eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
Data management software provider ServiceNow on March 11 launched a new version of its Now Platform, called Quebec. It features expanded native AI capabilities and new low-code app development tools, designed to enable quick development of new applications by line-of-business employees.
With companies constantly updating the way they operate, platforms such as ServiceNow’s are enabling the digital speed, agility and resilience needed to create the tools need to do business in 2021.
The low-code workflow revolution
No- and low-code development signifies software that’s complicated under the hood yet has a user interface simple enough for line-of-business employees to modify and use. With low-code development, non-IT folks can build and customize standard business applications and make them directly relevant to the business they do every day—at their desks or on location somewhere else. Drop-down menus and wizards used in an intuitive fashion are the keys to low-code. Changes are made in real time, so that results can happen in real time. ServiceNow has been a leading provider of this developmentware.
For this latest release, the company also introduced Creator Workflows to join its existing IT, Employee and Customer Workflow portfolios. Creator Workflows feature ServiceNow’s low-code development tools, App Engine and IntegrationHub, which allow businesses to update old, manual processes into modern, digital workflows at scale.
- App Engine Studio accelerates app development at scale with a fast, intuitive and guided low-code visual development environment that empowers people with no coding experience to collaborate and build applications.
- App Engine Templates give teams access to pre-built workflow building blocks so that citizen developers can get a head start on building apps without having to start from scratch.
With the Quebec release, ServiceNow provides a single unified platform and data model so users can continually monitor and optimize business processes. This proactively identifies and avoids bottlenecks and empower employees to work in an increasingly distributed fashion, as returning to the office after the pandemic becomes an option for some organizations. Three additional new workflow solutions include:
- Process Optimization enables IT and customer service organizations to visually create and improve the underlying processes driving workflows and to proactively identify and avoid process bottlenecks to speed issue resolution.
- Workforce Optimization provides a workspace for IT and customer service managers that helps organizations optimize productivity. The workspace monitors real-time agent productivity, workload and KPIs across multiple channels, resulting in improved customer experiences.
- Engagement Messenger extends self-service to 3rd party portals to enable AI search, Knowledge Management, Case and Virtual Agent interactions, which result in increased case deflection and improved customer satisfaction.
Machine learning, native AI solutions
The Now Platform Quebec release features new native AI capabilities, including:
- ITOM Predictive AIOps, which predicts issues before they become problems and helps organizations automate resolutions;
- Virtual Agent enhancements, which accelerate time to value with guided setup and topic recommendations and speed incident resolution with end-to end AI-powered conversational experiences; and
- AI Search, which delivers a consumer-grade search experience for employees and customers, giving people the personalized, relevant, and actionable information they need right from their search window in service portals, on mobile, and Virtual Agent.
These new capabilities represent the AI functionality acquired with Loom Systems and Attivio, which have been incorporated into the Quebec release. The new release also includes advanced AIOps capabilities to give users deeper insights into digital operations and minimize and fix incidents before they become issues.
Finally, ServiceNow announced new innovations to help organizations boost employee engagement across the enterprise, including Universal Request. Universal Request enables agents to collaborate and transfer tickets across departments while keeping employees informed of the status of their tickets so that employees can stay focused on their work without being concerned about where the request is supposed to go.