Flow Designer – snhackery

Service Account Management, Part XVI

Posted on February 14, 2023 | by snhackery | 2 Comments

“Inside of every problem lies an opportunity.”
— Robert Kiposaki

Last time, we wrapped up all of the work on the Service Account requisition process, although we left a number of things that could have improved the process to some mythical future effort. Unlike the SNH Form Fields or SNH Data Table Widgets, which were intended to be used as is, without the need to touch any of the provided code, the Service Account Management app is more of a sample of what could be done, with the understanding that implementers would want to craft their own account types, notice templates, and fulfillment Flows based on their unique requirements. Since it is just an example, and more of a concept than a product, we don’t need to solve every issue or build out every conceived improvement. We created enough pieces to demonstrate that it works, and that pretty much addresses the intent of the project.

So what’s left? One thing that we will want to do once a Service Account has been delivered will be to check back every so often and ensure that it is still needed. This is actually a common practice for a number IT artifacts, and the applications for such a process go well beyond the realm of Service Accounts. Periodically checking to see if a thing is still needed is something that could be applied to servers deployed for a development project, or access granted to vendors or contractors, or laptops issued to temporary staff, or communications links established with outside entities, or any number of other items that are deployed, granted, or procured for a limited purpose. That actually could be a stand-alone product that one could use out of the box, and one that could potentially have quite a few applications in an IT organization. In fact, for our little exercise here, let us assume that such a product exists, and we won’t bother to build out that capability here. However, one day we might tackle the development of such a product, and if we do, we can then use our Service Account Management app as one example of how such a product might be employed. But that’s not today’s worry.

So, again, what is left for us to do. So far, we have created our Scoped Application, built out all of our database tables, and created a process through which someone can request a new Service Account. If we assume that the periodic process though which these accounts will be reviewed will be handled by a separate product, then what is left for our product?

One thing that would be useful would be series of table views from both the requester’s perspective and the fulfiller’s perspective. Each might want to see a list of active accounts, retired accounts, and pending accounts. This is something for which the SNH Data Table Widgets were designed, so let’s see if we can use that product to produce a single dashboard that would contain all of these interrelated lists.

To begin, we will select Content Selector Configurator from the Tools menu (which is only there because we have previously installed SNH Data Table Widgets).

*Selecting the Content Selector Configurator from the Tools menu*

On the initial screen of the configurator, we will want to click on the Create a new Content Selector Configurator button.

*Creating a new Content Selector Configurator*

We will call our new script ServiceAccountDashboardConfig and use the Add a new Perspective button to create two perspectives, Requester and Fulfiller. We may want to add a third at some point for an Admin view, but for now, let’s just focus on the two primary user perspectives. Once we click on the Add a new Perspective button, a modal dialog pops up where we can enter the details of our new perspective.

*Incomplete modal pop up for adding a new perspective*

Well, that’s not right! The modal pop-up box is supposed to have several input fields and it is only tall enough to show the first one. There doesn’t seem to be any way to drag down the bottom of the box to reveal the rest of the form, either, so you can’t even get to the buttons that should be down at the bottom. This is probably another Tokyo thing that I am going to have to resolve, so it looks like it is time to set this project aside and dig into this little issue.

It’s always something.

OK, well, I will see if I can’t figure out what is going on here, and once I do, we will get back to this in a future installment. Hopefully, this will be a quick break!

Service Account Management, Part XIV

Posted on January 30, 2023 | by snhackery

“Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow.”
— Mary Tyler Moore

Last time, we modified and tested the automated example Subflow using our new approach, so now we have to do the same thing with our manual example. Because we are now creating our Catalog Task in the primary Flow, much of the work that was previously done in the earlier version of the Subflow has now been moved to the primary Flow, so there won’t be much left to do in the manual version of the Subflow. In fact, it may even be possible to create a generic Subflow that would handle all manual implementations. For now, though, let’s just create one specifically for our example and we can explore that possibility at some later point.

Under our new approach with two parallel tracks (one for the task creation and the other for launching the type-specific Subflow), we cannot put any post-task-closure logic in our Subflow since the wait logic is in one track and the Subflow is running independently in another. In our original example, once the task closed we pulled the password out of a catalog variable and then removed that value from the variable so it would not be left on the records after processing. We still need to do this, but since it cannot be done in the Subflow, we will have to move these steps to the primary Flow. And since the password was originally sent back in the Subflow outputs, which will continue for all automated implementations, we need to set up a Flow Variable that can be populated from either track to make all of this work for both types.

To create a Flow Variable in the App Engine Studio, pull up the primary Flow and use the ellipses menu in the upper right-hand corner to select Flow Variables.

We will call our new variable password and set the type to String. It would be nice to set the type to Password or some other masked data type, but in the current version, that does not appear to be an option.

Now that we have our variable defined, we can populate it in both parallel branches where appropriate, and then use in the outgoing email instead of using the Subflow outputs. Under the branch that creates the Catalog Task, we can add a new step to pull the password value out of the variables linked to the task.

*Pulling the password value out of the Catalog Task variables after task closure*

Now, the one thing that we do not want to do is to overlay a value provided by the other branch running the Subflow, so before we use this value to populate our new variable, we will want to make sure that a value is there. To do that, we add a simple If condition.

*Checking for the presence of a password value*

Once we know that a password was provided, indicating a manually fulfilled request, we then use that value to populate our Flow Variable.

*Setting the value of the Flow Variable*

That should take care of the first parallel branch. Now we need to do something similar for the second branch. After we run our Subflow, we can pull the password value returned by the Subflow and use it to populate our new variable.

*Populating the variable from the Subflow outputs*

Now we just need to go into the step that sends out the email containing the password and change the source of the email body from the Subflow outputs to the new variable.

*Sending out the password from the variable instead of the Subflow outputs*

That should take care of all of changes for the primary Flow. In fact, virtually all of the work that was done in the original manual example Subflow has now been moved to the primary Flow, so there isn’t much left to do in the Subflow. Let’s pull that guy up now and strip out everything that we are now handling in the Flow and see what’s left.

*Stripped down version of the manual fulfillment Subflow*

As you can see, the only thing left in the Subflow is to assign the Subflow outputs. This would indicate that we could do yet another redesign and have either a generic manual Subflow, or make the Subflow optional and only include one if the fulfillment is automated. We could add the owner instructions to the type record, fetch both the password and the success/failure from the task, and then even the automated Subflows would have no need for outputs. They would communicate to the primary Flow via the task record. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s see if all of this works as it is. Now that we have modified the primary Flow, we will need to retest both the automated example and the manual example to see if they both work. That sounds like a good subject for our next installment.

Service Account Management, Part XIII

Posted on January 25, 2023 | by snhackery

“Challenges are what makes life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.”
— Joshua J. Marine

Last time, we finished up with the modifications to our primary fulfillment Flow, so now we need to modify one of our example Subflows so that we can test out this new approach to the design. Since we already had the first example working under the old design, let’s start with that one, the one that builds ServiceNow Service Accounts. Even though we did not build the Subflows in the App Engine Studio, they do appear there once they are created, so we can edit them while in the studio without having to resort to the older Flow Designer.

*Selecting the Subflow from the dashboard*

The first thing that we will want to do is to alter the input from a Requested Item to a Catalog Task.

Next, we will need to alter the source of the Requested Item record in the first step. Now that we are using the Catalog Task as input, we will have to pull the Requested Item record from the appropriate Catalog Task property.

*Getting the Requested Item record from the Catalog Task*

The remainder of the existing workflow should be OK as it is, but under our new approach, our automated Subflow has one additional responsibility: we need to close the Catalog Task, both for a successful completion and for any kind of failure. Let’s handle the success story first by inserting an Update Record action just before we assign the Subflow outputs.

*Closing the task on a successful completion*

On the failure branch, we need to do the same thing, with different values, right before we assign the Subflow outputs at the end of that process.

At this point, all we need to do is to Save and Activate the Subflow and take it out for a spin. The easiest way to try it out would be to jump into the Service Catalog and place another order.

Looking at the resulting Requested Item reveals that the Flow and Subflow executed successfully and the account was created.

*Resulting Requested Item in Closed Complete state*

So the Subflow that was working before is now working again using our new approach. Now we have to modify the manual example that wasn’t working before and see if that guy works under our new approach as well. Let’s jump into that next time out.

Service Account Management, Part XII

Posted on January 13, 2023 | by snhackery

“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.”
— Mark Twain

Last time, we started reworking our primary fulfillment Flow to resolve the problem that we encountered during the testing of our second example Subflow. In the midst of that process, we found that we needed to rework the inputs on our custom Action that calls the type-specific Subflow, so let’s fire up our old friend the Flow Designer and take care of that now. The first thing that we will want to do is to delete the existing Requested Item record input.

*Deleting the existing input for the Requested Item*

Once that is gone, we will want to replace it with a new input for the Catalog Task.

Next, we need to jump down to the script step and modify its inputs in the same way and map the new catalog task input to the matching action input.

*Mapping the new Catalog Task input to the script step’s inputs*

And finally, we will want to modify the script to pass in the new catalog_task variable instead of the original requested_item variable.

(function execute(inputs, outputs) {
	try {
		var result = sn_fd.FlowAPI.getRunner()
			.subflow(inputs.subflow)
			.inForeground()
			.withInputs({catalog_task: inputs.catalog_task})
			.run();
		var returned = result.getOutputs();
		for (var name in returned) {
			outputs[name] = returned[name];
		}
	} catch (e) {
		outputs.success = false;
		outputs.failure_reason = 'Subflow execution failed with error: ' + e.getMessage();
	}
})(inputs, outputs);

Now we can Save and Publish our modified Action and get back to our work on the primary Flow, but before we can test anything, we will need to modify all of our Subflows. For one thing, our Subflows are not expecting to receive a Catalog Task right now, and of course, since we are sending in a Catalog Task, that will requiring altering the logic in both of our example Subflows. But let’s finish up the primary Flow before we worry too much about that.

Now that our Create Service Account custom Action takes a Catalog Task as an input, we can drag the data pill from the Look Up Record step into the appropriate input and click on the Done button.

*Mapping the Catalog Task to the action input*

At this point, the rest of the primary Flow should continue to work as originally conceived. Future steps will not execute until both parallel branches have been completed, so automated Subflows should end when the second branch is completed and manual Subflows should end when the first branch is completed. Either way, the rest of the primary Flow should execute as before once both branches have finished their work.

The next thing that we will need to do before we can resume testing is to modify one or both of the example Subflows. Both of those will require a bit of redesign to accommodate our new approach, so that sounds like a great subject for our next installment.

Service Account Management, Part XI

Posted on January 10, 2023 | by snhackery

“Don’t waste your time being upset about something you can’t change. Begin again and do it better this time.”
— Joyce Meyer

Last time, we finished up our second fulfillment Subflow and took it out for a spin. Unfortunately, our first test of the new process died before it ever really got off of the ground. It turns out that you cannot launch a Subflow from a script when that Subflow contains a manual task that may not be completed for some time. Our Subflow ended with an error message indicating that the Subflow was in a wait state, which is actually true, as the Subflow was waiting for the manual task to be completed.

*Failed text of second fulfillment Subflow*

This is no small problem. If we cannot convince the script to wait for the manual task to be completed, then we are going to have to rethink the entire approach to the primary Flow. We don’t really need a task to be created when the process is automated, but we could still open up the task in the primary Flow, and then pass the task to the Subflow instead of the Requested Item. This would mean that any automated Subflows would have the responsibility of closing the task, but that would work. The problem, of course, is that if you check the Wait box on the task, no further steps in the process will execute until the task is closed, and the task isn’t set to be closed until you execute those future steps. That’s not going to work!

Fortunately, the Flow Designer allows you to run separate steps in parallel. We can create the task in one branch and then call the Subflow in a separate parallel branch. This should work, although it is a complete redesign of everything that we have put together so far in the fulfillment realm. Oh, well … as one of my previous supervisors used to tell me all the time, if it was easy, then anyone could do it!

So here is what we need to do: instead of calling the appropriate Subflow and passing in the Requested Item, we will need to create two parallel paths with one responsible for creating the task and waiting for its completion and the other responsible for calling the appropriate Subflow. Since you cannot drag data pills from one parallel branch to another, our second branch will need to wait for a bit to insure that the task has been created, and then read the task from the database so that it can have a task data pill to pass in to the selected Subflow. This changes quite a number of artifacts that we have already built, so let’s dive in and start hacking things up. To begin, let’s pull up our primary Flow in the App Engine Studio and insert a Do the following in parallel Flow Logic step right after we fetch the Service Account Type record.

Under the first parallel path we will create our task using the Create Catalog Task action.

We will assign the task to the fulfillment group specified in the type record so that the task gets routed to the appropriate fulfillment group. For automated fulfillment processes, the automation will need to close the task with the appropriate closure code before returning to the primary Flow, which should keep the task from showing up in that group’s active work queue.

Our other branch will need access to that task record, but since you cannot drag data pills from one parallel branch to another, we will need to fetch the record from the database. Before we do that, though, we will want to make sure that the other branch has created the record, so we will want to wait a bit before we go searching for it. We can do that with another Flow Logic option, Wait for a specific duration of time.

*Waiting for the task record to be created*

10 seconds may be way too much time, or it may not be enough in some circumstances, but it is a good place to start and we can adjust it in the future if needed. After waiting for the record to be created, the next thing that we will want to do is to fetch the record so that we can pass it in to our appropriate Subflow. To do that, we will use a Look up record action.

Now that we have our task record in hand, we can drag our existing Create Service Account action in under this second parallel branch as the next step. However, the current version of the action is expecting a Requested Item record as input, and under this new approach, we are going to want to pass in the Catalog Task instead. We will need to modify that action to alter the input, which will also affect all of our existing Subflows as well. That sounds like a good subject for our next installment.

Service Account Management, Part X

Posted on January 3, 2023 | by snhackery

“The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution.”
— Charles Kettering

Last time, we started building out the second of our example fulfillment Subflows when we determined that we needed to build a custom Action to clear out the password value from the new Catalog Item Variable that we created so that the fulfilling technician could provide the new account’s password to the Flow. This is a relatively simple Action, so let’s jump right into the Flow Designer and get to it.

To begin, let’s click on the New button and select Action from the drop-down list.

We will give our new Action the name Clear Password From Task, and give it a single input, the task record that contains the password variable.

Since all we want to do here is to clear the value from the password variable, there is no need for any outputs, so we will just add a single Script step and insert the following code:

(function execute(inputs, outputs) {
	var task = inputs.catalog_task;
	task.variables.account_password = '';
	task.update();
})(inputs, outputs);

For that to work, we need to map the task record from the Action inputs to the script step’s inputs.

And that is all that there is to that. At this point, all we need to do is to Save and Publish our new Action and then we can jump back into our Subflow and use it in our next step.

*Using our new custom Action to clear the password variable*

Now all we have to do is to assign values to the Subflow outputs and that should complete the successful branch of our Subflow. Then we will need an Else condition to handle the possibility that the task was not completed successfully. But first, let’s wrap up the successful branch by assigning values to the Subflow outputs.

Here we run into a bit of a snag, as you cannot use the password value pill to populate the password output because the password output variable is a 2-way encrypted value and the password value pill is a simple string. To solve that problem, we resort to scripting, with the following code:

return fd_data._3__get_catalog_variables.account_password

This may or may not work — we will have to try it. If it doesn’t properly convert, then we will have to come up with something else. But let’s give this a shot and see what happens.

So now all that is left is to assign the Subflow outputs in the event of a failure. We do that under an Else condition, and grab the reason from the task’s closure notes.

*Setting the Subflow outputs for failure condition*

Once we Save and Publish our new Subflow, we can jump back into the Service Catalog and place another order to try it out. This time, we will select Active Directory from the list of types so that we can drive the process through our new Subflow and see what happens.

After clicking on the Request button, we are brought to our new Request record.

Clicking on the item will bring us to the Requested Item record.

At this point, we can see that something went terribly wrong somewhere along the line. The item is sitting at the Closed Incomplete state, and we never even got the chance to work the manual task that should have been created by our Subflow. That’s definitely not good. Well, that’s obviously not an optimal outcome for our test, but it should make for a fun debugging exercise for our next installment!

Service Account Management, Part IX

Posted on December 28, 2022 | by snhackery

“There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.”
— Henry Ford

Last time, we fixed a few problems with our ServiceNow account password, which wrapped up the work on that particular Subflow. That was also enough to prove out our primary Flow for fulfilling the Catalog Item we built to request a new Service Account. Now it is time build another Subflow for our other example account type, Active Directory. This time, instead of an automated fulfillment process (which, of course, is possible for A/D with some integration) we are going to assume that some technician has to create the account, so we will be issuing a Catalog Task to the folks who would be doing that. This is just to demonstrate the manual fulfillment process as opposed to the automated approach that we used last time.

Before we do that, though, let’s take a quick side trip to add Stages to our primary Flow. Flows associated with Catalog Items should always identify the fulfillment stages to provide insight into the status of the fulfillment process. We can add Stages to the Flow in the App Engine Studio by pulling up the Flow, clicking on the More Actions menu (‘…’) in the upper right-hand corner, and selecting Flow stages from the drop-down menu. Select Requested Item from the Add stages from a template selection and then click on the Add stages button. This will pull in all of the Stages defined for a Requested Item. Now all we have to do is to click on the Add a Stage button in the space above each step that begins a new Stage and choose the appropriate stage from the available list.

I selected Fulfillment for the initial Stage, Delivery for the step that creates the record in our account table, and Completed when the password email is sent out. Also, not shown on that screen shot, I selected Request Cancelled when the Service Account could not be created. That should be enough to get us started, but we may find the need to fine tune that a little bit once we see how it all comes out in testing.

There is one other thing that we need to do before we jump into building out the manual Subflow for Active Directory accounts. Since we are assuming that a technician will be creating the account and setting the initial password, we will need some way for the technician to provide the password back to the primary Flow so that it can be communicated to the requestor via the notification email. One way to do that would be to add one more variable to our Catalog Item and hide it everywhere except on the task record. Once the task is closed, we can then lift the value off of the task, pass it back to the primary Flow and then clear the value on the task record, as it will no longer be needed. With that out of the way, we should now be able to build out our new Subflow.

To begin, let’s pull up our old friend the Flow Designer and create a new Subflow called Active Directory Service Account Creation. We will use the same inputs and outputs that we created for our ServiceNow Subflow, as that is what our calling Action requires.

The first thing that we will want to do is to create the task, and there is an action already set up to do just that, so we select that and populate all of the appropriate fields.

We also want to check the Wait box, as we do not want the rest of the Flow to run until the task has been completed and we can see how it turns out. And we want to snag the variables that we need from the request so that they will be available on the task record.

*Catalog Task creation step (continued)*

Once the task is no longer active, we will want to check to make sure that it was completed successfully. We can do that with an If condition that looks to make sure that the State of the ticket is Closed Complete. If it is, then we will want to grab the password entered by the technician so that we can pass it back to the calling Flow. To do that, we use the Get Catalog Variables action.

*Grabbing the password from the task record*

Once we have a data pill with the password value that we can use for our Subflow outputs, we do not need to have the value in the database. We will want to clear the value from the new password variable that we just added. Unfortunately, while there is an existing Get Catalog Variables action shipped with the platform, there is no corresponding Set Catalog Variables action that we can use to remove the value of the variable. For that, we are going to have to create yet another custom Action.

Even though an Action that clears the value of a variable is relatively simple, creating a custom Action is a little bit of an involved process. This seems like a good place to stop for now, then, and we can jump right into creating that new Action right at the top of our next installment.

Service Account Management, Part VI

Posted on November 30, 2022 | by snhackery

“Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.”
— Plato

Last time, we built out a fulfillment Subflow for one of our two example Service Account types, so now we can build the primary Flow that will call that Subflow and do all of the other work required to fulfill the request. Although you can configure a Flow to call a Subflow using the Flow Designer, you have to specify the Subflow during the development process. In our case, the Subflow that we will want to use will be dependent on the type of Service Account requested, so we will not know which Subflow will need to be called until execution time. Ideally, we would want to look the type requested, read the record for that type to get the Subflow, and then execute the Subflow specified in the type record. Since there doesn’t seem to be a way to do that out of the box, we will need to build out a custom Action to make the Subflow call via script. I created a simple Action called Create Service Account that takes the name of the Subflow and the Requested Item record as input and returns the same outputs as our fulfillment Subflows. The script for that Action looks like this:

(function execute(inputs, outputs) {
	try {
        var result = sn_fd.FlowAPI.getRunner()
            .subflow(inputs.subflow)
            .inForeground()
            .withInputs({requested_item: inputs.requested_item})
            .run();
		var returned = result.getOutputs();
		for (var name in returned) {
			outputs[name] = returned[name];
        }
    } catch (e) {
        outputs.success = false;
		outputs.failure_reason = 'Subflow execution failed with error: ' + e.getMessage();
    }
})(inputs, outputs);

All it does is launch the Subflow with the Requested Item record passed and returns whatever is returned by the called Subflow. This will essentially perform the same function as the Call Subflow action, but with the added benefit of allowing us to pass in the name of the Subflow to be called rather than have it hard-coded in the Flow.

Now that we have the ability to call a configured Subflow, we can jump back into the App Engine Studio and build out the primary Flow. On the dashboard for our application, we can scroll down to the Logic and automation section and then click on the Add button right after the section header.

*To create a new Flow, click on the Add button near the Logic and automation section header*

Once you click on the Add button, a selection list appears, with Flow being the first option.

On this screen, we simply select Flow from the available options, which takes us to the next screen.

On this screen we enter Service Account Request Fulfillment in both the Name and the Description fields and then click on the Continue button.

The next screen just comes up long enough for the basic Flow to be created, after which we are brought to the successful completion screen.

At this point, the Flow now exists, but it has no steps, so we will want to click on that Edit this flow button to start building out the logic of the Flow. We will select Service Catalog as the trigger, and as we did with our sample Subflow, the first thing that we will want to do is to gather up the variable values from the Requested Item.

*Grabbing the variable values from the Requested Item*

This time, we will need the type, the responsible_group, and the account_id from the request. The next thing that we will want to do is to read the Service Account Type record for the requested type, so we will select Look Up Record for our action.

*Fetching the Service Account Type record*

We are looking for the record where the Name field matches the type selected on the Catalog Request. Once we have the variable values from the request and the matching type record, we can call our type-specific Subflow using the Action that we created for that purpose.

*Creating the Service Account using the type-specific Subflow*

Now we need to check to make sure that the account was created, so we add an If condition based on the success flag returned by the Subflow.

If the account was created successfully, we will want to create a record for the account in our Service Account table, but before we can do that we need to fetch the record for the responsible group from the sys_user_group table. We have the name of the group from the catalog item variables, but we need the sys_id of the record to populate the Service Account record. We can do this with another Look Up Record action, searching the table for a record with the same name.

With the user group record now in hand, we have enough information to create the new record in our Service Account table.

*Creating the new Service Account table record*

Once we have created a record for the new Service Account, we will want to inform the user that the account has been created and is available for use. I took a short-cut here and just stubbed out a simple email, but ideally you would want to use a mail template and include some boiler-plate verbiage about company policies on the use of Service Accounts, security concerns, and related information on the owner’s responsibilities. All of that would ultimately be up to anyone attempting to implement such as system, and has little relevance to the workings of the process, so I will leave that to others and just include something simple as an example.

*Informing the user of the account’s availability*

The password for the account should be sent out in a separate email, but before we do that, let’s go ahead and close the Requested Item now that the account has been created and the requested notified. To do that, we will select Update Record for our action and then drag in the pill for the Requested Item record, which will then populate the Table value.

Now all that is left to do is to send the password for the account to the requester. I took another short-cut here in that the only contents of the body of the email is the password itself with no other information, but again, this is only a sample. An encrypted email from a template would obviously be preferable here, but this at least provides a placeholder for performing this task in a much better way.

That completes the process for a successful account creation, but if the account could not be created for any reason, we still need to close out the Requested Item with that information. To do that, we will add an Else condition to our If and then insert one more step under the Else.

*Closing the Requested Item on account creation failure*

And that’s all there is to that. Now that we have our completed Flow, we can go back into our Catalog Item and specify this Flow for fulfillment. Once that has been done, we can finally request the item to generate a Requested Item record that we can use to test all of this out. That will probably be a little bit of an adventure, so let’s save all of that for our next time out.

Service Account Management, Part V

Posted on November 28, 2022 | by snhackery

“One step at a time is all it takes to get you there.”
— Emily Dickinson

Last time, we built out the majority of the Catalog Item that we are creating for the purpose of requesting a new Service Account. All that is left for us to do now is to create the process that will fulfill the request once it has been made. Because our intent is to create a single Catalog Item for any type of account, and each type of account will have its own unique account creation process, we will want to build a generic workflow of some kind that will look at the type requested and then launch the appropriate fulfillment process based on that type. Before we jump in and start creating things, though, we will need to come up with a strategy that will facilitate combining a generic outer process with a type-specific inner process.

Assuming that each type will have its own Subflow unique to the type, we will want to store a link to that Subflow on the type record that we created earlier. This way, the generic process can look at the type requested, read the record for that type, and then grab the link to the Subflow so that it can be launched. To make that work, we will need to devise some kind of standard for the Subflow in terms of inputs and outputs so that the generic process can consistently communicate with any given fulfillment Subflow. For input, the Requested Item record should suffice, but the outputs will depend on how much work will be delegated to the Subflow and how much will be handled by the primary process.

In addition to the creation of the account, our process should also perform a number of other tasks such as notifying the user of the account’s creation, sending them the assigned password, creating the record in the accounts table, and closing the request. Since everything except the account creation is universal, our Subflow should be limited to just the steps necessary to create the account, and all other activities should be handled by the primary request. For that to work, the Subflow will need to return sufficient data to the primary process so that it can successfully complete all of the other work. We also have to allow for the possibility that the account could not be created for whatever reason, and that information will need to be communicated back as well. This may change over time as we get into the weeds, but for now, I think that the following should be able to handle everything needed.

Success flag
Failure Reason
Account ID
Account Password
Account Owner Instructions

Since we will need a working Subflow to test out the primary process, it might be wise to start with that first, and then circle back to the primary process once we have a working Subflow to call. Before we do that, though, we need to figure out a way to generate a password. If you search through all of the Script Includes bundled with the product for anything that has the word password in the name, you can find a lot of password generation scripts already out there. Unfortunately, these are all in the global scope, and their access is limited to the global scope, so we can’t call any of these from our Scoped Application. If you search the Internet for password generation scripts, you can find even more, but most of these are much more sophisticated that I was looking for. Ultimately, I borrowed a few things from here and there and came up with a simple Action that had no inputs, one output, and a single script execution step with the following logic.

(function execute(inputs, outputs) {
	var upper = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ';
	var lower = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz';
	var number = '0123456789';
	var special = '!@#$%&*()_+<>[].~';
	var source = upper + lower + number + special;
	outputs.password = '';
	while (outputs.password.length < 32) {
		outputs.password += source.charAt(Math.floor(Math.random() * (source.length + 1)));
    }
})(inputs, outputs);

This does not guarantee that you will have at least one of each category of character, but with 32 positions, the chances are still pretty good that you will. I ran it a few times to see, and I didn’t think that the results looked all that bad.

dPoxtBDUqaCtFaH2knI]XI0Ts*#1rKyT
xnDRzngKOMy~py8xK[xV]2S2CTkh]RWv
knUHn*0WJ4H_Ww90gq[2TqJmKKb0Xu9v
OcWe4TKQN#0[RM1wj$p$(#_Sp.~CVTiM
>wEE!CbrFGwYccWb#H>+6pyEpZwjcJ%A

Each one seems to have a little bit of everything, so I think it is good enough for what we are trying to do here. So now that we have that in place, we can start working on our Subflow. Unfortunately, you can build a Flow in the App Engine Studio, but not a Subflow (or at least if you can, I cannot figure out how to do that). So, to build out our Subflow, we will have to jump into the old Flow Designer. To create a new Subflow, we select New -> Subflow up in the upper right-hand corner and give it a name of ServiceNow Service Account Creation. The first thing that we will do is create all of the inputs and outputs listed above.

Once we have our inputs and outputs defined, we can jump down in the Actions section and start adding steps to the flow. The first thing that we will want to do is to grab the requested account ID from the Requested Item, so we will select Get Catalog Variables from the list of available actions and drag in the Requested Item pill from the inputs.

*Fetching the account ID from the Requested Item*

For the template, we select our new Service Account Catalog Item, and once we do that, all of the variables defined for that item appear in the Available list, from which we can select account_id. This will give us an account_id pill which we can use in future steps.

The next thing that we will want to do is to find out if the requested account ID is already in use. We can do that by reading the sys_user table, so for our next step we select Look Up Record from the list of actions and select the User table from the list of tables.

*Checking the sys_user table for an existing account*

Our only condition for this is that the User ID is the requested account ID, which we again drag over from the inputs. Once we attempt to fetch the record, the next thing that we will want to do is to check and see if a record was returned, so for our next step we will select If from the Flow Logic options.

*Checking to see if a record was found on the sys_user table*

If a record was returned with the requested account ID, then we want to stop the process and return a failure message back to the calling Flow. To do that, we select Assign Subflow Outputs for our next step and fill in the values for the output fields.

*Setting the Subflow outputs for existing User ID failure*

Hopefully, the account will not already exist, so we will want to put all of our other steps under an Else condition. The first step under our Else condition will be to generate the password using the Action that we created earlier.

Once we generate the password we have enough data to create the user record, so for our next step we will select Create Record from the list of actions and populate the record with data pills from the input and preceding processes.

*Creating the new Service Account record*

Once the record has been created, we need to report back to the calling Flow, so once again we will select Assign Subflow Outputs and populate the appropriate fields.

*Setting the Subflow outputs for successful completion*

Now all we need to do is to Save and Publish our Subflow and we will have one example to use for testing. We will still need to create one more for our other example use case, but we won’t need to do that just yet. Let’s see if we can make all of this work with our first example before we run off and build another.

At this point, it would be good to test this out to make sure that it all works, but to do that we will need a valid Requested Item record to send in as input, and since we have not completed our Catalog Item, we can’t really do that just yet. Let’s build our primary Flow first, and then update the Catalog Item to point to that Flow, and then we can publish the item and do some testing. To build the Flow, we can go back into the App Engine Studio, so let’s dive into that next time out.

Collaboration Store, Part LXXXIV

Posted on October 13, 2022 | by snhackery

“The power of one, if fearless and focused, is formidable, but the power of many working together is better.”
— Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

Last time, we released yet another beta version of the app for testing, so now might be a good time to talk a little bit about what exactly needs to be tested, and maybe a little bit about where things stand and where we go from here. We have had a lot of good, quality feedback in the past, and I am hoping for even more from this version. Every bit helps drive out annoying errors and improves the quality of the product, so keep it coming. It is very much appreciated.

Installation

The first thing that needs to be tested, of course, is the installation itself. Just to review, you need to install three Update Sets in the appropriate order, SNH Form Fields, the primary Scoped Application, and the accompanying global components that could not be bundled with the scoped app. You can find the latest version of SNH Form Fields here, or you can simply grab the latest SNH Data Table Widgets from Share, which includes the latest version of the form field tag. Once that has been installed, you can then install collaboration_store_v0.7.5.xml, after which you can then install the globals, collaboration_store_globals_v0.7.xml.

There are two types of installations, a brand new installation and an upgrade of an existing installation. Both types of installs have had various issues reported with both Preview and Commit errors. On a brand new installation, just accept all updates and you should be good to go. I don’t actually know why some of those errors come up on a brand new install, but if anyone knows of any way to keep that from happening, I would love to hear about it. It doesn’t seem to hurt anything, but it would be so much better if those wouldn’t come up at all. On an upgrade to an existing installation, you will want to reject any updates related to system properties. The value of the application’s properties are established during the set-up process, and if you have already gone through the set-up process, you don’t want those values overlaid by the installation of a new version. Everything else can be accepted as is. Once again, if anyone has any ideas on how to prevent that kind of thing from happening, please let us all know in the comments below.

The Set-up Process

*The Collaboration Store Set-up process*

Once you have the software installed for the first time, you will need to go through the set-up process. This is another thing that needs to be tested thoroughly, both for a Host instance and a Client instance. It needs to tested with logo images and without, and for Client instances, you will need to check all of the other member instances in the community to ensure that the newly set-up instance now appears in each instance. During the set-up process, a verification email will be sent to the email address entered on the form, and if your instance does not actually send out mail, you will need to look in the system email logs for the code that you will need to complete the process.

The Publishing Process

Once the software has been installed and the set-up process completed, you can now publish an application to the store. Both Client instances and Host instances can publish apps to the store. Publishing is accomplished on the system application form via a UI Action link at the bottom of the form labeled Publish to Application Store. Click on the link and follow the prompts to publish your application to the store. If you run into any issues, please report them in the comments below.

The Installation Process

Once published to the store, shared applications can be installed by any other Host or Client instance from either the version record of the version desired, or the Collaboration Store itself. Simply click on the Install button and the installation should proceed. Once again, if you run into any issues, please use the comments below to provide us with some detailed information on where things went wrong.

The Collaboration Store

The Collaboration Store page is where you should see all of the applications shared with the community and there are a lot of things that need to be tested here. This is the newest addition to the application, so we will want to test this thing out thoroughly. One thing that hasn’t been tested at all is the paging, as I have never shared enough apps to my own test environment to exceed the page limit. The more the merrier as far as testing is concerned, so if you can add as many Client instances as possible, that would be helpful, and if each Client could share as many applications as possible, that would be helpful as well. Several pages worth, in varying states would help in the testing of the search widget as well as the primary store widget. And again, if you run into any problems, please report them in the comments.

The Periodic Sync Process

The periodic sync process is designed to recover from any previous errors and ensure that all Clients in the community have all of the same information that is stored in the Host. Testing the sync process is simply a matter of removing some artifacts from some Client instance and then running the sync process to see if those artifacts were restored. The sync process runs every day on the Host instance over the lunch hour, but you can also pull up the Flow and run it by hand.

Thanks in advance to those of you who have already contributed to the testing and especially to those of you who have decided to jump in at this late stage and give things a try. Your feedback continues to be quite helpful, and even if you don’t run into any issues, please leave us a comment and let us know that as well. Hopefully, we are nearing the end of this long, drawn out project, and your assistance will definitely help to wrap things up. Next time, we will talk a little bit more about where things go from here.

Useful ServiceNow links:
Main web site:	https://servicenow.com
Developer site:	https://developer.servicenow.com
Annual Conference:	https://knowledge.servicenow.com