Workflow Automation CoE > Playbooks > FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to Process Automation Designer?

With the introduction of Workflow Studio in the Washington DC Release, all workflow automation types can be developed in a unified builder experience. At the same time, we are renaming Process Definitions to Playbooks to reduce friction and streamline communication.

Are Playbooks / Is Process Automation Designer a platform product? Do I need any license to use it?

Playbooks are a platform product and available to all customers.

Important update: We removed the trigger table restrictions in PAD. This means that you, our customers and partners can trigger processes using any SN table you are entitled to. We released this fix via Utah P7 (available from Sept 21, 2023) and Vancouver P1 (available from Sept 20, 2023).

When do I use Playbooks over Flows?

Flows are ideal for creating targeted automation that solves a specific business case. Examples include updating a record from a certain trigger, processing an inbound email, running SLA automation, or fulfilling Service Catalog requests.

Playbooks are great for creating multi-stage, multi-activity processes that cross departments or enterprises. Examples include onboarding a new employee which involves workflows across IT, Facilities, HR, and Finance.

Who can use Playbooks?

Playbooks are designed to be built by developers of all skill levels while encouraging collaboration. Business Process Owners can map out their process with placeholder and pre-made activities while more experienced developers connect the pieces by passing data between the different activities and throughout the process lifecycle. Additionally, they can create new, custom activity definitions based on subflows or flow actions to cover specific business process needs.

My activity execution is complete even if I skipped the step

I'll explain this with the example of the Instruction activity, but this goes for many other out-of-the-box activity definitions as well.

The subflow that runs for the Instruction activity creates a Flow Data record (`sys_flow_data`) to house the process of the activity itself. When you hit the Skip button on the Instruction, the state of that Flow Data record will be set to 'Skipped', but the subflow itself will finish without any errors, which in turn determines the state on the activity execution that you also see represented on the playbook.

If you want to build a condition off of the Instruction being skipped, instead of the activity state, you can dot-walk to the output of the activity (the flow data record) and build your condition with the state of that.

Do I need to convert all of my catalog item fulfillment from Workflow to Flow before I can use Order Guide Sequencing?

The individual Catalog Item fulfillment is independent of the Order Guide Sequencing. You can use this for any catalog item and its fulfillment can run either as a Service Catalog Flow or a legacy workflow.

However, we strongly recommend for you to start migrating your Service Catalog Fulfillment workflows to Flow Designer since workflow is considered legacy technology and does not receive any further enhancements or updates. We’re planning to start the official deprecation process at some point in the future.

Where can I view and work on Playbooks?

The Playbook Experience components can be added to any Next Experience page that can be edited with UI Builder. This includes all Configurable Workspaces. Many out of the box configurable workspaces are already set up to support Playbooks. Check the respective product docs for details.

In the Vancouver release we added a mobile controller for playbooks, which allows admins to embed a playbook in ServiceNow® mobile. The first product to adopt this is Field Service Management (FSM).

In the Washington DC release we added a Service Portal Content Item that allows us to view and work on Playbooks from a Service Portal page, including Employee Center.

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