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ServiceNow is a powerful platform that streamlines operations, automates workflows, and elevates service delivery across global enterprises. A wide array of third-party ServiceNow integrations allows businesses to unify operations across departments and geographic regions. These integrations aren’t just add-ons; they’re strategic tools that enhance ServiceNow’s already robust capabilities.
This article will explore the ins and outs of ServiceNow integrations, explaining how the ServiceNow Integration Hub works and examining some of the best ServiceNow integrations for global brands. In addition, you’ll learn how brands can evaluate their integration needs and implement ServiceNow data integrations to drive efficiency.
What are ServiceNow integrations, and how does the ServiceNow Integration Hub work?
ServiceNow API integrations connect the ServiceNow platform to external systems, tools, or data sources. These integrations expand ServiceNow’s functionality, allowing businesses to automate tasks, streamline communication, and access real-time data across various systems.
At the heart of these capabilities is the ServiceNow Integration Hub—a low-code, user-friendly solution that simplifies how users configure integrations. With pre-built spokes and workflows, the Integration Hub accelerates time to value while minimizing the need for custom development. Businesses can use ServiceNow’s intuitive interface to configure third-party integrations with minimal scripting and quickly adapt the platform to meet operational needs.
The ServiceNow Integration Hub reduces development overhead and standardizes integrations, ensuring consistency across the enterprise. It connects to various applications through web services, including support for REST, SOAP, JDBC, and other protocols. It also includes Flow Designer, which uses an intuitive interface to allow users to create sophisticated workflows and automations, helping non-technical team members contribute to the integration process.
How to evaluate ServiceNow integrations for your global business needs
Choosing the right integrations for your ServiceNow instance involves more than simply checking feature lists. For global enterprises, integrations must scale, be flexible, and secure sensitive information. Here are essential factors to consider:
Scalability
As your organization grows, your integration solutions must grow with it. Look for integrations tested under heavy data loads and multi-region deployments. Scalability guarantees that performance remains steady and responsive as demand increases, preventing bottlenecks that could affect service delivery.
Flexibility and customization
Different teams and regions have unique needs. Make sure integrations can be tailored to fit the organization’s workflows, business logic, and data structures. A configurable integration allows teams to customize data flows to support variations in business process design, regulatory constraints, or language needs. The ability to modify data mapping, automation triggers, and workflow steps is crucial.
Data security and compliance
Data security is paramount, especially for global enterprises that must adhere to various country- or region-specific laws regarding data residency and processing. Confirm that potential ServiceNow integrations comply with applicable regulations (like GDPR) and follow enterprise-grade encryption and access control protocols. Seek integrations that support role-based access controls, audit trails, and secure APIs.
Ease of use and configuration
Integration solutions should be easy to configure and manage, ideally requiring little to no custom coding. A low-code approach enables faster adoption across distributed teams. Evaluate the user interface, documentation quality, and presence of templates or wizards. Intuitive setup reduces implementation time, minimizes training needs, and empowers business users to make changes without IT intervention.
Support for real-time synchronization
Real-time data syncing between systems ensures operational continuity and avoids delays, which is especially important when collaborating across time zones. Integrations should support event-driven updates and message queuing to maintain performance and accuracy. This capability ensures decision-makers and frontline staff always have the most up-to-date information.
Vendor support and documentation
Reliable vendor support and comprehensive documentation reduce downtime so you get the most from your integration. Evaluate the vendor’s SLAs, knowledge base quality, access to professional services, and community engagement. Active support accelerates troubleshooting and fosters a successful long-term integration strategy.
The 7 best ServiceNow integration services for international teams
Global brands face various challenges to cross-functional and cross-regional efficiency. The following examples of ServiceNow integrations stand out as top solutions:
Smartling
Smartling’s ServiceNow Connector lets users quickly and easily send content for professional translation and localization. This is crucial for support teams that serve multilingual markets. The connector also facilitates real-time, localized customer service experiences via high-quality machine translation. Smartling streamlines the localization workflow and integrates directly with existing ServiceNow configurations.
Smartling eliminates manual content extraction and upload steps, and ensures updates are immediately reflected across all supported languages. The result is reduced operational overhead for internal teams and a cohesive, consistent customer experience worldwide.
Jira
The ServiceNow Jira plugin bridges IT and development teams. It syncs incident and task data automatically between ServiceNow and Jira, promoting transparency and reducing communication gaps. This data integration is especially valuable in DevOps workflows.
By aligning issue tracking and service management, teams can accelerate the resolution of bugs, outages, and feature requests. Changes in one platform are reflected in the other, maintaining data consistency and traceability throughout the incident lifecycle. Combining Jira and ServiceNow ensures all stakeholders are informed and aligned.
Salesforce
Connecting ServiceNow with Salesforce enables customer support and sales teams to share data in real time for faster issue resolution and improved customer satisfaction. Support agents can access CRM data, like transactions, customer profiles, and account history, without leaving ServiceNow. Similarly, sales reps gain visibility into open support issues, enabling more strategic client engagement. This 360-degree customer view promotes alignment between sales and support functions.
Azure DevOps
By integrating Azure DevOps with ServiceNow, companies can create seamless development-to-operations pipelines. This fosters seamless collaboration between product managers, engineers, and IT teams.
The integration helps automate the lifecycle from incident logging to backlog prioritization and release tracking. It ensures development work is aligned with IT service objectives and provides traceability from service disruptions to code changes. In addition, this integration breaks down silos for organizations embracing Agile or DevOps methodologies.
Splunk
The Splunk Add-on for ServiceNow lets Splunk administrators collect data from ServiceNow and create incidents and events. It improves IT operations by enabling proactive problem management to reduce downtime.
With real-time log monitoring and pattern recognition, Splunk can detect anomalies and trigger alerts that are converted into ServiceNow incidents. This shortens the detection-to-resolution cycle, helping IT teams respond quickly to potential threats or service degradations before end users are affected.
Microsoft Teams
ServiceNow’s virtual agent can embed into Teams, enabling conversational interfaces for common tasks. With this integration, users can create, update, and resolve ServiceNow tickets or trigger workflows without switching platforms.
MS Team’s ServiceNow integration centralizes communication and task management to enhance global productivity. It also promotes faster internal response times and reduces friction in cross-functional collaboration.
McAfee
Integrating McAfee with ServiceNow helps businesses automate incident responses—a critical function for cybersecurity incident management at scale. When McAfee detects a threat, ServiceNow can automatically take actions, like creating and assigning incident tickets. This ensures security alerts are promptly addressed through predefined workflows and escalations. Combined with automation rules, McAfee can initiate containment actions, notify affected stakeholders, and record resolution steps, all within a unified system.
7 ServiceNow integration steps for more efficient global operations
Implementing ServiceNow integrations involves several steps to ensure the process is smooth and efficient across various business units:
1. Define business requirements
Identify the business goals the integration aims to solve. Consider current pain points, desired future outcomes, and any existing system constraints. A clear vision and detailed gathering of requirements can verify that the ServiceNow integration aligns with the organization’s strategic goals and delivers tangible value.
2. Assess compatibility and integration methods
Determine whether the integration will use connectors, web services, scripts, or data sources. Evaluate how it will interact with your Configuration Management Database (CMDB), including data importing and external endpoints, and make any necessary environmental adjustments. Compatibility with APIs, data models, and authentication mechanisms is essential for a stable integration.
3. Choose the right integration partner or tool
Select vendors or tools that align with your platform strategy and global scale. Look for providers with experience in international strategies, multilingual capabilities, and strong customer references. A proven partner can guide you through best practices and ensure smoother implementation.
4. Configure the instance
To configure the connection, you can use ServiceNow’s Integration Hub or native applications. Note that many integrations require authentication keys, data mappings, and trigger configurations. Be sure to validate these settings carefully, as misconfigured mappings can result in data inconsistencies or operational delays.
5. Establish workflows
Your next step should be to automate post-integration actions, such as ticket creation, notifications, or record updates. Define approval chains, escalation logic, and update rules. ServiceNow workflows should reflect each team’s operations and support service-level objectives across different regions.
6. Test, monitor, and optimize
Use dedicated sandbox environments to run integration performance tests, ensuring that data flows correctly and behavior is as expected. After deployment, don’t forget to continuously monitor performance and adjust workflows if needed. Use dashboards and alerts to keep your integrations updated and address anomalies proactively. Lastly, it’s always a good idea to solicit feedback from users and iterate based on business needs.
Enhance global business operations with Smartling’s integrations
The right integrations can transform how businesses and teams operate. For international enterprises looking to streamline operations, ServiceNow integrations offer a practical, scalable way to automate tasks, align teams, and drive efficiency across regions.
Smartling’s integration with ServiceNow simplifies localization and helps global brands communicate effectively in their customers’ preferred languages. From localized knowledge base articles to multilingual support tickets, Smartling makes sure your content reaches global audiences with clarity and consistency.
To learn more about selecting the best translation solution, download Smartling’s free eBook “What To Look for in a Translation Solution: A Buyer’s Guide.” This resource contains a deep dive into the features that matter most to global brands—plus the questions you should ask to make sure you get high-performing translation outcomes.
