No-code, Low-code...it's a thing.

For those that are already familiar with the ServiceNow platform and creating solutions there, this may be a "no duh"; however, for those that are uninitiated to the power of the Now platform, this post is focused at you.

As a long-time Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) workflow jockey, I know the power of workflow to take business requirements and turn them into a real process that accomplishes something useful and delivers automation value to the business (e.g., transferring ownership of service accounts to someone else based on a leaver event).

Now, the price of admission for this powerful capability has -- in my experience -- always involved writing code...sometimes copious code. Sure, there might be a GUI that abstracts some of the code-writing into a drag-and-drop interface, but to really unlock the power of the workflow, one had to drop into the underlying workflow language to fully tap the capability of the workflow engine.

Well, I'm happy to report that ServiceNow is making that a thing of the past. Their Flow Designer component -- recently enhanced with their Quebec release -- has made me a believer in the "no-code, low-code" promise and the power of this capability embedded within a broader platform for digital transformation.

On the heels of the Super Bowl victory by Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I found myself staring at a clean slate within Flow Designer in my Personal Developer Instance (PDI) -- newly upgraded to the Quebec release. I had just listened to a great podcast by Chuck Tomasi about Flow Designer enhancements in Quebec and decided to take it for a spin.

While a trivial "Hello, World" exercise, I was amazed at how quickly I was able to create a workflow all within the Flow Designer interface with no coding. The goal was simple. If any task is created or updated that contains "TOM BRADY" in the short description, then run an action that logs "The GOAT is in the house!" to the ServiceNow core logging system. Ponder for a moment, the code required to detect an event like that. The beauty is that ServiceNow has already abstracted that away and made it available as a simple trigger condition in a graphical interface.

ServiceNow has done an amazing job of making their core platform accessible to the Flow Designer interface. Virtually any "event" happening on the Now platform can be used to trigger a workflow using an intuitive UI (and no code). The following screenshot shows how I did that for my flow. This took all of 60 seconds (can you say "productivity"?).

With my trigger defined, it was time to define the action I wanted my workflow to take. The Flow Designer UI makes this straightforward. You can add actions that tap into Now platform APIs and integrations, or you can implement flow logic like if-then-else conditionals and for-each iterators. Keeping my learning exercise simple, I simply dialed up the built-in action for calling the Now platform logging component.

About 10 minutes into my effort, I was ready to test and publish my workflow. I edited an existing incident record, adding "TOM BRADY" to the short description and clicked update.

As any developer knows, the ultimate gratification is when your "code" works the first time. Navigating to the System Log and filtering on GOAT, I was happy to find my flow worked perfectly -- just like an endzone pass to Gronkowski.

The Now platform is pretty amazing -- a cloud-delivered service for implementing all manner of IT processes, customer workflows and employee workflows that accelerate a company's digital transformation.

For those looking for a little deeper insight into what Flow Designer can do, check out this video on an all-too-familiar use case around user off-boarding.

Until next time...keep on innovating!