Elastic ServiceNow connector reference

The Elastic ServiceNow connector is a connector for ServiceNow.

This connector is written in Python using the Elastic connector framework.

View the source code for this connector (branch main, compatible with Elastic 9.0).

Important

As of Elastic 9.0, managed connectors on Elastic Cloud Hosted are no longer available. All connectors must be self-managed.

Self-managed connector

Availability and prerequisites

The ServiceNow connector was introduced in Elastic version 8.9.0. This connector is available as a self-managed connector. To use this connector as a self-managed connector, satisfy all self-managed connector requirements.

Create a ServiceNow connector

Use the UI

To create a new ServiceNow connector:

In the Kibana UI, navigate to the Search → Content → Connectors page from the main menu, or use the global search field.
Follow the instructions to create a new ServiceNow self-managed connector.

Use the API

You can use the Elasticsearch Create connector API to create a new self-managed ServiceNow self-managed connector.

For example:

		 PUT _connector/my-servicenow-connector {
  "index_name": "my-elasticsearch-index",
  "name": "Content synced from ServiceNow",
  "service_type": "servicenow"
}

	

Note

The user needs the cluster privileges manage_api_key, manage_connector and write_connector_secrets to generate API keys programmatically.

To create an API key for the connector:

Run the following command, replacing values where indicated. Note the encoded return values from the response:

		 POST /_security/api_key {
  "name": "connector_name-connector-api-key",
  "role_descriptors": {
    "connector_name-connector-role": {
      "cluster": [
        "monitor",
        "manage_connector"
      ],
      "indices": [
        {
          "names": [
            "index_name",
            ".search-acl-filter-index_name",
            ".elastic-connectors*"
          ],
          "privileges": [
            "all"
          ],
          "allow_restricted_indices": false
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

	

Update your config.yml file with the API key encoded value.

Refer to the Elasticsearch API documentation for details of all available Connector APIs.

Usage

To use this connector as a self-managed connector, use the Customized connector workflow.

For additional operations, see Usage.

Compatibility

The ServiceNow connector is compatible with the following versions of ServiceNow:

ServiceNow "Tokyo"
ServiceNow "San Diego"
ServiceNow "Rome"
ServiceNow "Utah"
ServiceNow "Vancouver"
ServiceNow "Washington"
ServiceNow "Xanadu"

Configuration

The following configuration fields are required to set up the connector:

url

The host url of the ServiceNow instance.

username

The username of the account for ServiceNow.

password

The password of the account used for ServiceNow.

services

Comma-separated list of services to fetch data from ServiceNow. If the value is *, the connector will fetch data from the list of basic services provided by ServiceNow:

If you have configured a custom service, the * value will not fetch data from the basic services above by default. In this case you’ll need to mention these service names explicitly.

Default value is *. Examples:

User, Incident, Requested Item, Knowledge, Change request
*

retry_count

The number of retry attempts after a failed request to ServiceNow. Default value is 3.

concurrent_downloads

The number of concurrent downloads for fetching the attachment content. This speeds up the content extraction of attachments. Defaults to 10.

use_text_extraction_service

Requires a separate deployment of the Elastic Text Extraction Service. Requires that ingest pipeline settings disable text extraction. Default value is False.

use_document_level_security

Restrict access to documents based on a user’s permissions. Refer to Document level security for more details.

Documents and syncs

All services and records the user has access to will be indexed according to the configurations provided. The connector syncs the following ServiceNow object types:

Records
Attachments

Note

Content from files bigger than 10 MB won’t be extracted. Use the self-managed local extraction service to handle larger binary files.
Permissions are not synced by default. You must enable document level security. Otherwise, all documents indexed to an Elastic deployment will be visible to all users with access to that Elastic Deployment.

Sync types

Full syncs are supported by default for all connectors.

This connector also supports incremental syncs.

Document level security

Document level security (DLS) ensures identities and permissions set in ServiceNow are maintained in Elasticsearch. This enables you to restrict and personalize read-access users and groups have to documents in this index. Access control syncs ensure this metadata is kept up to date in your Elasticsearch documents.

The ServiceNow connector supports roles for access control lists (ACLs) to enable document level security in Elasticsearch. For default services, connectors use the following roles to find users who have access to documents.

Service	Roles
User	`admin`
Incident	`admin`, `sn_incident_read`, `ml_report_user`, `ml_admin`, `itil`
Requested Item	`admin`, `sn_request_read`, `asset`, `atf_test_designer`, `atf_test_admin`
Knowledge	`admin`, `knowledge`, `knowledge_manager`, `knowledge_admin`
Change request	`admin`, `sn_change_read`, `itil`

For services other than these defaults, the connector iterates over access controls with read operations and finds the respective roles for those services.

Important

The ServiceNow connector applies access control at the service (table) level. This means documents within a given ServiceNow table share the same access control settings. Users with permission to a table can access all documents from that table in Elasticsearch.

Note

The ServiceNow connector does not support scripted and conditional permissions.

Deployment using Docker

You can deploy the ServiceNow connector as a self-managed connector using Docker. Follow these instructions.

Download the sample configuration file. You can either download it manually or run the following command:

		curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elastic/connectors/main/config.yml.example --output ~/connectors-config/config.yml

	

Remember to update the --output argument value if your directory name is different, or you want to use a different config file name.

Update the configuration file with the following settings to match your environment:

elasticsearch.host
elasticsearch.api_key
connectors

If you’re running the connector service against a Dockerized version of Elasticsearch and Kibana, your config file will look like this:

		# When connecting to your cloud deployment you should edit the host value
elasticsearch.host: http://host.docker.internal:9200
elasticsearch.api_key: <ELASTICSEARCH_API_KEY>

connectors:
  -
    connector_id: <CONNECTOR_ID_FROM_KIBANA>
    service_type: servicenow
    api_key: <CONNECTOR_API_KEY_FROM_KIBANA>1

	

Optional. If not provided, the connector will use the elasticsearch.api_key instead

Using the elasticsearch.api_key is the recommended authentication method. However, you can also use elasticsearch.username and elasticsearch.password to authenticate with your Elasticsearch instance.

Note: You can change other default configurations by simply uncommenting specific settings in the configuration file and modifying their values.

Run the Docker image with the Connector Service using the following command:

		docker run \
-v ~/connectors-config:/config \
--network "elastic" \
--tty \
--rm \
docker.elastic.co/integrations/elastic-connectors:9.0.0 \
/app/bin/elastic-ingest \
-c /config/config.yml

	

Refer to DOCKER.md in the elastic/connectors repo for more details.

Find all available Docker images in the official registry.

Tip

We also have a quickstart self-managed option using Docker Compose, so you can spin up all required services at once: Elasticsearch, Kibana, and the connectors service. Refer to this README in the elastic/connectors repo for more information.

Sync rules

Basic sync rules are identical for all connectors and are available by default.

Advanced sync rules

Note

A full sync is required for advanced sync rules to take effect.

Advanced sync rules are defined through a source-specific DSL JSON snippet.

The following sections provide examples of advanced sync rules for this connector.

Indexing document based on incident number for Incident service

		[
  {
    "service": "Incident",
    "query": "numberSTARTSWITHINC001"
  }
]

	

Indexing document based on user activity state for User service

		[
  {
    "service": "User",
    "query": "active=False"
  }
]

	

Indexing document based on author name for Knowledge service

		[
  {
    "service": "Knowledge",
    "query": "author.nameSTARTSWITHSystem Administrator"
  }
]

	

End-to-end Testing

The connector framework enables operators to run functional tests against a real data source. Refer to Connector testing for more details.

To perform E2E testing for the ServiceNow connector, run the following command:

$ make ftest NAME=servicenow

Generate performance reports using the following flag: PERF8=yes. Toggle test data set size between SMALL, MEDIUM and LARGE with the argument DATA_SIZE=. By default, it is set to MEDIUM.

Users do not need to have a running Elasticsearch instance or a ServiceNow source to run this test. Docker Compose manages the complete setup of the development environment.

Elastic ServiceNow connector reference

Self-managed connector

Availability and prerequisites

Create a ServiceNow connector

Use the UI

Use the API

Usage

Compatibility

Configuration

Documents and syncs

Sync types

Document level security

Deployment using Docker

Sync rules

Advanced sync rules

End-to-end Testing

Known issues

Troubleshooting

Security

Content extraction