SERVICENOW

REST
INTEGRATION
Part 1
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REST Integration in SERVICENOW

Imagine This:
Think of a restaurant where you order food. You, as a customer, sit at a table and look at
the menu, which shows all the available dishes. When you decide what you want, you
tell the waiter your order. The waiter then takes your order to the kitchen, where the chef
prepares your food. Once it’s ready, the waiter brings your meal back to your table.

In this scenario:

• You are like a client making a request.

• The waiter is like an API (Application Programming Interface) that

communicates your request to the kitchen.

• The kitchen is like a server that processes your request and prepares the food
(data).

• The meal is like the response you get after your request is processed.

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What is REST?
REST (Representational State Transfer) is a set of rules or guidelines that allow systems
to communicate with each other over the internet, much like how you communicate
with the restaurant staff to get your meal.

Here’s how REST works:

1. Client and Server: Just like you (the client) make a request to the restaurant (the
server), in REST, a client (like a web browser or mobile app) makes a request to a
server (where the data or service resides).

2. Resources and URLs: The “menu” in REST is a list of resources that the server
can provide, like data or services. Each resource has a unique address, just like
how each dish on a menu has a name.

3. HTTP Methods: You tell the waiter what you want to do with your order—place it,
change it, or cancel it. Similarly, REST uses standard HTTP methods like:

o GET: To request data (like asking for a dish from the menu).

o POST: To send new data to the server (like placing a new order).

o PUT: To update existing data (like changing your order).

o DELETE: To remove data (like canceling your order).

4. Stateless: After the waiter delivers your meal, they don’t remember anything
about your order. Next time you order, it’s a new request. Similarly, in REST, each
request from a client to a server is independent, and the server doesn’t
remember previous interactions.

5. Response: Once the kitchen (server) has prepared your meal, the waiter (API)
brings it back to you. In REST, the server sends a response back to the client,
often in a format like JSON or XML, which contains the data or confirmation of
the action taken.

Simple Explanation:
REST is a way for different systems to talk to each other over the internet. It’s like a set
of rules that both sides follow to ensure they understand each other. When you use an
app or a website to do things like view information, send data, or interact with a service,
REST is often what’s happening behind the scenes to make that communication smooth
and effective.

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Imagine This:
You’ve got a smartphone and a smart speaker at home. They both do cool things—your
phone lets you call friends, send texts, and browse social media, while your smart
speaker can play your favourite songs, remind you to take breaks, and answer random
questions. But what if you want to tell your smart speaker to play a song right from your
phone’s playlist? For that to happen, these two gadgets need to be able to “talk” to each
other.

When you set them up to work together—so you can control your speaker through your
phone—that’s what we call integration. It’s like getting them on the same team, so they
work together and make your life easier.

What is Integration?
In the tech world, integration is just a fancy way of saying we’re connecting different
systems, apps, or devices so they can communicate and work together. Think of it as
building a bridge between two islands. Once the bridge is there, people (or data, in our
case) can move freely between the two.

For example, in ServiceNow, let’s say you have another system that handles employee
details, like an HR tool. By integrating ServiceNow with that HR tool, the two can share
information—like updating employee records or tracking issues—without you having to
do it manually. It’s like they’re having a conversation and working together to get things
done faster and with fewer mistakes.

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Outbound Integration
Imagine This:
You’re using a smart home system to control various devices in your house—like lights,
the thermostat, or even a coffee maker. One morning, you tell your smart home system,
“Make my coffee.” Your smart home system then sends a command to your coffee
maker to start brewing. In this scenario, your smart home system is initiating the
action—it’s reaching out to the coffee maker to make something happen.

What is Outbound Integration?

Outbound integration works similarly. Your system, like ServiceNow, is like that smart
home system—it initiates communication by sending a command or data to another
system. For example, ServiceNow might send data to an external HR system (3rd Party
Application) to update employee records or trigger a workflow in another application.
It’s all about ServiceNow reaching out to other systems to get things done.

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Inbound Integration
Imagine:
This time, your smart home system is just sitting there, waiting to receive instructions.
Let’s say you have a voice assistant that you use to control the lights in your home.
When you say, “Turn on the lights,” your voice assistant sends this command to the
smart home system. The smart home system receives the command and then takes
action, turning on the lights. Here, the smart home system is not the one initiating the
action; it’s receiving instructions and responding.

What is Inbound Integration?

Inbound integration is similar. It’s when a system like ServiceNow is set up to receive
data or commands from another system and then acts on that information. It’s like your
smart home system waiting for commands from your voice assistant.

For example, consider an incident management tool that monitors your IT environment.
If this tool detects an issue—like a server going down—it sends an alert to ServiceNow.
ServiceNow receives that alert (this is the inbound data) and automatically creates a
new incident based on the information it received. In this scenario, ServiceNow isn’t the
one reaching out; it’s the one receiving the data from the incident management tool and
taking action accordingly.

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Conclusion
In this guide, we’ve broken down REST integration in ServiceNow into simple, everyday
terms to make it easy to grasp. Just like a waiter in a restaurant takes your order and
delivers it to the kitchen, REST helps different systems communicate smoothly with
each other.

We talked about outbound integration, where ServiceNow takes the first step to send
information to other systems—kind of like your smart home system telling your coffee
maker to start brewing. Then we covered inbound integration, where ServiceNow
receives information from another system, similar to how your smart home gets a
command to turn on the lights.

By understanding REST in these terms, you now have a clear picture of how ServiceNow
connects and works with other applications. Whether you’re automating tasks, sharing
data, or streamlining workflows, REST is the key that makes it all happen.

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