Connecting to ServiceNow

Concept Information

ACCESSDATA command

ServiceNow is a cloud provider of IT management solutions. Use the ServiceNow data connector to import your organization's ServiceNow data.

Note

You cannot use this connector independently of Analytics. You can configure a DSN for the connector driver using the Windows ODBC Data Source Administrator, however you must test the DSN connection from within Analytics and not from the connector's Windows DSN configuration dialog.

Before you start

To connect to ServiceNow, you must gather the following:

  • the connecting user account, including the user name and password
  • the instance to retrieve tables from
  • the Client Id and Client Secret OAuth credentials assigned when you register an application with ServieNow's OAuth authorization server

    Tip

    For more information about registering an application and obtaining OAuth credentials, search "Set up OAuth" in the ServiceNow documentation.

For help gathering the connection prerequisites, contact the ServiceNow administrator in your organization. If your administrator cannot help you, you or your administrator should contact ServiceNow Support.

Create a ServiceNow connection

  1. From the Analytics main menu, select Import > Database and application.
  2. From the New Connections tab, in the ACL Connectors section, select ServiceNow.

    Tip

    You can filter the list of available connectors by entering a search string in the Filter connections box. Connectors are listed alphabetically.

  3. In the Data Connection Settings panel, enter the connection settings and at the bottom of the panel, click Save and Connect.

    You can accept the default Connection Name, or enter a new one.

The connection for ServiceNow is saved to the Existing Connections tab. In the future, you can reconnect to ServiceNow from the saved connection.

Once the connection is established, the Data Access window opens to the Staging Area and you can begin importing data. For help importing data from ServiceNow, see Working with the Data Access window.

Connection settings

Basic settings

Setting Description Example
User The user account used to authenticate to ServiceNow. admin_1
Password

The password used to authenticate the user.

  
Instance

The ServiceNow instance to retrieve tables from.

 staging16387
OAuth Client Id

The client Id assigned when you register your application with ServiceNow's OAuth authorization server.

OAuth requires you to register your application. As part of the registration, you will receive a client Id, sometimes also called a consumer key, and a client secret. You must specify both to connect.

 356a825803610300ef0662490d237522
OAuth Client Secret

The client secret assigned when you register your application with ServiceNow's OAuth authorization server.

OAuth requires you to register your application. As part of the registration you will receive a client Id and a client secret, sometimes also called a consumer secret. You must specify both to connect.

 secretTest

Advanced settings

Setting Description Example
Convert Datetime to GMT

Converts datetime fields to GMT time zone during import. If false, the datetime value is converted to the operating system time zone of the machine running Analytics.

Note

If you select this option, any filters you apply against datetime fields using the ON (=) operator require that you use the 'Z' format specifier when entering the datetime value for the filter condition: 2017-01-01 12:38:54Z.

 true
Limit Key Size

The maximum length of a primary key column. Setting the size to 0 will make the key length revert to the original length.

This property makes the connector override the reported length of all the primary key columns.

 255
Map to Long Varchar

Controls whether or not a column is returned as SQL_LONGVARCHAR.

Use this setting to map any column larger than the specified size so they are reported as SQL_LONGVARCHAR instead of SQL_VARCHAR.

 -1
Map To WVarchar

Controls whether or not string types map to SQL_WVARCHAR instead of SQL_VARCHAR. It is set by default.

String columns must be mapped to SQL_WVARCHAR to accommodate various international character sets, so MapToWVarchar is set to true by default. You may set it to false to use SQL_VARCHAR instead.

 true
Pseudo Columns

Indicates whether or not to include pseudo columns as columns to the table.

This setting is particularly helpful in Entity Framework, which does not allow you to set a value for a pseudo column unless it is a table column.

The value of this connection setting is of the format "Table1=Column1, Table1=Column2, Table2=Column3". You can use the "*" character to include all tables and all columns.

 MyTable=*
SSL Server Cert

The certificate to be accepted from the server when connecting using TLS/SSL. You can specify any of the following:

  • full PEM certificate
  • path to a local file containing the certificate
  • the public key
  • the MD5 Thumbprint (hex values can also be either space or colon separated)
  • the SHA1 Thumbprint (hex values can also be either space or colon separated)

If using a TLS/SSL connection, this property can be used to specify the TLS/SSL certificate to be accepted from the server. Any other certificate that is not trusted by the machine will be rejected.

 C:\cert.cer
Proxy Auth Scheme

The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.

This value specifies the authentication type to use to authenticate to the HTTP proxy specified by ProxyServer and ProxyPort.

Note

The connector will use the system proxy settings by default, without further configuration needed; if you want to connect to another proxy, you will need to set ProxyAutoDetect to false, in addition to ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To authenticate, set ProxyAuthScheme and set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword, if needed.

The authentication type can be one of the following:

  • BASIC The driver performs HTTP BASIC authentication
  • DIGEST The driver performs HTTP DIGEST authentication.
  • NEGOTIATE The driver retrieves an NTLM or Kerberos token based on the applicable protocol for authentication
  • PROPRIETARY The driver does not generate an NTLM or Kerberos token. You must supply this token in the Authorization header of the HTTP request
 BASIC
Proxy Auto Detect Indicates whether to use the system proxy settings or not. Set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE to use custom proxy settings. This takes precedence over other proxy settings. true
Proxy User

A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.

The ProxyUser and ProxyPassword options are used to connect and authenticate against the HTTP proxy specified in ProxyServer.

You can select one of the available authentication types in ProxyAuthScheme. If you are using HTTP authentication, set this to the username of a user recognized by the HTTP proxy. If you are using Windows or Kerberos authentication, set this property to a username in one of the following formats:

  • user@domain
  • domain\user
 john_doe@example.com
Proxy Password

A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.

This property is used to authenticate to an HTTP proxy server that supports NTLM (Windows), Kerberos, or HTTP authentication. To specify the HTTP proxy, you can set ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To specify the authentication type, set ProxyAuthScheme.

If you are using HTTP authentication, additionally set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword to HTTP proxy.

If you are using NTLM authentication, set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword to your Windows password. You may also need these to complete Kerberos authentication

  
Proxy Server

The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through.

The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through. The driver can use the HTTP, Windows (NTLM), or Kerberos authentication types to authenticate to an HTTP proxy.

By default, the driver uses the system proxy. If you need to use another proxy, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.

 206.174.193.115
Proxy Port The TCP port the ProxyServer proxy is running on. 80
Proxy SSL Type

The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy:

  • AUTO If the URL is an HTTPS URL, the connector will use the TUNNEL option. If the URL is an HTTP URL, the connector will use the NEVER option (default)
  • ALWAYS the connection is always SSL enabled
  • NEVER the connection is not SSL enabled
  • TUNNEL the connection is through a tunneling proxy: The proxy server opens a connection to the remote host and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy
 AUTO

Data connector updates

When you upgrade Analytics, the Robots Agent, or AX Server, you should test any of your scripts that import data using one of the Analytics data connectors (ACCESSDATA command).

The possibility exists that changes made by third-party data sources or ODBC driver vendors required updates to one or more of the data connectors. Scripted data connections may need to be updated in order to continue working correctly.

  • Re-run the import The easiest way to update a connection is to manually perform an import using the Data Access window in the upgraded version of Analytics. Copy the ACCESSDATA command from the log and use it to update your script.

    Note

    Before connecting to a data source and re-running the import, clear the connector cache to flush the existing set of table names.

    In the Existing Connections tab in the Data Access window, beside the connector name, select > Clear cache.

  • Update field specifications You may also need to update field specifications in the script body to align with table schema changes in the data source or ODBC driver. Possible changes include field names, field data types, and field and record lengths.
  • Check the results of any filtering You should also check the results of any filtering that you apply as part of the data import. Confirm that the import filtering is including and excluding records correctly.

ServiceNow data connector changes

Specific changes made to the ServiceNow data connector are listed below.

Analytics version Change

14.2

ServiceNow date fields are now mapped to a date data type in the ServiceNow data connector, with a format of YYYY-MM-DD and a length of 10 characters.

Previously, ServiceNow date fields were mapped to a datetime data type in the ServiceNow data connector, with a format of YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss and a length of 19 characters. The time portion of the imported data was empty, and represented as 00:00:00.