Documentation forSolarWinds Service Desk

Process integrations

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Introduction

There are numerous benefits to automating workflow processes in SolarWinds Service Desk (SWSD). For example, you can:

  • Increase agent productivity by removing manual tasks.
  • Streamline processes within the organization.

Process integration allows you to integrate with third-party applications to use a target for commands within your workflows.

Adding a new process integration is easy. When done, it becomes an available source to connect your workflows when building service catalog requests, change catalog requests, and runbooks.

Navigation

Setup > Integrations > Process Integrations

The process integration index table

The Process Integration tables contains a list of all your organization's process integrations with third-party applications.

The columns in the table are Name, Description, and Actions. See List view for information on customizing.

Create a new process integration

There are two steps in creating new process integrations. You must first establish a connection using credentials. You can then create a service catalog worfklow that includes your API call.

Step 1: Establish API credential connection

By creating your third-party connection here, you can reuse the connections for multiple catalog items.

  1. Navigate to Setup > Integrations > Process Integrations.

  2. Start by clicking +Add Integration .

  3. In the Add Integration dialog box, provide the following:

    • Name for the integration

    • Description

    • URL of the application you wish to relay an API call to.

    • Authentication method. This can be with your username/password or with your SolarWinds Service Desk web token. Based on the authentication method selected from the dropdown list, add the necessary credentials.

  4. Under HTTP method, use the dropdown to select the appropriate command to pull data from HTTP output. Options are Get, Post, Put, or Delete.

  5. Click Create or Add to save.

Step 2: Create a workflow specific to a service catalog item, change catalog item, or runbook

As part of a Service catalogyou can seamlessly include process integrations to push out API calls to external endpoints and the internal SolarWinds API. As part of the API call, you can include inputs of the relevant service or change request. The inputs are written in the form of {{input name}} or {{context_id}} within the body, and they are replaced with their values prior to the command being sent.

List of inputs

See SolarWinds API Documentation for more information on inputs.

Input Form
Requester {{requester_email}}
Site {{site_name}}
Site API ID {{site_id}}
Department {{department_name}}
Department API ID {{department_id}}
Service Request ID, respectively, of the Incident {{context_id}}
Any Service request variable, for example: first name, title {{first name}}, {{title}}
Incident number {{incident_number}}
Service Request Variable for User: Name {{user-var.name}}
Service Request Input for User: Email Address {{user-var.email}}
Service Request Input for User: User ID {{user-var.user.id}}
Service Request Input for User: Group ID {{user-var.id}}

Use cases

Below are several examples utilizing inputs to improve your service request workflows. Click on any of the links below to go directly to the topic of interest or review all. Some examples contain screenshots. You can search for additional information from the API Documentation site.

Post private or public comments

You can add an automated private and/or public Incident index to a service request after a task or approval is completed. This can be used to update the service agent or requester regarding any comments made.

Create an incident or change for a specific group

You can automatically trigger the creation of an incident or change based on a specific group.

Also see current API information.

Create an incident or change and relate it to the originating service request

You can automatically trigger the creation of an ITSM object (incident, problem, change, or release) and relate the originating service request to the ITSM object.

This is beneficial when you want to create a change (after it is approved by the CAB).

In the process integration, use the {context_id}} variable in order to relate the service request to the ITSM object.

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