ServiceNow Expands Microsoft Teams Integration with New Now Platform Rome

ServiceNow is again extending the presence of Microsoft Teams, which is available with the new Now Platform Rome release. The IT and workforce management platform provider has announced with Microsoft its third Teams integration partnership in two years.

Rome, the latest ServiceNow platform update, went live on Thursday. The Now Platform Rome release introduces Employee Center, a modern intranet solution that integrates with Teams. ServiceNow is the latest provider with a tool that provides personalized access to organizational resources. ServiceNow’s new Employee Center provides a common user interface that delivers personalized information to workers. It provides a single portal to resources including IT, HR, facilities, procurement and finance.

ServiceNow describes Employee Center as a collaborative app that its platform’s users can embed into Teams. The integration of Teams brings its chat, channels and meetings to ServiceNow’s Employee Center portal interface. As employees return to offices and work experiences become more hybrid, ServiceNow officials determined that workers now expect these capabilities.

ServiceNow’s Blake McConnell

“One of our longstanding principles in employee workflow has been meeting the employee where they are,” said Blake McConnell, ServiceNow’s senior VP of employee workflow products. “And that’s not just through a mobile device, or through a conversational interface. Employees are in collaboration apps like Microsoft Teams.”

Partnership History

McConnell told Channel Futures that both companies this year broadened their 2019 agreement to integrate Microsoft Teams into ServiceNow. Initially, in 2019, ServiceNow and Microsoft partnered to bring Teams chatbots into the ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) environment. Earlier this year, ServiceNow and Microsoft announced another partnership focused on bringing Teams, SharePoint, Microsoft Threat Vulnerability Management (TVM) and Azure Sentinel into the ServiceNow’s Security Operations Management Suite.

“We do think Employee Center is the stepping-stone journey to a next-gen intranet, based upon how employees work today how employees want to get work done,” McConnell said.

The pandemic, which in many organizations has resulted in new hybrid work environments, was a key factor in developing Employee Center as part of the Now Platform Rome, according to McConnell. Employee Center could drive organizations to ServiceNow beyond those that have chosen it for ITSM, or operations management, he added.

“Ultimately, the more … self-service interactions you can push through these interfaces, the more targeted [communications], the better engagement you get,” McConnell said. “I just think it’s a moment in time where companies are really thinking about the workforce in a way that they haven’t thought about the workforce historically. And that’s why it’s time to rethink some of these interfaces or interactions.”

AI, Automation and Industry-Specific Features

The updated Now Platform Rome also introduces new AI and automation capabilities. The new release aims to improve workflows and resolve customer and employee issues faster, according to ServiceNow. For example, the company designed the new Customer Service Playbooks: Focused Layout to accelerate agents’ ability to resolve service requests.

Also in the new Now Platform Rome are enhanced industry solutions. For example, Manufacturing Connected Workforce includes Operational Technology Management. Financial Services Operations includes new client life cycle operations, complaint management and treasury management. And for communications service providers, it includes new Order Management for Telecommunications.

Finally, Healthcare and Life Sciences Service Management is an electronic health platform for health care providers, insurers and life sciences companies. Among other features, it includes ServiceNow’s Vaccine Administration Management (VAM) solution, designed to enable more effective vaccine administration, distribution and monitoring.