Proprietary, ServiceNow® Certified App for Supplier Performance Monitoring

About Our Client

The Client is a London-based IT company that provides IT consulting services.

Challenge

The Client saw ServiceNow’s approach to Service Integration and Management (SIAM) as not sufficient enough to analyze supplier performance. This is why the Client came up with an idea to improve this process. The new approach was to help businesses perform a much more detailed analysis of supplier performance and its impact.

Having come up with a more comprehensive approach to SIAM, the Client lacked the technical ability to bring the app to life. This is why they chose ScienceSoft to design, implement and test their ServiceNow app for supplier performance analysis and visualization.

Besides, the Client needed the application to comply with ServiceNow certification requirements to be able to publish it on ServiceNow Store.

Solution

ScienceSoft performed the whole cycle of the app’s design, implementation and testing activities. Although a number of ServiceNow functional elements could be used during the implementation process of such an application, ScienceSoft’s ServiceNow consultants undertook a different approach. Our experts decided to make the app a standalone, to avoid unnecessary dependencies with ServiceNow. The reason for such a decision can be demonstrated on the following situation:

• The app uses the Contract Management plugin that is one of the elements built into ServiceNow. However, the Client’s customers could have no Contract Management plugin in their ServiceNow subscription. In this case, unnecessary dependencies would be a serious impediment to using the Client’s app.

Since the app needed to provide a deep analysis as well as visualization of supplier performance, ScienceSoft closely cooperated with the Client and outlined the following workflow for the app:

1st level imported data analysis – data aggregation – 2nd level analysis – reporting

The implemented back-end logic allows the app to perform the first three stages of the given workflow. After the data is properly analyzed, it can embark on the reporting stage. In the app, ScienceSoft’s team used the standard ServiceNow Reporting functionality without any adjusting, to keep the dependencies with custom plugins to a minimum.

After a report is made, back end checks what a particular supplier’s failure cost your business and compares this value with pre-established cost thresholds. When the threshold is overcome, the app sends notifications to responsible users or groups, if arranged so. This solution allows businesses to reduce expenses inflicted by poor supplier performance.

The application is compatible with the last two releases of ServiceNow – Istanbul and Jakarta.

At the final stages, ScienceSoft’s team made the application comply with ServiceNow requirements and helped the company get the app certified and displayed on ServiceNow Store.

Results

ScienceSoft delivered technical consulting services to the Cleint and helped them implement their idea of a ServiceNow app that enables businesses to be more aware of their suppliers’ performance. With the help of this application, IT service managers can make more informed decisions about their suppliers based on reports ‘thought-through’ by the app.

Now, thanks to ScienceSoft’s work, the Client owns a proprietary ServiceNow application that is available on ServiceNow Store.

Technologies and Tools

ServiceNow