Engine

By consolidating workflows onto a single platform, ServiceNow Creator Workflows ensures a cohesive and efficient approach to process management, reducing complexity, and enabling organizations to scale processes as they grow and evolve.

What are the benefits of ServiceNow Creator Workflows?

The benefits of using ServiceNow Creator Workflows / App Engine include:

• Automation: Streamline and automate repetitive tasks to save time and reduce errors, allowing employees to focus on more strategic, value-added activities.
• Low-code development: Empower developers to build apps, democratizing app creation and speeding up the development process.
• Single platform: Centralize workflows and integrate with other internal and external applications, promoting seamless communications and breaking down silos across the organization.
• Digital transformation: Drive digital transformation by modernizing business processes and IT service delivery, enhancing the customer and employee experience while staying competitive in the digital age.
• Optimization: Continuously refine workflows for maximum efficiency and effectiveness, leveraging built-in analytics and reporting capabilities to make data-driven improvements.

What kinds of workflows can ServiceNow Creator Workflows support?

ServiceNow Creator Workflows enables organizations to create or support a wide variety of digital workflows, tailored to their unique business needs and requirements. These workflows can extend beyond existing workflows within existing ServiceNow products and solutions, allowing for enhanced automation and process improvement across various departments and functions.

Some examples of the types of workflows that can be supported using ServiceNow Creator Workflows include:

• Customer Service Management: Enhance customer experience through self-service portals, digital workflows, and custom solutions to address business needs.
• ITSM: Automation and digitization to existing IT service management.
• Robotic Process Automation: Leverage RPA for routine, rule-based tasks.
• Cross Enterprise: Create custom workflows spanning multiple departments and functions.
• Procurement and Vendor Management: Enhance procurement processes by automating approval workflows, managing contracts, and tracking vendor performance.
• Compliance and Risk Management: Create workflows to automate the collection, analysis, and reporting of compliance data, helping organizations stay up-to-date with regulatory requirements.
• Sales and Marketing: Automate lead nurturing, opportunity tracking, and customer communications, improving sales efficiency and customer relationship management.

Let’s be clear—the real value comes through creating workflows that may not be in the list above but that address unique needs at your organization. By leveraging Creator Workflows, organizations can develop custom workflows that cater to their specific needs, optimizing processes and driving efficiency across various business functions.

Which industries can benefit from this?

ServiceNow Creator Workflows provides benefits to a wide range of industries by automating processes, streamlining operations, and improving overall efficiency. Some industries that can especially benefit include:

• Healthcare: Streamline patient intake and discharge processes, manage appointments, and automate healthcare workflows, improving patient care and reducing administrative burdens.
• Financial Services: Banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions can automate customer onboarding, loan processing, claims management, and compliance reporting, enhancing customer experience and reducing operational costs.
• Manufacturing: Optimize production processes, manage inventory, and streamline supply chain management, leading to increased productivity, reduced downtime, and improved resource utilization.
• Retail: Streamline order management, inventory tracking, customer service automation, and marketing campaign management, driving sales and improving customer satisfaction.
• Government: Automate workflows related to citizen services, procurement, and human resources, improving transparency, efficiency, accessibility, and compliance.
• Education: Manage student enrollment, course scheduling, resource allocation, and performance tracking, enhancing the overall educational experience for both students and faculty.
• Telecommunications: Automate network management, customer service, and billing workflows, improving service quality and reducing operational costs.
• Transportation and Logistics: Streamline shipment tracking, route optimization, and fleet management, enhancing operational efficiency and improving delivery times.

These are just a few examples of industries that can especially benefit from ServiceNow Creator Workflows. The flexibility and customization offered by this powerful, intelligent platform make it an ideal solution for any organization looking to automate processes, enhance efficiency, and drive digital transformation.

Who benefits from ServiceNow Creator Workflows?

ServiceNow Creator Workflows caters to non technical professionals within an organization who need to automate and digitize their business processes; however it is part of the larger ServiceNow platform where additional stakeholders will be involved. Some of the business roles that benefit from this solution include:

• Line of business leader: Automate manual processes, streamline approvals and seamlessly connect workflows in ServiceNow
• IT managers: Accelerate development and deployment of custom apps, reducing reliance on internal IT resources and improving overall efficiency.
• Business analysts: Simplify workflow creation and optimization, leveraging built-in analytics and reporting capabilities to drive continuous improvement.
• Process owners: Design and implement custom workflows to streamline processes, automate tasks, and improve efficiencies
• Citizen developers: Empower non-technical users to build and customize apps, encouraging diverse perspectives in the design and execution of digital workflows
• HR professionals: Automate employee onboarding, performance management, and benefits administration workflows, improving employee experience and reducing manual work
• IT professionals: Provide workflow support and/or help integrate workflows with other systems
• Procurement specialists: Enhance procurement processes by automating approval workflows, managing contracts, and tracking vendor performance.
• Compliance officers: Streamline compliance data collection, analysis, and reporting, helping organizations stay up-to-date with regulatory requirements.
• Sales and marketing teams: Automate lead nurturing, opportunity tracking, and customer communications, improving sales efficiency and customer relationship management.

Additional stakeholders include:

• Enterprise Architects: Increase and extend the value of the platform and innovate at scale by making work flow seamlessly, connecting to any system, and automating routine work.
• ServiceNow Platform Owner: Deliver high quality, connected apps your business demands with modern experiences delivered consistently on a platform your organization relies on.
• VP Application Development: Reduce technical debt and costs with governance built in, that easily integrates into your current and future enterprise architecture so you can drive greater IT efficiency.

What resources are helpful for creating and managing workflows with ServiceNow Creator Workflows?

ServiceNow provides several tools and resources for creating and managing workflows, such as:

• App Engine Studio: A Low Code Application Development Platform for building and deploying custom applications, enabling both technical and non-technical users to contribute to the development process.
• Data and analytics: Track, manage and measure performance and gain insights to help improve decision making.
• Flow Designer: An intuitive, drag-and-drop interface for designing and managing workflows, simplifying the creation of complex processes with built-in actions and logic.
• Form Builder: Empower the creation of custom forms to automate workflows
• Integration Hub: Connect workflows to external systems through pre-built connectors and API integrations, ensuring seamless communication between ServiceNow and other platforms.
• Templates: Jumpstart workflow creation with pre-built templates and best practices, reducing the time and effort required to design new workflows from scratch.
• Machine learning: Enhance workflows with AI-powered insights and decision-making, utilizing predictive analytics to optimize processes and improve overall efficiency.
• Mobile access: Access your workflow via any mobile device so you can stay connected, regardless of your location.
• Notifications: Automate notifications via configuration to communicate with targeted audiences or relevant parties.

How can I measure the success of my Creator Workflows investment?

Measuring the success of ServiceNow Creator Workflows involves tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) like:

• Time savings: Monitor the reduction in time spent on manual tasks and processes, allowing employees to focus on higher-value work and increasing overall productivity.
• Process efficiency: Evaluate improvements in process accuracy and throughput, identifying areas of optimization and ensuring the successful implementation of automation.
• Process effectiveness: Analyze improvements in your process effectiveness by measuring your expected results against your actual results, which will meet your expectations in terms of time, cost, and quality.
• Employee experience: Assess employee satisfaction with streamlined workflows and self-service options, fostering a positive work environment and promoting higher levels of engagement.
• Customer satisfaction: Measure the impact of improved customer service management on customer experience, capturing feedback through surveys and other methods to gauge the effectiveness of implemented changes.

Why enlist a ServiceNow Elite Partner to help with this?

A ServiceNow Elite Partner can provide valuable expertise in building apps and workflows with ServiceNow Creator Workflows and App Engine, ensuring the best use of available features and a seamless integration with your organization's existing systems.

Additionally, an Elite ServiceNow Partner can offer ongoing support, enhancements, and upgrades to ensure your workflows continue to deliver optimal results. By leveraging a ServiceNow Partner's expertise, your organization can accelerate digital transformation, reduce time-to-market for new solutions, and maximize the return on your ServiceNow investment.

Benefits of working with a ServiceNow Elite Partner include:

• Technical and business expertise: ServiceNow Elite Partners possess a unique combination of technical knowledge and business acumen, allowing them to develop custom solutions that address your organization's specific challenges and support your company's goals.
• Digital transformation insights: An effective ServiceNow Elite Partner is well-versed in digital transformation and business strategy, capable of identifying areas of improvement within your organization and implementing strategies that drive innovation and growth.
• Comprehensive ServiceNow journey understanding: ServiceNow Elite Partners maintain a holistic viewpoint and can identify opportunities for consistency across business units, strategizing for future solutions and building an interconnected ecosystem of applications.
• Leveraging unused App Engine licenses: Many ServiceNow customers have access to unused App Engine licenses, which can be utilized to transform workflows and solve critical business problems with custom applications. A ServiceNow Elite Partner can offer guidance in helping you take advantage of these unused App Engine licenses.
• Increased ROI: Partnering with a ServiceNow Elite Partner like Cask can help you develop apps that connect your processes through a single system of action, increasing the ROI on the platform and creating a more innovative, agile, and responsive organization.

By enlisting a ServiceNow Elite Partner to building applications with ServiceNow Creator Workflows and App Engine, you can take advantage of their expertise, insights, and support to drive your organization's digital transformation and maximize the value of your ServiceNow investment.