How to use the ServiceNow tile

About ServiceNow tiles

The ServiceNow tile allows you to query incidents and change requests from ServiceNow and display this data in Dashboard Server.

The ServiceNow tile is available with Dashboard Server v4.4 and above.

A Connect edition license (or above) is required for this feature. To upgrade please contact sales@squaredup.com.

To check the license edition you are using see How to check which license key is being used . To see what is included in different product edition licenses see the Licensing Overview.

Should you use the Web API tile or the dedicated ServiceNow tile?

The ServiceNow tile is available in Dashboard Server v4.4, which offers easier configuration than the Web API tile. You can display incidents and change request with the ServiceNow tile. If you want to use any other data from ServiceNow, you need to use the Web API tile.

The Web API tile can display other data in addition to incidents and change requests, it gives you more flexibility and advanced configurations.

For more information about using the Web API tile with ServiceNow see How to use the Web API tile with ServiceNow.

How to configure a ServiceNow tile

If you don't already have a ServiceNow provider, you need to create one before you can configure a ServiceNow tile (How to add a ServiceNow provider).

Add a new tile to a dashboard or a perspective and choose the ServiceNow tile.
Select the visualization for your ServiceNow tile:
Donut
Shows the results in a donut shape.
Example:
Scalar
A single value such as a number of customers or incidents.
Example:
Grid
A table of data, for example incidents or tickets.
Tip: You can turn the individual rows into links in the settings. For example, if you're displaying tickets in your grid, you can link the rows to the ticket in your external ticket system.
Did you know? Since Dashboard Server 5.4 users can search the grid, and temporarily change the column size and sorting of the grid (by clicking on the column headers) without having to access the settings. They can also expand a row by clicking on the three dots at the end of each row if cells are too small to show their entire content.

Scope:

The scope section is optional, and allows you to specify a scope to narrow down the query

Requirements for using the scope in the ServiceNow tile

It depends on the ServiceNow account you are using for a provider if you can use the scope.

How the ServiceNow account affects the ServiceNow tile
The permissions of the ServiceNow account you are using for your ServiceNow provider affect what you can see and do in the ServiceNow tile.

We recommend using a service account, which means you create an account specifically to use with the ServiceNow provider. You have different options for setting up this service account:

ServiceNow admin account
Give the ServiceNow account the admin role. This will give you full functionality in the ServiceNow tile.
ServiceNow non-admin account with ACLs
If you don't want to use the admin role due to security concerns, give the ServiceNow account only the rest_api_explorer role and use ACLs to give the account more rights. This will limit the functionality of the ServiceNow tile a little bit (see table below).
How to add the necessary ACLs to your ServiceNow account
When you are using a non-admin ServiceNow account for a provider, the functionality of the ServiceNow tile is limited:
- You'll see an error when you used a scope for your tile
- In the View dropdown, only the non-admin default view is available (contains a default set of columns)
- Under Filter, default filters are not available, only user-created ones are visible
You can reinstate some of the functionality of non-admin ServiceNow accounts by using ACLs.
ACLs can be added in two ways:
- Adding them directly to a user account, meaning you are adding the ACLs to the service account you are using for the ServiceNow provider.
- Adding them to a role. We recommend that you create a new role specifically just for adding the ACLs to it. Then you need to assign the role to the service account you are using for the ServiceNow provider.
  A benefit of adding the ACLs to a role is that it makes them easier to manage and you can assign the role to different users (in this case, service accounts) if you want to use different service accounts for different ServiceNow providers.
You need to add the following ACLs:
- ```
sys_filter
```
- ```
sys_dictionary.*
```
- ```
sys_dictionary
```
- ```
sys_db_object
```
- ```
sys_ui_list
```
- ```
sys_db_object.*
```
- ```
sys_ui_list.*
```
What tile functions do those ACLs add when I use a non-admin ServiceNow account?
- The tile can be scoped
- Under Filter, all default filters are visible
- The ACLs don't affect the views. The View dropdown still shows only the non-admin default view. You need to use an admin Service account to see all the views.
ServiceNow non-admin account without ACLs
If you don't want to create ACLs and use only roles, give the ServiceNow account the roles rest_api_explorer and web_service_admin. This will limit the functionality of the ServiceNow tile a little bit (see table below).

	ServiceNow admin account	ServiceNow non-admin account with ACLs	ServiceNow non-admin account without ACLs
Being able to scope the tile	yes	yes (due to the ACLs)	yes (due to the web_service_admin role)
Being able to see all views in the View dropdown, not only the default view	yes	no	no
Being able to see all default filters, not only user-made ones	yes	yes (due to the ACLs)	no

Scope options on dashboards

Tip: If you experience any problems with scoping tiles, you'll find FAQs and help in the article How to scope tiles.

List

List allows you to select one or more objects or groups.

You can add multiple objects and groups. To remove an object or group click the x to the right of its name.

Tip: Start typing and after two characters you'll see suggestions that match the name appear.

Group

Group allows you to select members of a specific group. Only one group can be selected.

Advanced

Advanced allows you to select a group, class or both. You must at least define either a group or class. You can define both. You can also use criteria to narrow down your selection.

Group:

Same as the group option above.

Class:

Class equates to the target class within SCOM. As you type the dropdown will be populated with suggestions of matching classes from SCOM, from which you can select the required class.

Criteria:

Criteria allows you to create an expression to further refine the scope.

Examples for commonly used criteria

Objects you would like to see	Criteria
Objects with particular text in their name	`DisplayName like '%Server1%'`
Objects starting with a particular string	`DisplayName like 'test%'`
All objects in maintenance mode	`InMaintenanceMode = 'TRUE'`
Only healthy objects	`HealthState = 1`
Objects with a health state in SCOM of 0, an unknown health state (uninitialized), a gray health state icon with a question mark.	`HealthState = 0`
Objects that are not healthy	`HealthState != 1`
Objects in critical state	`HealthState = 3`
Objects in critical or warning state	`HealthState = 2 or HealthState = 3`
To show all gray uninitialised objects	`HealthState = 0 OR HealthState IS NULL`
All objects not in maintenance mode	`InMaintenanceMode != 'TRUE'`
Objects where the parent agent is offline	`IsAvailable='false'`
Objects that are offline, in maintenance or state unknown	`IsAvailable='false' OR InMaintenanceMode=1 OR HealthState=0`
Computers with a particular OS	`OSVersion = '6.3.9600'`
List objects by name and filter by HealthState	`(Name like '%Server3%' OR Name like '%Server4%' OR Name like '%Server2%') AND HealthState=3`
List objects by SCOM Id and filter by HealthState	`Id IN ('7021174b-9e5d-5fbf-878a-42b9f0bf6f4a', '9bd4a1cc-f07a-0e36-b37d-d9ee974e0f3c') AND HealthState=3`
Exclude object from the Group specified	`DisplayName not like '%server3%'`
Exclude objects from the Group specified	`(DisplayName NOT LIKE '%server3%') AND (DisplayName NOT LIKE '%server4%')`

For more information see:

How to use criteria when scoping objects

How to use criteria when scoping alerts

Scope options on perspectives

Note: If you never used a perspective, you should read Working with perspectives before scoping tiles on perspectives.

The power of perspectives is that tiles on a perspective can use a dynamic scope. A dynamic scope considers the currently viewed object. A dynamic scope consists of two different states:

the configuration of the scope in the tile (for example, "consider child objects of type logical disk for the currently viewed object")
the actual resolved scope that depends on which object you are currently viewing ("this object has 5 child objects of type logical disk")

After configuring the dynamic scope once in the tile, you'll get different results depending how the scope is resolved on the different objects you are viewing.

Suggestions

Suggestions are generated based on the object you are currently viewing. You'll see a list of relevant scope options based on the object's relations to other objects. Suggestions don't cover every possible scope, but they are a quick and easy way to select a suitable scope for your tile.

Note: Suggestions won't be shown if an object has no children, parents or siblings.

Tip: If the exact scope you want isn't listed in the suggestions, you can select a suggested scope that is similar to the one you want, and then click on custom. The custom section will now automatically be filled with the suggestion you picked and you can edit the scope here to adjust it exactly to your needs. This is a more intuitive way to pick a scope than starting in the custom section and navigating the SCOM object model for classes and groups.

Double-check the scope when using suggestions: Using suggestions is an easy way to pick a scope, but you need to make sure that the generated suggestion is appropriate for all objects that use the perspective.
For example, when you pick a suggestion for an EA, you will get suggestions that are specific to the map, dependencies, and availability tests for this one EA. On perspectives you want to use for all EAs, you have to change the scope suggestion in the custom section so that the tile work for all EAs.

Custom

Here you can pick objects that are related to the object you are currently looking at. If you want to create a specific scope that is not listed under suggestions, you can create the scope here.

Tip: You can pick a similar scope under suggestions first and then click on custom to edit it.

Other specific objects

Gives you the normal, non-dynamic scope options you are used to when scoping tiles on dashboards. This means the tile will not dynamically adapt it's content to the currently viewed object, it will always show data for the static object picked here.

Since the power of perspectives is that their tiles can show data for different objects depending on what object is currently being viewed, you should only select this option when you are sure that there is no relationship between the desired scope and the currently viewed object.

Provider:
Select your ServiceNow provider from the select provider drop-down and click next.
You can only use providers of the same type as the tile. Providers of other types won't be shown in the select provider drop-down.
Note: If you click on add new, you can create a new ServiceNow provider in a new tab. Click on reload after you created the new provider to be able to choose it from the drop-down.

Table:

Table:

Here you can choose if you want to get incidents or change requests (for any other data, you can't use the ServiceNow tile and need to use the Web API tiles, see How to use the Web API tile with ServiceNow).

View:

Here you choose the view that determines the set of columns which will be displayed. Views are created in ServiceNow and the list of views is populated from there.

To allow the ServiceNow views to be pulled into the ServiceNow Grid visualization the ServiceNow account must also have the 'admin' role in ServiceNow.

If you only see the non-admin default view in the View dropdown

It depends on the ServiceNow account you are using for a provider if you can see all the available views or only the non-admin default view in the View dropdown.

We recommend using a service account, which means you create an account specifically to use with the ServiceNow provider. You have different options for setting up this service account:

ServiceNow admin account
Give the ServiceNow account the admin role. This will give you full functionality in the ServiceNow tile.
ServiceNow non-admin account with ACLs
If you don't want to use the admin role due to security concerns, give the ServiceNow account only the rest_api_explorer role and use ACLs to give the account more rights. This will limit the functionality of the ServiceNow tile a little bit (see table below).
How to add the necessary ACLs to your ServiceNow account
When you are using a non-admin ServiceNow account for a provider, the functionality of the ServiceNow tile is limited:
- You'll see an error when you used a scope for your tile
- In the View dropdown, only the non-admin default view is available (contains a default set of columns)
- Under Filter, default filters are not available, only user-created ones are visible
You can reinstate some of the functionality of non-admin ServiceNow accounts by using ACLs.
ACLs can be added in two ways:
- Adding them directly to a user account, meaning you are adding the ACLs to the service account you are using for the ServiceNow provider.
- Adding them to a role. We recommend that you create a new role specifically just for adding the ACLs to it. Then you need to assign the role to the service account you are using for the ServiceNow provider.
  A benefit of adding the ACLs to a role is that it makes them easier to manage and you can assign the role to different users (in this case, service accounts) if you want to use different service accounts for different ServiceNow providers.
You need to add the following ACLs:
- ```
sys_filter
```
- ```
sys_dictionary.*
```
- ```
sys_dictionary
```
- ```
sys_db_object
```
- ```
sys_ui_list
```
- ```
sys_db_object.*
```
- ```
sys_ui_list.*
```
What tile functions do those ACLs add when I use a non-admin ServiceNow account?
- The tile can be scoped
- Under Filter, all default filters are visible
- The ACLs don't affect the views. The View dropdown still shows only the non-admin default view. You need to use an admin Service account to see all the views.
ServiceNow non-admin account without ACLs
If you don't want to create ACLs and use only roles, give the ServiceNow account the roles rest_api_explorer and web_service_admin. This will limit the functionality of the ServiceNow tile a little bit (see table below).

	ServiceNow admin account	ServiceNow non-admin account with ACLs	ServiceNow non-admin account without ACLs
Being able to scope the tile	yes	yes (due to the ACLs)	yes (due to the web_service_admin role)
Being able to see all views in the View dropdown, not only the default view	yes	no	no
Being able to see all default filters, not only user-made ones	yes	yes (due to the ACLs)	no

Filter:

Here you choose a filter to restrict the query to certain items. You'll see default filters from ServiceNow and filters that have been created by users in ServiceNow.

If you only see user-created filters but no default filters

It depends on the ServiceNow account you are using for a provider if you can see the default filters.

We recommend using a service account, which means you create an account specifically to use with the ServiceNow provider. You have different options for setting up this service account:

ServiceNow admin account
Give the ServiceNow account the admin role. This will give you full functionality in the ServiceNow tile.
ServiceNow non-admin account with ACLs
If you don't want to use the admin role due to security concerns, give the ServiceNow account only the rest_api_explorer role and use ACLs to give the account more rights. This will limit the functionality of the ServiceNow tile a little bit (see table below).
How to add the necessary ACLs to your ServiceNow account
When you are using a non-admin ServiceNow account for a provider, the functionality of the ServiceNow tile is limited:
- You'll see an error when you used a scope for your tile
- In the View dropdown, only the non-admin default view is available (contains a default set of columns)
- Under Filter, default filters are not available, only user-created ones are visible
You can reinstate some of the functionality of non-admin ServiceNow accounts by using ACLs.
ACLs can be added in two ways:
- Adding them directly to a user account, meaning you are adding the ACLs to the service account you are using for the ServiceNow provider.
- Adding them to a role. We recommend that you create a new role specifically just for adding the ACLs to it. Then you need to assign the role to the service account you are using for the ServiceNow provider.
  A benefit of adding the ACLs to a role is that it makes them easier to manage and you can assign the role to different users (in this case, service accounts) if you want to use different service accounts for different ServiceNow providers.
You need to add the following ACLs:
- ```
sys_filter
```
- ```
sys_dictionary.*
```
- ```
sys_dictionary
```
- ```
sys_db_object
```
- ```
sys_ui_list
```
- ```
sys_db_object.*
```
- ```
sys_ui_list.*
```
What tile functions do those ACLs add when I use a non-admin ServiceNow account?
- The tile can be scoped
- Under Filter, all default filters are visible
- The ACLs don't affect the views. The View dropdown still shows only the non-admin default view. You need to use an admin Service account to see all the views.
ServiceNow non-admin account without ACLs
If you don't want to create ACLs and use only roles, give the ServiceNow account the roles rest_api_explorer and web_service_admin. This will limit the functionality of the ServiceNow tile a little bit (see table below).

	ServiceNow admin account	ServiceNow non-admin account with ACLs	ServiceNow non-admin account without ACLs
Being able to scope the tile	yes	yes (due to the ACLs)	yes (due to the web_service_admin role)
Being able to see all views in the View dropdown, not only the default view	yes	no	no
Being able to see all default filters, not only user-made ones	yes	yes (due to the ACLs)	no

Configure the settings for the visualization you chose:

Settings for Scalars

Scalar

Font size	Allows you to set the font size of the value in the tile.
Unit	Allows you to add a unit to the value displayed in the Scalar tile. For example, if your value shows a time in milliseconds, you can enter "ms" or if your value shows pageviews, you can enter "pageviews".
Value formatter	Allows you to format the value by using the mustache picker. For example, you can round the value up or down or convert it.

Color

Conditional formatting:

You can display the scalar in different colors based on conditions you defined here. For example, you can display the scalar in green when the value is below 100 and in red when it is above 100.

Click on add to configure a condition.
Click on select color.... to open the color picker. Select the color for this condition.
Enter your condition in the field next to the color. You can use the value property and manipulate it with JavaScript String and Regex APIs. When you click on the mustache picker, you'll get some examples:
- Value is greater than something, less than something, etc.
  For example: {{value < 10}} (The color you picked will be used if the value is less than 10)
- Value is present in the result
  For example: value.IndexOf('error') != -1 (The color you picked will be used if the string value "error" is present in the results)
- Value matches one of the regular expressions you defined
  For example: value.match(/healthy|good|up/) (The color you picked will be used if the string values are healthy, good, or up)

Display:

Here you decide how the color is used:

Tile background	Highlight the tile in the color you defined.
Text foreground	Display the text in the color you defined.

Link options

Allows you to turn the graph item(s) into links. You can either enter plain text to create a fixed link (URL always stays the same) or use dynamic properties to create a dynamic link.

Dynamic links make use of dynamic properties which are inserted as part of the URL. This creates a template URL that will be resolved to an actual URL based on the items properties.

For example, if you want to link to tickets in your ticket system and the format of the URL for tickets in your system is https://www.my-system/ticket-123, where 123 is the ticket ID, you can use the dynamic property that contains the ticket ID and enter the dynamic URL https://www.my-system/ticket-{{ticketID}}.

For scalars, you can only use the dynamic property value in dynamic links, which means the link changes when the value of the scalar changes. Since a scalar is just one item, it would also make sense to use a fixed link, for example the link to the website of which you are displaying the response time.
For status icon or bars and the rows of a grid, you usually want to use a dynamic link since you get multiple items or rows that represent different things. You can use any of the dynamic properties the mustache picker offers you.

Click done to save the tile.
The tile now shows data according to your settings.

FAQs

Why can't I find the provider I created in the dropdown list?

If you are unable to see your provider in the list check that it is a servicenow provider. Any other types of providers will not be shown in the dropdown.

How do I query data other than Incidents or Change Requests ?

The ServiceNow tile can only show Incidents or Change Requests. If you wish to query other tables use the Web API tile to query the ServiceNow API instead of the ServiceNow tile (see How to use the Web API tile with ServiceNow).

How do I create a new view or filter ?

The list of views and filters is pulled from ServiceNow. When you create any new views and filters in ServiceNow they will be available in Dashboard Server.

SCOM LIVE KB.10.log-1851994354.zip
10 KB Download

This object	The dynamic scope will be resolved to the object currently viewed. "this object" option which does NOT mean the actual one object like for the target setting but the relative object I'm looking at
This / `child` / `child` / `class of object`	The dynamic scope will be resolved to children of the object currently viewed. You select objects of a particular class that are contained in path. The class of the objects you are selecting is stated at the end of the path.
This / *	The dynamic scope will be resolved to children of the object currently viewed. If a path ends with a wildcard () it means that you select all objects of any class* within the path. Technically it means that we fill the class field with the class "logical entity" since every object in SCOM has this class, it is a "base" class Example: `This / IIS Web Server / *` selects all objects of any class in the level below `This / IIS Web Server`.
This / `child` / ... / `class of object`	The dynamic scope will be resolved to children of the object currently viewed. If a path contains an ellipsis (...) it means that you select objects of a particular class that are contained in all of the objects that are contained in the path preceding the ellipsis. The class of the objects you are selecting is stated at the end of the path. Example: `This / Sales App Map / ... / Windows Computer` selects all objects of the class Windows Computer in the `This / Sales App Map` path.
Parent `class of object`	The dynamic scope will be resolved to parents of the object currently viewed.
Sibling `class of object`	The dynamic scope will be resolved to siblings of the object currently viewed.
Show more triangle next to a suggestion	You can click the show more triangle to expand the list of suggestions and see more specific paths.

Default	Displays the donut scaled to the height of the tile.
Fill	Enlarges the donut to use the whole width of the tile. If you chose the fill option and show the legend, you can define the size of the legend with a slider.