ServiceNow Vancouver: what's new? (part 2 - HAM)

The ServiceNow Vancouver release brings you Hardware Asset Management 8.0.0, providing useful additions to the HAM application.

We will highlight some of the most noteworthy changes, including the enhanced inventory and distribution features, the new Success Portal to track HAM program success goals and the new zero touch hardware asset refresh flow. 

Zero Touch Refresh

You can now fulfill hardware asset refresh requests more efficiently even if you do not store many hardware assets in your organization’s inventory. The “Zero Touch Refresh” flow and feature introduce the ability to leverage the inventory of the external vendors that are usually responsible for provisioning new assets to your employees.

The feature includes a ready-to-use Service Catalog item that can be used by your employees to initiate an asset refresh request in ServiceNow when their asset(s) are eligible for it. Employees can choose a model for the new asset/device from a list of available models, and also how they wish to receive the new asset from the external vendor (shipped to home or pickup from a designated location).

The Zero Touch Refresh feature synchronizes refresh tasks and updates between your ServiceNow instance and the external Vendor’s ServiceNow instance. Once a request is created and approved, the external Vendor is able to fulfill the request from their own ServiceNow instance and receive all the updates in that instance. The Zero Touch Refresh feature is pre-integrated by default with the Vendor Insight and can be configured to integrate with other vendors if needed. Your employees and fulfillers receive all updates in your ServiceNow instance.

There are few tasks generated in the flow to help you manage different stages of the refresh process, but the process is lightweight needing very less manual intervention. You can tailor and configure the tasks to your business needs.

The asset inventory is automatically updated in your ServiceNow instance as the process runs. All Zero Touch Refresh requests can easily be tracked and reported on within ServiceNow.

HAM Success Portal

You can now use the HAM Success Portal to register success goals for your HAM program and track progresses against those goals. For example, you may have a goal to achieve targeted cost savings by bringing in more automation using ServiceNow HAM. In the HAM Success Portal, you can create such goals, assign activities to track the goals and get a visibility of the progress through various reports and metrics. The HAM Success Portal can also come in handy when you need to report to the business how you are achieving against your HAM program goals after ServiceNow Hardware Asset Management is implemented.

Source: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/vancouver-it-asset-management/page/product/hardware-asset-management/concept/hard-suc-port.html

Inventory and Distribution Enhancements

If you have internal stockrooms or warehouses that serve multiple locations (e.g. a central stockroom that serves more than one location), you can now create these locations as service locations of those stockrooms in the ServiceNow HAM application. This is beneficial when you have a widespread employee base, but you do not have a stockroom at every single location where the employees reside.

If you create service locations in the ServiceNow HAM application for a stockroom, you can perform local sourcing of assets in ServiceNow as long as the main stockroom serves the location and holds stock. For example, if you have a central stockroom in San Diego North that also serves the San Diego South location, you can create San Diego South as a service location of the San Diego North stockroom in ServiceNow and update the asset inventory. When an employee residing in San Diego South requests a hardware asset, you can locally source the asset from the San Diego North stockroom since it serves the employee’s location and thereafter provision the asset to the employee.

In addition to creating service locations, you can now also create inbound and outbound distribution channels for an internal stockroom. A distribution channel can be created for stockrooms when you frequently source/receive assets from a stockroom or frequently supply assets to a stockroom. Creation of a distribution channel streamlines the asset sourcing and distributing path when you use transfer orders in ServiceNow. For example, if you frequently transfer assets to the Southern California stockroom from other stockrooms, you can create inbound distribution channels to link the Southern California stockroom with those other stockrooms in ServiceNow. When you use the transfer order feature to source assets in the Southern California warehouse, you can get an optimized view of the stockrooms from which the asset can be sourced through the already configured distribution channels.

If there are multiple distribution channels against a stockroom, it is also possible to define a relative ranking for each distribution channel. This enables you to use the most preferable path or channel to source assets while using transfer orders in ServiceNow.

Real-time Shipment Tracking

You can now track the real-time shipment status and location of hardware assets when they are in transit. The Vancouver release introduces the ability to integrate with various carriers to receive the latest status within ServiceNow when assets are shipped to/from a location. This prevents the need to track assets through phone, email etc. when they are in transit. Your employees can also see the latest shipment tracking status in the ServiceNow Employee Portal when their assets are in transit.

Additionally, the Vancouver release introduces the Shipment view in Hardware Asset Workspace. This provides the ability to view all shipment-related information such as shipment tasks, shipped assets etc. generated in various HAM workflows, all in one place.

Stockroom Updates

The Vancouver release provides an enhanced stockroom interface for improved inventory management. The Inventory View in Hardware Asset Workspace now provides a unified set of activities and tasks associated with each stockroom. Stockroom managers can also view the tasks in a calendar timeline view to understand when tasks need to be completed for better planning. It is now also possible to add hours of operation against each stockroom for better scheduling of stockroom tasks and activities.

An interactive map view shows the stockroom service locations, distribution channels and stock rules in one place. Additionally, your inventory team can track stock levels easily through the intuitive stock level view.