Getting Started with Playbooks - Workflow Automation CoE

Workflow Automation CoE > Playbooks> Getting Started with Process Automation Designer

What are Playbooks?

Playbooks, built in Workflow Studio, promote your subflows and flow actions to a new level by driving cross-enterprise and cross-departmental workflows. Together with Playbook Experience, you can expose your playbook, the expected next steps, and all relevant information directly to the end-user for increased efficiency and process transparency. With optional, ad-hoc activities you can make your processes flexible to meet any unexpected needs.

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.

Who can use Playbooks?

Playbooks are designed to be usable 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 flows, subflows, or actions to cover specific business process needs.

When do I use Playbooks over Flows?

First, Playbooks do not replace Flows, instead, it leverages them as the action plan behind each activity.

Flows are ideal for creating targeted automation that solves for 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 workflows that cross departments or enterprises. Examples include onboarding a new employee which involves workflows across IT, Facilities, HR, and Finance.

How do I get started with Playbooks?

Step 1: Documentation	Step 2: Training	Step 3: Guidance & Best Practices	Step 4: Further Resources

Step 1: Documentation

To familiarize yourself with the complete spectrum of Playbook features and the newest enhancements in a given release, ServiceNow Docs is the place to go.

Playbooks Docs

Playbook Experience Docs

Release Highlights

Xanadu

Playbooks in Workflow Studio release notes

Get recommendations on which activities to replace placeholder activities with.
Preview and modify your text directions before generating your playbook outline with Now Assist.
Collect custom responses from an end user, without requiring an existing table or fields.
Better manage access to your playbooks and playbook components.

Washington

Playbooks in Workflow Studio Release Notes

Processes are now called Playbooks in both the builder and in Playbook Experience.
Open the Playbooks builder in Workflow Studio. Workflow Studio enables workflow owners to author, configure, and monitor playbooks, flows, subflows, actions, and decision tables in one place.
Restart your entire playbook, or restart from a specific activity or stage.
Use dynamic inputs to configure your activity to show a certain set of fields based on the value of another input, such as a selected catalog item, selected decision table, or a REST API response.

Playbook Experience Release Notes

Added the function to restart a playbook from the beginning, from certain stages, or from certain activities if restart is enabled and defined in the Workflow Studio process design environment.
Added to support using playbooks in Portal
Added Next Activity and Previous Activity client actions for the focused activity viewer and for layouts using focused activity viewer.
Apply reflow to out-of-the-box standalone and custom layout playbook components so that the UI adjusts when you resize your window or zoom.
Added form sections to playbook forms.
Added new mobile playbooks events.

Vancouver

Process Automation Designer Vancouver Release Notes

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).

Receive more updates to Process Automation Designer, now that it's a ServiceNow Store application.
Build processes in a visually intuitive diagram.
Control whether an activity just starts with its stage, or only after specific activities within the stage are complete.

Step 2: Training

Now Learning Training

Start by completing the training on Now Learning, I'll recommend to take the Flow Designer courses first before moving on to PAD & Playbooks.

Flow Designer Essentials

Get certified:

Flow Designer Fundamentals Micro-Certification Assessment

Introduction to Playbooks and Process Automation Designer

Playbooks and Process Automation Designer Fundamentals

Knowledge

CreatorCon is a special program of sessions and training that runs every year during our Knowledge conference. Every year, we get access to new great presentations and courses about our Workflow Automation Products.

Developer Program

Next, request a Personal Developer Instance (PDI) to practice what you learned.

Step 3: Guidance and Best Practices

Whether you’re a first-time implementer or an experienced developer, if you’re only just starting to use the Workflow Automation products, or are looking to migrate off your legacy tech stack, the following resources will help you understand how to best approach using Process Automation Designer and Playbooks.

Center of Excellence

CoE/Playbooks Best Practices

NEW! Learn how to determine access to Process Automation Designer, its features, and access at runtime

CoE/Securing Workflow Automation Products

FAQ

CoE/Playbooks FAQ

Platform Academy

We have also been covering PAD & Playbooks topics in our Platform Academy. These include sessions on Best practices, guidance, performance, debugging, error handling, and migration use cases.

July 7th, 2022 - Getting Started with Process Automation Designer

August 4th, 2022 - Getting Started with Playbook Experience

November 8th, 2023 - Securing Workflow Automation Products

November 30th, 2023 - Updates for Playbook Experience

December 7th, 2023 - Updates for Process Automation Designer

Workflow Academy

Configuring Playbook Experience - Workflow Academy #07 (July 11th, 2024)

Embedding Playbooks - Workflow Academy Shorts #07 (Aug 8th, 2024)

White Paper

Process Automation Designer and Playbook Experience Whitepaper (Now Create)

Use Cases

Article and Video: Adding a Playbook Record Page Tab to a Workspace Record (Author: Arnoud Kooi, Release Tokyo)

Article: Make an activity optional in Process Automation Designer (Author: Lisa Holenstein, Release San Diego & Tokyo)

YouTube

Generate a Playbook with Now Assist

Step 4: Further Resources

Developer Program

In addition to PDIs and courses, the developer program publishes blogs, podcasts, and videos about our Workflow Automation products.

Creator Toolbox

Order Guide Sequencing in San Diego

Playbooks in Rome

Live Coding Happy Hour

Process Automation (PAD) for Meetups - Live Coding Happy Hour for 2020-09-18

Building Playbooks in Rome Part 1 - Live Coding Happy Hour for 2021-08-19

Building Playbooks in Rome Part 2 - Live Coding Happy Hour for 2021-09-02

Process Automation Designer Optional Activities - Live Coding Happy Hour for 2023-03-17

TechNow

TechNow Ep 80 | Process Automation Designer/Playbook Part 1 (Release: Paris)

TechNow Ep 81 | Process Automation Designer/Playbook Part 2 (Release: Paris)

Blog

Blog | What’s New in Process Automation Designer (PAD) for Vancouver

Community Content

Our greatest asset is YOU. Our ServiceNow community has a wide array of amazing ServiceNow developers, practitioners, admins, and content creators. Thank you!

Platform: Process Automation Designer & Playbooks || Knowledge & Troubleshooting Resources (Author: Maik Skoddow)

Leveraging Arbitrary Data in Playbooks with Process Automation Designer (Author: Zachary Gumm, Release Quebec)

Playbooks for Portals (Author: Jagjeet Singh, Release: Washington DC)

Center of Excellence Navigation

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