Member Article

“DIY automation” to change how we work

Last week ServiceNow launched the next release of its cloud-based software that transforms the way we work. ServiceNow’s new software empowers IT be a change-agent for the enterprise.

Many business users are stuck using email, spreadsheets and other 20th century tools to perform their jobs, such as onboarding employees and running facilities, which require too many touch points to get things done. While the cloud gives us a new way to automate manual tasks and tap “self service” (think: online banking and Amazon), business users typically lack the technical skills to automate their workflows in the cloud.

To address this, ServiceNow is introducing new service automation apps that are simple enough for non-technical workers to create and use. Now everyone can work with IT teams to easily build cloud-based applications and publish them to a self-service catalog.

Now available are intuitive new software-as-a-service apps that enable non-technical staff to:

• Build custom applications with Service Creator
• Organise services tasks with Visual Task Boards
• View and prioritise project requests with CIO Roadmap
• Deliver service automation for facilities management with Facilities Service Automation Application (Further details are in our press release)

For example, Vitamix’s IT team worked with its HR department to create a collection of apps to automate processes in the employee lifecycle—from onboarding to separation. Vitamix has converted dozens of manual processes into cloud-based automated ones.

Similarly, Lennox, a worldwide provider of home heating and systems, sees that they can empower their business users as ‘citizen’ developers, in effect to growing their development team.

This product release delivers concretely on our founder’s vision to transform the workplace by enabling “regular” people to create meaningful apps.

Most of all, ServiceNow anticipates that this new release will help our customers move to an automated service-oriented enterprise, becoming more efficient and strategic in their operations.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Dave Wright .