Flow Designer has slowly crept onto the scene of ServiceNow development over the past two years.
It’s important to understand the differences between Flow Designer and Workflow, and we want to share why we think Flow Designer will usurp Workflow as the standard practice as we head into 2020/2021.
Flow Designer vs. Workflow
By definition, Flow Designer enables users to use natural language to automate tasks, record operations, notifications, and approvals without having to write it in code. It enables various process automation capabilities in a consolidated design environment.
On the other hand, Workflow is the tried-and-true method that requires a more advanced developer but allows for more complex scenarios, including plenty of readily accessible scripting blocks.
Advantages of Flow Designer
Reduces the amount of scripting
If you are a beginner or not technical enough to build out processes in code, Flow Designer is going to be your jam. Flow Designer reduces scripting so it can be understood and created easily by the non-technical user. The same end functionality can be tackled by both, but you’re going to find Flow Designer a lot easier to use.
Embracing reusability
A common problem in many organizations is that, after some time, they end up with many different scripts only to find out that many have the same function. Every developer in the organization tends to develop their own script, not knowing that there are some already available to them. With Flow Designer, we can create Reusable Action Logics, which serve as building blocks for Flow Logics. Every script (including its reference and use-case) is saved and maintained, so developers don’t have to reinvent something that’s already been made.
To understand things better, think of Reusable Action Logics as Lego blocks and Flow Logics as the Lego structures. Flow Designer is designed to help users embrace reusability, and as they create Actions, everyone will be able to reuse them in multiple flows.
Easier to read, modify, and understand
Due to reduced scripting, users will have an easier time modifying, reading, and understanding where a particular process currently is. Flow Designer provides natural-language descriptions of Flow Logic to help you understand inputs, outputs, triggers, and actions.
With Flow Designer, developers will have an easier time modifying and reading scripts and will be able to reuse them. All the customization is available in one place, so developers can use their time to build new and exciting stuff. If you need any help with ServiceNow, its implementation and training, feel free to call us or ask questions on Twitter.