How to use the Web API tile with ServiceNow

This article covers how to use the Web API tile to query data from ServiceNow and display this data in Dashboard Server.

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.

You can also watch the Webinar: Web API and ServiceNow

For more information about using the dedicated ServiceNow tile see How to use the ServiceNow tile.

This article covers these areas:

1. Prerequisites
2. Configuration in ServiceNow
3. Adding ServiceNow as a Web API provider in Dashboard Server
4. Walkthrough: Configuring the Web API tile for ServiceNow

Prerequisites

• Dashboard Server 4.4 or above.
• The SquaredUp server must have access to your ServiceNow instance on port 443 (HTTPS), since it is the server that connects to ServiceNow, and not your users' browser.
• If you use a proxy server you may need to configure the proxy (How to configure Dashboard Server to use a proxy).
• A ServiceNow account. It depends on the roles of the ServiceNow account you use for the ServiceNow provider what functions are available in the ServiceNow tile.

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).

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

Configuration in ServiceNow

1. In your ServiceNow account in the Application Navigator (left-hand menu) go to System OAuth and click Application Registry.
2. Click Create an OAuth API endpoint for external clients.
3. Give it an easy to remember name like Dashboard Server and leave the other default settings as they are.
4. Once you've created the endpoint, open the entry to view the client ID and client secret. Click the padlock next to the client secret to see it.
5. Copy client ID and client secret into a notepad for use later.

Adding ServiceNow as a Web API provider in Dashboard Server

1. Log on to Dashboard Server and navigate to the right-hand menu ☰ > system > Integrations
2. Under Integrations click on Web API, and then OAuth and type in a suitable name, e.g. ServiceNow.
3. Change the grant type to password.
4. The base URL should look something like https://instancename.service-now.com/api/now/ where instancename is your instance. If ServiceNow is installed on-premises, this may be something different. This URL is prepended to every request URL.
5. The token URL will be something like https://instancename.service-now.com/oauth_token.do where instancename is your instance.
6. username and password are exactly those used to sign into the account which was setup with the permissions mentioned in the prerequisites.
7. client id and secret are taken from the notes you made earlier.
8. Leave the authorization scope empty
9. Click save.

If the configuration is correct you will see a green tick.

If the provider is not authorized it could be that some of the provider configuration is incorrect (for example the username, password, secret etc), or if you use a proxy it could be that the proxy is not configured (How to configure Dashboard Server to use a proxy).

Walkthrough: Configuring the Web API tile for ServiceNow

This walkthrough takes you through configuring a simple tile to show a list of the open incidents.

Take a look at the ServiceNow documentation on the ServiceNow Aggregate API

You can also watch the How to integrate SquaredUp and ServiceNow tutorial Video.

1. Create a new dashboard and click on the Web API tile.

2. Select Web API (Grid).

3. The scope section (v4.2 and above) allows you to specify a scope of SCOM objects (see How to scope tiles), which can be used later in the tile configuration to insert SCOM object properties into the query. For this walkthrough you can leave the scope empty.

   If you wish to add a scope you could click on group and search to find a suitable group of computers. You need a group that contains servers monitored by ServiceNow which we can query later.

   Or for a perspective for use with Enterprise Applications (EAs), (see Enterprise Applications) you might want to scope to the servers that are specified on the EA map by selecting something similar to the following:

   This /<YourApplicationName> Map / ... / Windows Computer

   The above will scope the tile to all the objects of class Windows Computer on this EA's map.

4. In the provider section select the ServiceNow provider that you created.

5. In the http mode section paste table/incident into the URL box to make this a GET request to table/incident. This base URL is prepended to the URL.

6. In the headers & data section click add under data to add the following parameters to the request to select the correct data and format for the grid:

   • name: sysparm_display_value value: true. This will show the display value of any columns which are IDs by default.

   • name: sysparm_fields value: sys_id,urgency,short_description,severity,state,assigned_to. This will only select the fields we are interested in. You can compile a list of fields using the REST API Explorer on your own ServiceNow instance.

   • name: sysparm_limit value: 20. This will limit the number of results to the first twenty.

   • name: sysparm_query value: active=true. This will show open tickets only.

   You might like to use one of the mustache style code snippets provided (Dashboard Server v4.2 and above). You'll need to go back and define a scope for the Web API tile first, then you can either start with one of the snippets provided, or write your own dynamic query string. Dashboard Server v4.2 and above support multi-object query building based on a list of objects from the tile's scope, and the use of JavaScript to manipulate the SCOM property values using functions such as split() and substring().

   When you click the mustache editor button {{}} you will see a list of example scope code snippets, along with the snippet result based on the selected scope context for the tile.

   

   We're working on a dashboard, but the Web API tile scope and dynamic queries can be particularly useful on perspectives. For example, you might like to show ServiceNow asset information for a dynamic list of servers found as children of an Enterprise Application (EA) object (see Enterprise Applications).

7. In the response data section, paste result into the box.

   Rows of data should now be shown.

   The grid columns and grid options sections allow you to configure the columns and column names.

8. In the grid columns section, hide the sys_id column, rename and reorder other columns as you like. Some columns, like assigned_to will be returned as [object Object]. Click edit next to these columns, and then click the {} icon, then select the display value to have these display correctly.

9. In the grid options section, we can set the row link to make each row hyperlink to that ServiceNow incident. To make each row replace the sys_id with the one from that object the URL should be https://<your-instance>.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=%2Fincident.do%3Fsys_id%3D{{sys_id}}

   For more help customizing the columns of data see How to use the Grid Designer.

10. Click done.