1 Introduction to the ServiceNow Ticketing Connector
This chapter covers the following topics:
ServiceNow Ticketing Connector Overview
The ServiceNow ticketing connector integrates Oracle Enterprise Manager with ServiceNow through an HTTPS connection. Using this connector you can create, update, resolve, close, or reopen tickets (incident tickets) on the ServiceNow system for any incident generated in Enterprise Manager.
Note:
Incident tickets in ServiceNow are referred to as tickets in Enterprise Manager and the ServiceNow Connector.
The ticket generated by the connector contains the relevant information about the Enterprise Manager incident, including a link to the Enterprise Manager console to enable service desk analysts to leverage Enterprise Manager's diagnostic and resolution features to resolve the incident. In Enterprise Manager, the ticket ID and link to the ServiceNow console is shown in the context of the incident. This provides Enterprise Manager administrators with status information and an easy way to quickly access the ticket.
Figure 1-1 shows the communication between the various components of the ServiceNow connector:
Figure 1-1 ServiceNow Connector Communication Between Components
Auto Ticketing
Auto ticketing refers to creating or updating tickets automatically for any matching rule(s) in Enterprise Manager. You can define a set of event or incident rules for which tickets must be opened/updated for changes in underlying event or incident attributes. For example, changing event severity from Warning to Critical can update the associated ticket.
See the Incident Management chapter in the Oracle Enterprise Manager Administrator's Guide for more information.
After the ticket is opened, any subsequent update of the incident attributes or underlying event attributes, such as a change in underlying events severity, updates the ticket. After the incident is cleared in Enterprise Manager, the ticket is updated and you can optionally go to ServiceNow to close the ticket, or use a template that automatically closes/resolves the ticket in ServiceNow.
See Also: Automatically Creating a Ticket
Manual Ticketing
From the Enterprise Manager console, you can manually open a ServiceNow ticket based on an open incident in Enterprise Manager. The ServiceNow connector populates the ticket with details based on the incident and the ticket template selected.
See Also: Manually Creating a Ticket
Ticket Templates
Ticket templates are XML transformation style sheets that transform Enterprise Manager incident information to a ticket format before the requests are sent to ServiceNow. A ticket template specifies how an Enterprise Manager ticket and its associated event attributes can be mapped to the incident attributes of ServiceNow.
In Auto Ticketing, while setting up a rule, you select a configured connector and select the ticket template from the template list. The selected ticket template is used when a ticketing request is sent to ServiceNow. For manual ticketing, you must select a connector instance and ticket template before submitting a request for ticket creation.
The ServiceNow Connector includes three out-of-box default ticket templates. You can customize default templates according to your functional needs. Oracle recommends that you back up these factory-built templates before customizing them.
See Also: Working with Ticketing Templates.
Grace Period Setting
The Grace Period setting, available on the connector configuration page, enables you to prevent creating many tickets for frequently created incidents due to reoccurrence of the same event on which the incident was created.
For example, an event is raised and causes an incident to be created in Enterprise Manager. The rule defined to create the ticket enforces the ticket to be created on the ServiceNow system. If the grace period is one hour and the event is cleared at 10:00 a.m., this clears the incident and ticket. If the same event reoccurs before 11:00 a.m. and enforces creation of another incident, then the grace period functionality stops creation of a new ticket and reopens the same ticket instead.
If you want to reopen a ticket with the Create, Update, and Close template, then the associated user (that is, the account used when setting up the connector) must have the role admin in ServiceNow. If you want to reopen a ticket for incident occurrences that fall within the grace period without the ServiceNow admin role, set the ticket status to Resolved instead of Closed when the incident clears or use a different template. This setting enables the ServiceNow Connector to reopen the ticket if the same incident reoccurs within the grace period.
See Also: Configuring a Connector Instance
Retry
The Retry setting, available on the connector configuration page, enables you to specify whether a failed ticketing request needs to be retried within a configurable expiration time.
Enabling the Retry option gives you the option of specifying whether you want to resend a ticketing request if the request fails the first time, and specifying the time period after which you want to abandon the retry. Enterprise Manager retries every 2 minutes until the request is successful or the retry interval expires.
See Also: Configuring a Connector Instance
Versions Supported
The ServiceNow Connector supports the following versions of Oracle Enterprise Manager and ServiceNow:
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Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c Release 1 (13.1.0.1.0) and Release 2 (13.2.1.0) and later versions.
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Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 4 (12.1.0.4.0) and later versions.
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Visit My Oracle Support for list of supported ServiceNow releases.
Protocol Supported
The ServiceNow Connector supports only the HTTPS protocol for communication between Enterprise Manager and ServiceNow. See Enabling SSL for HTTPS for instructions on importing the Server Certificate to Enterprise Manager.