Workflow Studio

Access control rules operate at the platform level, independently of playbook permissions. A user can satisfy every playbook permission and still be blocked.

Enable actions to catch step failures and continue running. Identify when specific error conditions occur and return your own action status code, status message, and error state.

Actions and subflows use variables to store input and output data. The variable data type determines what kind of data it stores and its advanced configuration options.

Add more reusable actions to your custom spoke to automate an integration.

Workflow Studio is the default ServiceNow AI Platform process automation builder used to create actions. Workflow Studio replaces the Workflow Editor.

Activate Playbooks on your instance to create playbooks in App Engine.

Activate Workflow Studio Playbooks on your instance so that you can create Playbooks triggered by CSM tables.

Activate Workflow Studio Playbooks on your instance so that you can create Playbooks triggered by tables.

Activate the Workflow Studio application to create flows, playbooks, and more for any of your use cases.

Activity definitions describe how the activities in your playbook get the data that they need when your playbook runs.

Activity execution records provide runtime information about activities in a playbook, such as the activity's current state and associated record.

Add comments or notes, and view communication and task history for a parent or associated record using the activity stream. The activity stream is available only on cards where an administrator has configured it.

Add a text description to a flow history entry. Summarize the purpose or contents of a particular flow history entry.

Add a text description to a subflow's flow history entry. Summarize the purpose or contents of a particular flow history entry.

Add and configure an activity in your playbook.

Add and configure a stage in your playbook.

Begin building your playbook by adding and configuring the trigger.

Add playbook custom layout bundles to a new or existing UI Builder page that you've created from scratch.

Add playbook custom layout bundles to a new or an existing UI Builder standard record page.

Configure your activity to show a certain set of fields based on the value of another input, such as a selected catalog item, selected decision table, or even a REST API response.

Enable an action to return custom status information when specific conditions are met. Specify whether a flow considers your custom action status as an error or a successful run.

Run a sequence of Workflow Studio actions and subflows to identify and correct issues that are caused by flow errors.

Add a Go back activity to a decision branch in your playbook and configure where the playbook returns to when the activity runs.

Create a tool in the MCP Server Console and expose it in an MCP server so that MCP clients can invoke the playbook through the MCP.

Configure when stages display to a user, define stage state labels, and add stages to a flow or subflows within Workflow Studio.

Make Playbooks available in multiple languages during runtime, to support worldwide business processes.

Add a journal field entry containing a link to the current flow context record. Use the link to view the flow execution details of the current flow. You can add a flow context link to any record that has a journal field.

Workflow Studio supports decision tables that were created in the classic environment. However, some data types and conditions from the classic environment aren’t fully supported in Workflow Studio. For unsupported field types and decisions with complex conditional logic, use the decision rule view to modify these condition expressions.

Monitor and troubleshoot issues by reviewing playbook executions.

Display detailed instructions to guide end users through your playbook.

Reference topics provide associated roles and guidelines for configuring Agentic Playbooks.

Agentic Playbooks use AI agents to help you work more efficiently. AI agents complete tasks and generate outputs for your playbook activities.

The following roles are required for runtime users to access Agentic Playbooks, and come with the Now Assist for Platform AI agents skill.

Integrate AI agents into your workflows, and enable automation, adaptability, and transparency across your business processes.

Use an existing AI agent as an activity in your playbook to automate tasks. The AI agent gathers the required context, performs the work, and produces outputs that subsequent activities can consume.

Have ServiceNow Otto for Creator scan a flow's execution details, identify errors, and suggest fixes.

Application developers can access Workflow Studio functionality through APIs for flows, subflows, and actions. Flow authors can enable individual flows, subflows, and actions to be client callable during design.

Append a value to one or more array of objects flow variables. Use flow data to generate values.

Apply reflow to out-of-the-box standalone and custom layout Playbook Experience components so that the UI adjusts when you resize your window o r zoom.

Store the conditions for approving or rejecting an approval requests.

Improve database query performance by archiving unneeded records for playbooks that are in a Complete, Error, or Cancelled state.

Store a sequence of true or false values in an array.

Store a sequence of choice list values in an array.

Store a sequence of date-time values in an array.

Store a sequence of numeric integer data in an array.

Store a sequence of JavaScript objects in an array.

Store a sequence of alphanumeric text values in an array.

Request approval for a record. Configure a set of rules to automatically approve, reject, or cancel an approval request without having to write script. Add a due date to automatically approve, reject, or cancel when a decision has not been made by a designated time.

Request approval for a record. Configure a set of rules to automatically approve, reject, or cancel an approval request without having to write script. Add a due date to automatically approve, reject, or cancel when a decision has not been made by a designated time.

Associate a record with an Email [sys_email] record so that you can track which record is affected by the email.

Display a form during runtime to collect input values for your playbook.

Create a record without pausing the playbook to ask for user input. When the activity runs, it immediately creates the record and continues to the next activity in the playbook. The record must meet server-side validation rules such as data policies, business rules and dictionary-defined mandatory fields but ignores UI policies.

Create an email from previously gathered or generated data without pausing the playbook to ask for user input. When the activity runs, it immediately sends the email and continues to the next activity in the playbook.

Update a record without pausing the playbook to ask for user input. When the activity runs, it immediately updates the record and continues to the next activity in the playbook. The record must meet server-side validation rules such as data policies, business rules and dictionary-defined mandatory fields but ignores UI policies.

Include all automation assets in the activity picker to add a subflow, flow, or action directly to your playbook without having to create an activity definition.

Workflow Studio provides a set of actions that are preconfigured to be compatible with and callable by conversational interfaces such as Now Assist.

Workflow Studio provides a set of subflows that are preconfigured to be compatible with and callable by conversational interfaces such as Now Assist.

Provides read-only actions for the read-only Benchmark Recommendation Evaluator flow.

Save a playbook variant as a favorite for quick reference.

Playbooks are ServiceNow AI Platform representations of cross-enterprise processes for your organization. Create and activate a playbook to run your digitized business process on the ServiceNow AI Platform.

Run a published ServiceNow Otto for Creator skill from an action. Configure the ServiceNow Otto for Creator skill inputs and skill outputs from the step inputs and step outputs.

Cancel a playbook to stop a business workflow when no longer valid.

Choose either the NowLLM/Mixtral model or OpenAI's GPT-4o as the default LLM to generate your playbooks.

Run a compatibility check on new or all actions to determine if they are conversational compatible. Review the inputs of an action to determine if their data types are compatible.

Run a compatibility check on new or all subflows to determine if they are conversation compatible. Review the inputs of a subflow to determine if their data types are compatible.

Verify that the playbook is compatible to be used as an MCP tool.

Prompt an agent to complete all items in a task checklist.

Prompt an agent to complete all items in a task checklist.

Store choice list values for a specific choice field.

Collects inputs from a user during a playbook run to use later in the playbook.

Compare two flow histories to see what content was added, removed, and updated.

Use complex data transform functions to serialize Complex Object data pills into an XML format.

Use a graphical interface to work with collections of complex structured data. Help design users understand the organization of structured data, and add, remove, or configure its individual elements.

Store a set of conditions for a specific type of record. You must select a source table to define the conditions.

Change the default settings for the automated archiving feature for process contexts.

Configure the Automated Test Framework (ATF) to support testing playbooks by authoring tests in the ATF UI on your ServiceNow instance.

Configure a Guided Decision Playbook to walk users through decision-driven questions and actions toward a recommended outcome, delivered as a seamless runtime experience that runs standalone or inside another playbook. The Guided Layout removes the activity and stage pickers and consolidates previous responses into an accordion.

Configure conversation settings to make an action available to conversational interfaces.

As a playbook author in Workflow Studio, configure AI Agents to perform a playbook activity.

Create a content definition that describes a set of content a filtering rule grants access to.

Create a rule that grants a role access to the content in a content definition.

Use content filtering rules to specify the role a user must have to access content.

Specify which content a user can access by creating content definitions.

Choose which LLM you want to use by default to generate descriptions for inputs, outputs, and skills for conversational actions.

Set up a playbook, public audience record, and UI experience so that guest users can run playbooks without a ServiceNow login through a public URL.

Mark one or more decision branches as the ideal path in Workflow Studio for a playbook. The playbook can highlight the expected execution route and show users a preview of upcoming activities at runtime.

Choose which LLM you want to use by default to generate descriptions for inputs, outputs, and skills for conversational subflows.

Configure Playbook Experience to show the stages and activities in an ideal path before they are executed during a playbook run.

Configuring a playbook for ServiceNow mobile is exactly the same as in a configurable workspace, but with an additional step for embedding the playbook.

Configure a record generator to let a user create the parent record for a process from inside the Playbook Experience.

Add permission sets to a playbook to restrict who can view and act on it at runtime.

Configure conversation settings to make a subflow available to conversational interfaces.

Configure a third-party LLM provider as the default LLM provider that can create a spoke using ServiceNow Otto.

Build a wizard-driven Playbook to present a playbook as a guided, step-by-step experience that walks end users through a process one activity at a time. The Wizard layout adds numbered step navigation and forward and back controls to a standard playbook.

Workflow Studio is installed automatically with each family upgrade. By updating to the latest version of Workflow Studio, you have the latest updates to decision tables. Configure Workflow Studio and assign roles to your staff based on the permission level they require.

Configure user access, API access, and properties for Workflow Studio flows.

Enable access to Workflow Studio and allow management of workflow applications.

Provides actions to automate the creation of conversations, to add users to a conversation, and to send messages to a conversation. These actions work with Connect API version 3 and later.

Restrict access to subsets of playbook content by pairing a content definition with a filtering rule.

Specify which content a user can access based on the user's role.

Run a Workflow Studio action from a Now Assist conversation. Create and configure the conversational skill from Workflow Studio.

Run a Workflow Studio subflow from a Now Assist conversation. Create and configure the conversational skill from Workflow Studio.

Convert consecutive items of a flow into a new subflow that preserves data pill references between the converted items. Update the original flow to replace the converted items with a call to the new subflow.

Copy an action to give it a new name and move it to another application scope.

Copies an attachment from the Attachments [sys_attachment] table to a target record.

Copies a directory from the source SFTP server to the target SFTP server.

Copies a file from the source SFTP server to target SFTP server.

Attaches the specified files in the SFTP server to the specified record in ServiceNow instance.

Copies the specified attachments from ServiceNow instance to an SFTP server.

Copy a flow to give it a new name and move it to another application scope.

Copy a subflow to give it a new name and move it to another application scope.

Create and define branches with different conditions for different paths between activities.

Set up a flow with a base system external trigger definition. The flow responds to an event-driven external trigger from a third-party system. For example, run a flow when an issue is created in a third-party issue-tracking system.

Create an action input based on the data type of a step input. Map the step input value to the new action input.

Create a reusable component to automate one or more steps of a process.

Specify the action or subflow you want an activity to run. Configure the inputs you want playbook designers to set when adding the activity to a playbook. Select the experience you want end users to have when the activity runs.

Create an example action to configure and run as an activity from Playbooks.

Creates a record in the Catalog Task [sc_task] table associated to a requested item in the Requested Items [sc_req_item] table. Adds the catalog task record as data to be used in the flow.

Enable agents and fulfillers to create a child case during a playbook run.

Enable agents and fulfillers to create a child task during a playbook run.

Create a skill for the conversational action and make the skill available for users in a conversation. You can have multiple skills for the same action.

Create a skill for the conversational subflow and make the skill available for users in a conversation. You can have multiple skills for the same subflow.

Generate an array of objects from a list of User records. Learn how to use a Script step to iterate through a list of records.

Generate an array of strings from a list of User Role records. Learn how to use a Script step to iterate through a list of records.

Generate an object from a User record. Learn how to use an Action output to create an object from record values.

Create an action that intentionally throws an error to test flow error handling.

Generate an object for each User record in a list. Learn how to use flow logic to iterate through a list of records.

Use data definitions to collect and use pieces of information later in a playbook.

Create a data gathering action to generate a list of choice options for a dynamic choice input.

Create a data gathering action to create arbitrary action inputs using a dynamic inputs type input.

Create an action to collect output values. Then, pass the values to a parent action as a dynamic object.

Create a data gathering action to collect record field values for a dynamic template input.

Organize multiple data variables into a structure to process them as a unit and identify the individual items within it.

Create and define branches with different conditions for different paths between stages.

Create code snippets of published decision tables in Workflow Studio to execute the decision table from any script and make it easier to replace hard-coded logic with decisions.

Create the structure for a decision table while you author your flow in Workflow Studio. Use data from the flow to create inputs, conditions, and results for the decision table, all in a convenient modal. For example: You can store the logic for incident assignments in a Decision Table, and then use that Decision Table within a flow.

Create decision tables in Workflow Studio to embed business logic into a series of if-then decision rules. Use decision tables when business logic is complex or may be reused in multiple places.

Create a decision table structure while you author your flow in Workflow Studio. Use data from the subflow to create inputs, conditions, and results for the decision table, all in a convenient modal.

Creates a new directory on an SFTP server.

Create Service Catalog variables that are only available to a specific Service Catalog flow. Flow-specific variables are available to catalog tasks and actions in the flow.

Collect data from agents interacting with a Workspace playbook. Use this data to create reusable activities for process owners using Playbooks.

Build a flow that processes events from a Kafka stream. Start the flow when an event is available in the specified topic.

Use generative AI to create a flow from text directions and images.

Use Performance Analytics indicators to start a flow. Define the flow start conditions as a set of Proactive Analytics KPI scores and KPI threshold values.

Create a flow or subflow that runs with assigned roles. Assigning roles enables you to create a user-initiated flow that runs with its own roles rather than the user's roles.

Create a flow variable to store and retrieve a value throughout a flow.

Run a sequence of actions and flow logic when the trigger conditions occur.

Start a flow when your instance receives an email.

Start a flow when a MetricBase trigger is met. MetricBase triggers track time series data and can monitor when a threshold is reached, when a trend is detected, or when a system stops reporting data.

Nest a child playbook within a parent playbook to organize your processes. Creating child playbooks that can be used in other parent playbooks enables you to define sets of activities that can be re-used across multiple playbooks to avoid duplication.

Add branches for activities and stages that run in parallel to another branch of activities and stages.

After you have created a nestable child playbook, then you can create a parent playbook to host the child playbook.

Create variations of a playbook for different use cases.

Create a playbook to set up an automated business process. Use Playbook builder in Workflow Studio to add stages, activities, triggers, and runtime permissions, then activate the playbook to make it available to agents and fulfillers.

Create and insert a new questionnaire for agents to respond to.

Creates a record on any table. You can dynamically add and configure fields for the record.

Pause the playbook and prompt the end user to create a record in a form view. Use this activity to allow the end user to create a record. This activity requires you to configure the desired table for which record to create, and the desired form view that the end user will see when creating the record.

Creates a record on any table. You can dynamically add and configure fields for the record.

Start a flow when a Service Catalog item is requested to automate the fulfillment process.

Create a scheduled trigger that starts your playbook at the required time and interval. You can schedule a trigger in any time zone, with or without an end date for the schedule.

Configure your Service Level Agreement (SLA) definition to run a flow as the action plan.

Automate an integration and generate reusable actions by providing the required third-party API documentation snippet as an input.

Automate an integration and generate reusable actions by importing an OpenAPI Specification.

Automate an integration and generate reusable actions manually.

Automate an integration and generate reusable actions by importing a Postman collection.

Use generative AI to create a subflow from text directions and images.

Reuse an entire flow's content as a subflow. Define the input data the subflow uses and the output data it generates. Call subflows from other flows or script.​

Create a task record in an extension of the Task table. After you choose the task table, you can dynamically select the fields to configure the action. Defining the Parent field associates the task to a parent record.

Create a task record from previously gathered or generated data.

Create a task record in an extension of the Task table. After you choose the task table, you can dynamically select the fields to configure the action. Defining the Parent field associates the task to a parent record.

Define the type of trigger that determines when to start running your playbook.

Create a system property to enable access to the Flow Troubleshooting Agent.

Create or update a record in a ServiceNow table using a single operation. Update a record that exists, or create a record using the values provided.

Create or update a record in a ServiceNow table using a single operation. Update a record that exists, or create a record using the values provided.

Learn how to create and configure a playbook in Workflow Studio.

Provides actions for flow designers to use when creating Customer Service Management business processes. Requires the Case Management Core [com.sn_customerservice] plugin.

Use the Service Portal Designer to customize the playbook runtime experience for Service Portal users.

Each time you add an action to a flow, Workflow Studio adds a data pill to store its results. The data pill name indicates its sequence in the flow and its data type.

Use date and time transform functions to recalculate or reformat data pills for Date/Time values.

Store date-time values.

Configure Workflow Studio to allow an inbound email to be processed by multiple inbound email triggers in a specific order.

Reference topics provide additional information about decision tables properties and administration in Workflow Studio.

Learn more about the decision tables user interface in Workflow Studio.

Decision tables in Workflow Studio enable developers to decouple decision logic from their code by creating and maintaining decision rules.

Learn about the personas who use decision tables in Workflow Studio, including roles and permissions required for certain tasks.

Use system properties to set limits on the maximum number of inputs and decisions for decision tables created in Decision Builder.

Open existing flows in a read-only state to protect them from accidental changes. While a flow is in a read-only state, you can only review, test, deactivate, or request to edit it.

Delegated development scopes playbook access to edit Playbook content within a single application, including Playbooks and Activity Definitions. Users can still use activity definitions from other scopes within their playbooks.

Delete decision tables that you no longer need from the list of decision tables in Workflow Studio.

Removes one or all attachments associated with a record and deletes the attachment record from the Attachments [sys_attachment] table.

Deletes directory on an SFTP server, including subfolders, when configured.

Delete a flow history entry from the flow history list.

Look up and delete multiple existing records as a single operation. This Workflow Studio step removes the need to first look up a list of records and then delete each record in the list.

Deletes a record on any table.

Deletes a record on any table.

Delete a subflow's flow history entry from the flow history list.

Create a sample playbook to standardize and automate how Service Desk agents handle chat interactions with VIP users.

Create, run, troubleshoot, and monitor your Workflow Studio components more effectively. Use these guidelines to optimize the performance of your Workflow Studio components.

This is an overview of domain separation as it pertains to Decision Builder. Domain separation allows you to separate data, processes, and administrative tasks into logical groupings called domains. You can then control several aspects of this separation, including which users can see and access data.

Duplicate an action or subflow within a flow.

Save time creating similar decision tables by duplicating existing tables in Workflow Studio.

Make a copy of an existing playbook with the same trigger, stages, activities, and experience configurations as the original. Edit the duplicated playbook to quickly create a working variation.

Use these options to configure dynamic inputs.

Generate a list of action inputs or input values each time that someone configures the action in a flow. Dynamic inputs can display a list of related action inputs, a list of fields from a record, or a list of options available in a choice list.

Use these options to configure your dynamic outputs for a parent action.

Access action and subflow outputs as dynamically generated data pills during flow design. You can also build data gathering actions to generate complex objects from ServiceNow AI Platform and Integration Hub outputs.

Edit published decision tables in Workflow Studio when draft authoring is enabled. Without draft authoring enabled, decision tables are active and available to use as soon as they're created.

Keep a record editable after a playbook record generator creates it.

Embed a playbook in ServiceNow mobile by creating a screen in Mobile App Builder.

Add a playbook that Service Portal users can launch and run by creating a Playbook Content Item.

Configure restart so that agents and fulfillers in Playbook Experience can restart a playbook from the beginning, or from a specific stage or activity.

Choose whether to generate execution details for all flows and actions run, just for individual flows and actions, or just when you test a flow or action. Specify the level of detail the execution details contain.

Guide end users through a playbook, step-by-step.

Create and manage flows from the enhanced Workflow Studio flow designer.

Run a published ServiceNow Otto for Creator skill and use the skill outputs in a flow or subflow.For existing actions and subflows, copy the short description from the product documentation, or insert a content reference to it. For new actions and subflows, create reusable content and insert a content reference to the short description.

Exit from a flow logic loop when the conditions of an If flow logic are met. Continue running the flow from the next step after the flow logic loop. This flow logic is also known as break.

A UI Layout describes what properties and components to use when an activity renders as a card in a Playbook Experience.

Summarize flow execution details and get recommendations to resolve errors with generative AI.

Actions automate a repeatable task or operation within a flow. Flows run actions by passing them data as inputs. Actions run a sequence of steps to complete the task, and pass data to the flow as outputs.

Learn how to create and maintain decision tables in Workflow Studio for use in flows, subflows, playbooks, and anywhere on the ServiceNow AI Platform where you write code.

Create a flow or a subflow from an image by using ServiceNow Otto for Creator. Capture the detailed process in an image and attach the image to Workflow Studio. ServiceNow Otto for Creator generates a preview of the flow that you can modify and regenerate.

Create multiple step flows and subflows with generative AI. Generate appropriate data pill values for supported flow triggers and action inputs.

Select the next component in your flow from a list of AI-generated recommendations. The system generates recommendations based on the current position in the flow and the flow component names listed before.

Flows automate a repeatable multi-step process. When the flow trigger conditions are met, the flow runs a sequence of reusable actions and flow logic to complete the process.

Playbooks is a component in Workflow Studio. Workflow Studio gives you a streamlined way to author, configure, and monitor playbooks, flows, subflows, actions, and decision tables in one place.

Subflows automate a repeatable multi-step process that also produces an output needed by another process. When a playbook, flow, or script calls a subflow, the subflow runs a sequence of reusable actions and flow logic to complete the process and produce output values.

Work with playbooks, flows, subflows, actions, data streams, and decision tables from a single consolidated interface. See operational details of your workflow applications and configure integration connections and credentials.

The External Related Files spoke stores information about files in third-party systems and helps you manage the information.

Use a single dashboard to view usage, execution, and debug information for Workflow Studio and Integration Hub transactions. Open links to related Workflow Studio properties, logs, events, and editors.

Provides actions for flow designers to use when creating Field Service Management business processes.

Store a single file attachment as part of the action or flow's associated record rather than a record in the system Attachment table.

Filter the conditions in the decision table to focus on the necessary data.

Apply filters to both condition and result columns in the Decision Tables in Workflow Studio. Filters can enhance the usability and efficiency of managing large Decision Tables. This feature can be used to view, modify, and reorder a subset of rows directly within the Decision Tables, without exporting the table to Excel.

Create a system event record in the Event [sysevent] table to be processed by a scheduled event handler. Pass event parameters using flow data.

Actions can be added to any flow, enabling process analysts to automate ServiceNow AI Platform features without having to write code.

Activate a flow to make it available to run.

Identify and troubleshoot potential issues by reviewing action and flow executions, their result state, and their runtime duration.

Debug flows and subflows from a dedicated Workflow Studio tab. Set breakpoints and step through a paused flow to review configuration and runtime values.

Delete a flow that you no longer need.

Generate a code snippet to call a specific flow, subflow or action.