How to Set Up and Configure the ServiceNow Connector

All BA Insight connectors can be downloaded from the Upland Community under Knowledge > BA Insight > Product Downloads > Connectors. This connector is installed using the installation wizard, as outlined in Connectivity Hub documentation. You must satisfy the Prerequisites for your connector before installing. The configuration specifics are detailed below.

Connection Configuration Specifics

Procedure:

  1. In the Connectivity Hub administration portal, create a new web service connection Connection defines the how Connectivity Hub connects to your Source System (which contains your documents, graphics, etc.,). Your Connection includes identifying elements such as: URL of the BA Insight web service connector you are using, (File Share connector, SharePoint Online connector, etc.), Authentication mode, User Accounts and Credentials, Database information (for database connectors). for more information, see Connect to a Source System in the Connectivity Hub documentation.
  2. The ServiceNow connector 2.5.0.0 and later support Oauth Specifies a process for resource owners to authorize third-party access to their server resources without providing credentials. authentication as well as basic authentication. On the Connect to web service page, in the Services field, select the authentication method you want to use.
  3. Go to the Connection page and select the General Settings tab.
  4. If you selected ServiceNow Connector with Basic Auth in step 2, complete the following:
    1. Login: Specify the name of the crawling account with the necessary rights (see ServiceNow Connector Prerequisites).
    2. Password (required): Enter the account password.
    3. Max concurrent requests: Enter the number of item data requests that can be concurrently processed by the connector.
    4. ServiceNow Instance URL: (connection parameters): Enter the link of the ServiceNow instance that is indicated in the placeholder found in this field.
    5. Scripted Rest Security API: This is the link setup from connector Prerequisite topic Resolving Scripted User Criteria.

    6. Include Connected Content Topic details: This checkbox allows you to include additional topic details for Knowledge Base and Catalog items in the ESC_CONNECTED_CONTENT metadata Provides context with details such as the source, type, owner, and relationships to other data sets. Metadata provides details around the item being crawled by Connectivity Hub. field of the connector output. If this field is enabled, the format is {Content Name};{Taxonomy Name};{Topic Name};{Topic Path}. If this field is not enabled, the format is {Content Name};{Topic Name}.

  5. If you selected ServiceNow Connector with OAuth in step 2, complete the following:
    If you select this option, you must Configure Oauth authorization for your ServiceNow connector
    1. Username: Enter the username that is used for the ServiceNow instance.
    2. Authorization Id: Enter the Client ID that is assigned to your OAuth Application Registry. For more information see the Configuring Oauth authorization for your ServiceNow connector section below.
    3. Max concurrent requests: Enter the number of item data requests that can be concurrently processed by the connector.
    4. ServiceNow Instance URL: (connection parameters): Enter the link of the ServiceNow instance that is indicated in the placeholder found in this field.
    5. Scripted Rest Security API: This is the link setup from connector Prerequisite topic Resolving Scripted User Criteria.

    6. Include Connected Content Topic details: This checkbox allows you to include additional topic details for Knowledge Base and Catalog items in the ESC_CONNECTED_CONTENT metadata field of the connector output. If this field is enabled, the format is {Content Name};{Taxonomy Name};{Topic Name};{Topic Path}. If this field is not enabled, the format is {Content Name};{Topic Name}.

  6. Save the connection.
  7. Run the Datastore Load Collects the logical division of your data (data stores) from the source system. Runs on a schedule Logs information according to log level set task to load the available datastores.

  8. Select the Datastores.

    Note: Only the selected datastores are crawled and indexed in SharePoint.

  9. If you are indexing Category items, such as Catalogs, Knowledge Bases, or Incidents, you can choose to include or exclude them from the index by using the Category Filters field in the Content Filters tab. Note the following:

    • You can choose to include or exclude these items by specify a tag followed by the category item. For example, IncludeCatalog or ExcludeCatalog.

    • Include/Exclude filters are separated by semi-colon (;). Include/exclude tags and values are separated by equal sign (=). For example, IncludeCatalog=Mobiles ; ExcludeCatalog=Software.

    • multiple values are delimited by vertical bar (|). For example, IncludeKnowledgeBase=Outlook|Tips and tricks.

      • To escape the characters above mentioned, in the category name, add backslash (\) before each character.

    • Each category filter type can be included on the same line, but you cannot mix category types. For example:

      • IncludeCatalog=Mobiles ; ExcludeCatalog=Software is valid.

      • IncludeCatalog=Mobiles ; ExcludeIncidents=Inquiry is invalid.

    • You do not need to specify both the include and exclude filters for an item.

    • The include/exclude value may be empty. For example, IncludeIncidents=.

    For more information, see Filter content from a Content Source in the Connectivity Hub documentation.

Configuring Oauth authorization for your ServiceNow connector

If you wish to use Oauth for authentication in your ServiceNow connector. you must complete the following steps:

  1. On the server where the ServiceNow connector is installed, open a browser and navigate to http://<connector-url>/OAuth.aspx. For example, http://localhost:3650/Oauth.aspx.

  2. On the BA Insight ServiceNow Connector page, follow the instructions in steps 1-3. For more information, see Create OAuth API endpoints for external clients in the ServiceNow documentation.

  3. In the ServiceNow instance URL field, enter the URL for your ServiceNow instance.

  4. In the Client Id field, enter the client Id for the registry you added in step 2.

  5. In the Client Secret field, enter the client secret for the registry you added in step 2.

  6. In the Username field, enter the username for that account that is used by the ServiceNow instance.

  7. In the Password field, enter the password for the account that is used by the ServiceNow instance.

  8. Click Authorize.

  9. If the authorization was successful, you will see a success message on screen.

Content Configuration Specifics

  1. Go to Tasks > Mailbox/Datastore.
  2. Run a DataStore Types Load Collects the types of data from your source system. Runs on a set schedule. Requires a log level which logs information job.
    After the job is successfully completed, you can create content for this connection.

  3. The ServiceNow connector uses native security.

    1. Use the drop-down menu to change the Security Target A Target is a "pointer" to a specific instance of a search application, such as Elasticsearch. - (A Search application instance has one or more indexes)to escbasebadocacl (see similar Connectors that use native security).

    Note: In the Content Info page, use the drop-down menu to change the Max Paging Sizeto 10000 or lower.

Extracting HTML Text and Metadata from Documents

You can extract HTML text and metadata from your source system Your Source System is the repository where your data is stored (data to be indexed). This repository is managed by applications such as: - SharePoint O365 - SharePoint 2013/16/19 - Documentum - File Share - OpenText - Lotus Notes - etc. Your Source System repository can also be a database such as SQL or Oracle.. Text extraction is automatic in Connectivity Hub v3.0.

Extracted information includes:

  • Available text and metadata which can be mapped to metadata properties. 
  • HTML metadata tags from HTML pages.
  • Available HTML tags and links for use as metadata from HTML documents

Configure Security

  1. Run a Security Sync Loads User and Group tables and executes the mapping based on the connector configuration. job.
Note: If you set the glide.knowman.block_access_with_no_user_criteria system property to false you need to map the "PublicAccess" group to an AD A directory service for Windows domain networks. A hierarchical structure that stores information about objects on the network. Used to manage permissions and control access to critical network resources. group that will be granted access to ServiceNow items.

  • This is necessary because setting that property to false gives everyone access to a Knowledge Base when either the Can Read or Can Contribute user criteria list for the knowledge base isn't specified; so a group that contains "everyone" is required in order to handle this situation.

How to Set Paging Size