How To Synchronize ServiceNow Data With Other Systems

Organizations that synchronize ServiceNow data with data from other systems experience greater consistency and operational resilience throughout the enterprise. 

Data synchronization is the on-going process of reproducing records between the source and external systems to maintain data uniformity. 

Organizations can sync data either dynamically or in batches in real time, and via one-way, or bidirectional data synchronization. 

Through dynamic data synchronization, organizations are better equipped to scale. They experience better data quality and are able to generate more accurate, insightful and meaningful reports.

They also experience better data democratization and data availability, enabling self-service data access for greater efficiency, software license consolidation and improved employee experience. 

Without the processes and solutions for enabling data synchronization, issues getting data to where it needs to be, when it needs to be there, generate a considerable amount of technical debt. 

This is because as the volumes of data generated scale without the infrastructure to support it, organizations create more data that must be correctly mapped and distributed at a later date – often requiring time-consuming manual procedures to do so. 

Synchronize ServiceNow Data to Create a Single Source of Truth

When an organization incorporates multiple tools/apps into its IT stack without the infrastructure to support it, incoming data from disparate sources is disorganized.

This is particularly true for organizations reliant on manual data extraction and replication processes that are unreliable and leave room for errors and security risks while moving data between systems/applications. 

Dynamic data synchronization addresses this issue head-on – it automates the data replication process by dynamically recreating records from the source, to the target system in real-time. 

This minimizes the scope for errors and creating a consistent, real-time view of data. 

Data synchronization is pivotal for data democratization, self-service access to data and collaboration between departments. It makes data more accessible to users when they need it.

• See also: Synchronize Multiple ServiceNow Instances via Data Integration

Benefits of Synchronizing ServiceNow Data With External Systems

The benefits of synchronizing ServiceNow data with other systems including: 

• Providing in-depth visibility into everyday operations, helping business leaders identify potential weaknesses and plan accordingly. 
• Improving alignment between departments and teams, facilitating transparent communication, and encouraging collaboration for enhanced productivity.
• Generating accurate, real-time insights and actionable reports for more informed business decisions.
• Extending ITSM workflows across multiple ServiceNow instances, teams, and third-party applications.
• Supporting data democratization and improving data availability, allowing different stakeholders to access the right data at the right time. 
• Enabling Service Integration and Management (SIAM) initiatives, enabling real-time connectivity and improving alignment between vendors and clients.

Four Ways to Synchronize ServiceNow Data With Other Systems 

Organizations can synchronize ServiceNow data with external apps or systems using integrations. A number of integration methods are available. 

The right method for any given organization will vary depending on their requirements, with more robust capabilities required for organizations with high data volumes requiring high throughput. 

1. DIY/Custom Integrations for Data Synchronization

Often, organizations opt for building in-house, custom integrations under the assumption that it will save on costs. However, while this integration option has low upfront costs, the maintenance costs – and costs to address mistakes, limitations and other issues – increase significantly over time. Since building integrations is inherently complex, these issues often arise and impede time-to-value, and inflate the total cost of ownership (TCO).

Internal resources must spend hours maintaining the integration to keep it functional, keeping them from working on more valuable projects. As the layers of quick fixes pile up on the patch-fix solution, it inevitably leads to technical debt.

Custom integrations are therefore only viable for one-off, “quick fix” integrations or for organizations with significant resources available to implement, manage and maintain the integrations over time. 

2. Manual/”Swivel chair” Data Synchronization

Manual data synchronization is sometimes referred to as a “swivel chair” integration or “swivel chair” data synchronization. That’s because the process involves manually extracting records from one system, switching apps (“swiveling”) and manually replicating those records at the target. 

Since this is a manual process, real-time, dynamic data synchronization is not possible. The reliance on manual processes also prevents organizations from scaling up operations as they are unable to process records fast enough to keep up with their creation.

3. Integration Platforms as-a-Service for Data Synchronization

Many third-party integration providers offer cloud-based integration platforms as-a-service (iPaaS) solutions that can automate the integration of software apps spread across different environments. 

Organizations should note that not all iPaaS solutions support dynamic data synchronization, and that iPaaS solutions only provide the platform for integrations.

Maintenance and the configuration of the platform for use within the organization is left to the customer. So while pre-packaged iPaaS solution can achieve a faster time-to-value, they still require significant internal resources to support. 

Also, iPaaS integrations typically rely on web services/API calls to facilitate data synchronization and integrate multiple systems. This approach competes for ServiceNow bandwidth, slowing down instances and degrading ServiceNow’s performance. 

4. Integration as-a-Service integration

Integration as-a-Service solutions take the benefits of iPaaS solutions and deliver them as a managed service.

Organizations benefit from the integration provider’s expertise and resources for implementing, configuring and maintaining the integrations over time.

Thus, freeing up internal resources to work on more value-adding tasks, and providing better operational resilience due to less errors in configuring the integration. 

• See also: Integration as a Service (IaaS) – Definition and Benefits

Perspectium ServiceBond: The Native Data Synchronization Solution for Now Platform

Perspectium ServiceBond is an integration as-a-service and ServiceNow-native integration application for synchronizing multiple ServiceNow instances, or synching ServiceNow data with external apps. 

Unlike integrations reliant on web-services and API to facilitate data synchronization, Perspectium applications use a highly-scalable and performance impact-free cloud-enabled architecture.

When a record is created in ServiceNow, Perspectium uses push technology to dynamically transfer that record to a cloud-enabled message bus, in real-time. The target system then retrieves that record from the message bus – as opposed to pulling it directly from ServiceNow – meaning ServiceNow’s performance is preserved. 

This also means organizations are better protected against data loss, as should there be an outage at the target system, data is not lost.

Rather, it is queued and waits securely, encrypted in the cloud-enabled message bus until the target system is back online. 

The ServiceBond technology was created by the founding developer from ServiceNow, David Loo, and it’s simply the best way to reliably, and bidirectionally connect ServiceNow workflows to other incident fulfillers, external teams and ITSM tools – without having to build and maintain it yourself, without impacting performance, and all from within a native ServiceNow app.

Want to learn more about using Persperctium to synchronize ServiceNow data with other systems? Talk to us.