Workflow Activities

Workflow administrators can pin a custom activity to prevent the system from automatically updating that activity when a new version is downloaded from the ServiceNow Store.

Approval and rollback activities generate and manage approvals.

The Parallel Flow Launcher activity exposes additional variables you can use in scripts.

The Log Trace Message activity writes a trace message to the workflow log.

Workflow timer activities store data independently of each other in an activity-specific scratchpad.

Notification workflow activities notify users of events that occur during the workflow.

When a user creates a custom activity and saves or submits it, that activity appears in the Custom and Packs tabs of the designer palette, but is only visible to the user who created it.

Subflow activities run and manage workflows from a parent workflow.

Timer activities pause workflows for set periods of time.

Certain Notify workflow activities support variable substitution for reading text to callers.

Utility activities provide controls over the path of the workflow, and other useful tools.

Workflow activity properties reference

A WorkflowCoordinator object specifies which subflows to run and the input variables to pass to those subflows.

The Add Worknote activity adds text to the Worknotes field of the current incident record.

The Approval Action activity performs an approval action on the current task.

The Approval Coordinator activity creates an approval whose outcome depends on the outcome of one or more child activities, including one or more Approval - User, Approval - Group, and/or Manual Approval activities.

The Approval - Group activity creates approval records for each member of a specified group.

The Approval - User activity creates one or more individual user approvals.

The Attachment Note activity adds an attachment to the current record.

The Branch activity splits the workflow into multiple transition paths from a single activity.

The Catalog Task activity creates a service catalog task record.

Condition activities provide conditional branching and logical operation functionality for workflows.

The Create Event activity adds an event to the event queue, but does not immediately fire the event.

The Create Task activity generates a record on any of the tables that extend Task [task].

The Generate activity immediately creates task or approval records from any task or approval activities placed after the Generate activity in the workflow path. These pre-generated tasks and approvals start when the task and approval activities are reached during flow execution. This allows a task to have a set of associated pre-generated sequential tasks or approvals, but still require them to be completed in order.

The If activity checks a condition or script to determine if a Yes or No transition should be taken.

The Join activity unites multiple execution paths into one transition.

The Lock activity prevents other instances of this workflow from continuing past this activity until the lock is released.

The Log Message activity writes a message to the workflow log.

The Manual Approvals activity watches and manages any approvals that users add manually outside of the workflow process. This activity only selects approvals that are in the Not requested state.

The Notification activity sends an email or SMS message to specified users or groups.

The Parallel Flow Launcher activity launches multiple subflows in parallel.

This example shows how to use the Parallel Flow Launcheractivity with an array of input values and with a WorkflowCoordinator object.

The legacy REST Message activity enables an administrator to override the REST endpoint or supply the variables configured in the REST Message module.

The Return Value activity returns a value to a parent workflow, when run from a subflow.

The Rollback To activity transitions directly to the activity specified by the outgoing transition line arrow.

The Run Script activity runs the specified script in the scope of the workflow version.

The Set Values activity sets values on the current record when the workflow quiesces or ends.

The SLA Percentage Timer activity pauses the workflow for a duration equal to a percentage of an SLA.

The legacy SOAP Message activity uses SOAP messages defined in the System Web Services plugin and can call the messages using a MID Server.

The Switch activity checks if the value of a passed field or variable is equivalent to one of several case values.

Task activities create and modify workflow tasks.

The Timer activity pauses the workflow for a specified period of time.

The Turnstile activity limits how many times a workflow can pass through the same point.

The Unlock activity releases a lock that was previously placed by the Lock activity.

The Wait for condition activity causes the workflow to wait at this activity until the current record matches the specified condition.

The Wait for WF Event activity causes the workflow to wait at this activity until the specified event is fired.

Available activities are displayed in the Core, Packs, and Custom tabs in the Workflow Editor palette.

Customize which workflow variables appear on an activity properties form and how the variables are arranged on the form.

Activities contain default conditions that determine which transitions are followed.

Transitions define the processing path of the workflow, depending on conditions defined in each activity.

Tooltips are available for workflow activities to help you understand how to use each activity.

Workflow activity reference, organized by category.

When you work with approvals, you need to understand how approval activities interact with approval engines, how to correct a skipped approval workflow activity, and how rollbacks work.