Lab #2: ServiceNow Setup

🛠️ 1: Walkthrough

1.1: Sign In to Your ServiceNow Instance

Goal: Log in to a ServiceNow instance as admin.

1. Open the instance URL from your ILT host (https://[your-instance].service-now.com).
2. Sign in with the admin username and password your host provided.

1.2: Add Your Personal User

Goal: Create a user record that represents you, separate from the admin account.

1. Go to User Administration > Users. You can find it by searching for Users in the All menu filter.

   

2. Click New and add a user with your work email address.

3. Set Department to IT, then click Submit.

   

1.3: Create the Integration Account

Goal: Create the account Moveworks uses to call ServiceNow.

Moveworks authenticates to ServiceNow as a single integration account. The labs call it machine_admin. Lab #3 uses its credentials for the connector, and Lab #4 uses its email and sys_id for the Bot Account.

1. In User Administration > Users, click New and create a user with:

   • User ID: machine_admin
   • Email: any address you control or a placeholder such as machine_admin@example.com. Lab #4 needs this value, so don’t leave it blank.
   • Time zone: GMT, so that later labs behave consistently

   

2. Click Submit, reopen the record, click Set Password, and copy the generated password.

3. Open an incognito window (Cmd+Shift+N in Chrome), log in to your instance as machine_admin, and set a new password when prompted. Save the new password in your notes; Lab #3 uses it for the connector. Follow the prompts to register a device for multi-factor authentication.

4. Back in your admin session, open the machine_admin record, set Identity type to Machine, and click Update.

   

   Once Identity type is Machine, machine_admin can no longer sign in to the ServiceNow UI. Attempting to returns “Only interactive users are allowed to access UI.” This is expected: the account is now for integration use only.

   

5. Reopen the machine_admin record. On the Roles tab, click Edit and add admin, security_admin, snc_required_script_writer_permission, and snc_basic_auth_api_access. Hold Cmd (or Ctrl) to select several roles at once.

   snc_basic_auth_api_access lets the account authenticate REST API calls with basic authentication. Without it, the Lab #3 connector test fails even with the right password.

1.4: Copy the Integration Account sys_id

Goal: Capture the identifier you’ll enter in Lab #4.

Lab #4 needs the machine_admin account’s 32-character sys_id to identify the account Moveworks acts as. With the machine_admin record open, copy it using any of these options:

Option A: Hamburger menu. Click the hamburger menu (three lines, top-left of the form), then Copy sys_id.

Option B: Right-click the form header. Right-click the gray header bar of the form, then Copy sys_id.

Option C: Copy it from the URL. With the record open, the URL contains the sys_id:

https://{instance}.service-now.com/now/nav/ui/classic/params/target/sys_user.do%3Fsys_id%3D{sys_id}

✅ 2: Verification & Next Steps

You should now have, saved in your notes:

• Your ServiceNow instance URL and admin credentials
• Your personal user in ServiceNow with your work email and Department = IT
• The machine_admin integration account’s user ID, password, email, and 32-character sys_id

❗ 3: Troubleshooting

I can’t sign in to my instance. Confirm the instance URL and admin credentials with your ILT host.

The Copy sys_id option doesn’t appear. Use Option B or Option C. The hamburger menu option varies by ServiceNow UI version.

🪞 4: Reflecting on This Configuration

Through this lab, you’ve learned the following:

• ServiceNow distinguishes between integration accounts used for system-to-system calls and personal user accounts that represent real employees. The Moveworks integration needs both.
• A machine identity type keeps the integration account out of interactive sign-in, so multi-factor authentication prompts don’t block the connector.
• The sys_id is ServiceNow’s 32-character record identifier. It appears in URLs, REST API calls, and scripts as the canonical way to reference any record, including users.

⚙️ 5: Configuration Details

Save these values to your notes. Later labs reference them.