Automation of ordering processes via a ServiceNow® module

The aim of the project was to automate the ordering process for the customer’s IT infrastructure using ServiceNow IT Service Management. In this context, it should be possible to order servers, databases, middleware, certificates and infrastructure for applications from the customer via the workflow.

An authorization concept for user group management and license monitoring formed the basic framework of the project.

In this context, the BITS team took over the coordination of the various stakeholders at the customer’s site in order to plan the implementation of the workflows via ServiceNow and to control and monitor the implementation by the customer’s developers. The implementation of each individual workflow began with a stakeholder analysis in order to consider and take into account all dependencies.

The project team was also responsible for prioritizing tasks and planning resources, both for the internal BITS team and for the client’s employees. The requirements of the specialist departments and stakeholders were recorded by the project team, processed for the customer’s development team and passed on to them in clear instructions. The BITS project team contributed its technical expertise, scrutinized the customer’s processes and advised on dependencies with other systems. The interfaces to third-party systems were also taken into account in order to ensure smooth data exchange between the ServiceNow system and the customer’s third-party systems.

Thanks to the implementation of the project and the automation of the IT infrastructure ordering process, dependencies can now be automatically taken into account when placing orders, which reduces the susceptibility to errors in these ordering processes and minimizes manual workload. A centralized system now ensures an automated and documented workflow.

A particular challenge in this project was that the ordering process for IT infrastructure is subject to many dependencies, as, for example, when ordering a server, a firewall must also be ordered, or when ordering the infrastructure for an application, the special features of the application must be taken into account and mapped in the ordering process via ServiceNow.

This challenge was solved by our team of IT project managers and consultants by integrating automated tasks into the ServiceNow workflow. This ensured that when an infrastructure component is ordered, all downstream departments and persons in the process are informed and can therefore also order the necessary components for the respective order.

Another challenge in the ServiceNow project was that, due to the amount of different IT infrastructure that can be ordered via the automated workflows, many departments and specialist areas at the customer had to be involved in the project. Several departments and specialist areas have to work together for each order.

In addition to capacity management and support coordination, the main tasks and challenges in this project included managing these various stakeholders, bringing together the different interests and identifying various solutions.

BITS experts took on the following roles in this project.