Combine ServiceNow Data with Other Sources

Organizations can combine ServiceNow data with other sources by extracting data from the platform and replicating it to an external data repository. 

Both manual and automated (via integrations) approaches can facilitate the processes, but manual efforts to extract ServiceNow data and replicate it elsewhere are time consuming, error-prone, and often lack security.

The recommended approach is to integrate the ServiceNow platform with an external data repository. With the right integration approach, organizations have a consistent, secure and efficient means of extracting massive amounts of ServiceNow data.

• See also: ServiceNow Integrations: A Buyer’s Guide

Why Organizations Combine ServiceNow Data with Other Sources

While ServiceNow is a source of meaningful insight (on customers, operations, performance, etc.), insight is limited to data within the platform.

Combining ServiceNow data with other sources allows for more comprehensive analysis of an organization’s data and supports organizations in creating a single source of truth.

Identifying areas for operational improvement and capitalizing on emerging opportunities requires a holistic understanding of the enterprises current state. When data is siloed within a platform (as with ServiceNow data), this holistic understanding is out of reach.

By implementing ServiceNow-to-data-repository integrations, organizations can get data out of ServiceNow and transfer it into a more accessible (yet secure) data repository. As well as allowing multiple data sources to be combined, this also allows democratized, self-service access to ServiceNow data.

With self-service access, approved employees can access ServiceNow data to generate custom reports using multiple data sets, conduct analysis and support other functions and use cases such as artificial intelligence, business intelligence and machine learning.

ServiceNow users merge ServiceNow data with other data sources for increased productivity, collaboration, and enhanced data management. It provides benefits including: 

• Data democratization: Combining ServiceNow data with other sources within an external data repository extends access to ServiceNow data to employees that lack direct access to the ServiceNow platform. This boosts data availability and enables relevant stakeholders to access the correct data at the right time and in the right format.
• Visibility: When ServiceNow data is stored in an external repository, business leaders get a combined view of operational data and are better equipped to develop strategies/roadmaps based on their understanding of the enterprise’s current state.
• Advanced Analytics and Analysis: When combined with other sources, the insight gained ServiceNow data can be considered and analyzed in context. The combined data sources – stored within the external repository – can be easily retrieved by solutions for advanced analysis/analytics, business intelligence and more.
• Improved Collaboration: Combining ServiceNow with other data sources in an external data repository facilitates better collaboration, allowing disparate teams to access a holistic data set and collaborate on shared data, working towards common goals.

How to Combine ServiceNow Data with Other Sources

While manual data extraction and replication is an option, it is not recommended for data-driven organizations reliant on the timely delivery of data to support operations. 

Manual data extraction and replication is time and resource consuming. Additionally, the human factor increases the potential for poor data quality and other risks including data breaches and regulatory non-compliance.  

To effectively combine ServiceNow data with other sources requires a consistent, secure and efficient means of extracting data from ServiceNow, and automating its delivery to the target system. This is achieved via ServiceNow-to-data-repository integrations. 

There are three, primary methods of delivering ServiceNow-to-data-repository integrations:

• ETL
• API/Web-Services
• Push Technology enabled, ServiceNow-native integrations

• See also: Choosing the Right Integration Approach

While integrations can facilitate the combination of ServiceNow data with other sources, organizations should note that not all integrations are made equal.

Organizations should avoid implementing integrations with the sole goal being to connect two disparate systems. This is because this approach does not consider how the systems are connected and the implications of the approach.

Integration planning should therefore be business-goals driven. For example, an organization may need to combine ServiceNow data with other sources to improve their ability to generate comprehensive reports quickly.

In this case, an integration that impacts ServiceNow’s performance, limiting the rate data can be extracted would be unsuitable.

Integration Technologies for ServiceNow

ETL (or Extract Transform and Load) tools are one of the older forms of integration, delivering datastore to datastore transfers of data. They work well in situations where application business rules or security requirements don’t matter. They are good for staying within (behind) a firewall, when data is not time sensitive.

While they can provide high throughput – capable of transferring massive amounts of data – many organizations avoid them due to concerns regarding security and the timely availability of data. 

API/Web-services integrations are often used by large organizations where the data warehouse team makes the integration buying decisions. This is often due to their perceived convenience, since a single solution can work with data from various applications. 

However, their perceived convenience is undermined by maintenance requirements, and the approach increases the potential for performance issues, and poor data quality & availability.

This is often overlooked when the buying decision was not goals-driven and did not include the end-user of the integration.

Even when purchasing packaged solutions (Integration Platforms as-a-Service/iPaaS) the implementation, configuration and maintenance of the integration is typically left to the end user, consuming considerable resources.

Both ServiceNow’s performance and the availability of integrated ServiceNow data is affected due to limitations in the amount of data the integration can extract and replicate at once.

Limitations exist because API/web-services based integrations require ServiceNow’s operational bandwidth to run. The more data extracted from the platform, the more strain that is placed on ServiceNow.

With this approach, Servicenow recommends exporting large data sets in chunks to avoid any performance implications and impact on other services running on the system. 

This negatively affects all employees/stakeholders reliant on the timely availability of ServiceNow data.

Data loss is also a concern, as there is no inherent contingency for preserving transferred data if there is an outage at the target system. This is an even more significant issue for organizations lacking dashboards or other means of monitoring the status of data transfers as data loss in this case can go undetected.

Poor implementation of API/web-services is another significant concern. Poorly configured API/web-services create immediate problems such as poor data quality (i.e. if data is mapped incorrectly) and long-term issues in the form of costly technical debt when organizations have to expend resources to fix on-going issues.

• See also: Why You Should Avoid Web Services and API ServiceNow Integrations

Push Technology enabled, ServiceNow-native integrations are a modern approach to integrating ServiceNow data that provide a number of advantages over older integration technologies. 

Due to their native delivery within ServiceNow, implementation is fast and the learning curve – even for non-technical users – is small, since they leverage the UI ServiceNow users are already familiar with. 

Most importantly though, this approach to integrating ServiceNow avoids the costly performance impacts associated with API/Web-services integrations.

Since API/web-services are not required to initiate the transfer of data from ServiceNow, the platform’s performance is preserved and the ServiceNow-recommended limits to extracting data do not apply. 

As such, organizations benefit from massive throughput that can extract and replicate millions of ServiceNow records every day.

Push Technology enabled, ServiceNow-native integrations also allow for data to be transformed pre- and post-send, meaning data gets to where it needs to be in a usable format on time.

The advantages of Push Technology enabled, ServiceNow-native integrations make them the best option for data-driven organizations.

Combine ServiceNow Data with Other Sources: The ServiceNow-native Approach

Thanks to a partnership with Perspectium, ServiceNow’s users can benefit from Push Technology enabled, ServiceNow-native integrations.

Perspectium’s DataSync is an integration as-a-service (IaaS) and application supporting organizations in combining ServiceNow data with other sources. It does so by initiating data transfers natively within ServiceNow, and replicating ServiceNow data to an external data repository using Push Technology.

Delivered natively within ServiceNow, DataSync does not require API/web-services to initiate data transfers.

Instead, Push Technology efficiently transfers ServiceNow data to a queue in a cloud-enabled Message Broker System. The target system (data repository) then retrieves data from the MBS, rather than directly from the ServiceNow platform, preserving ServiceNow’s performance. 

Once ServiceNow data is in the repository, it can be easily combined with other sources for more comprehensive analysis. 

Since performance isn’t impacted, Perspectium users need not worry about technical limitations disrupting and/or preventing massive data transfers.

This means data extensive tasks and use cases such as reporting, analytics, business intelligence, artificial intelligence and machine learning benefit from high data availability.

The Message Broker System also protects against data loss. Should there be an outage at the target system, data is not lost. It simply waits in the secure, cloud-enabled queue until the system is back online. The data transfer continues where it left off.

If you want to know more about combining ServiceNow with other data sources via Perspectium, talk to our experts today!