Accessing the ServiceNow® data in Snowflake

The Snowflake Connector for ServiceNow® V2 is subject to the Snowflake Connector Terms.

This topic describes how to access ServiceNow® data from your Snowflake account.

For each table in ServiceNow® that is configured for synchronization, the connector creates the following tables and views:

  • A table with the same name that contains the data in raw form, where each record is contained in a single VARIANT column.

  • A table named table_name__event_log that contains the history of changes made to ServiceNow® records.

  • A view named table_name__view that contains the data in flattened form, where the view contains a column for each column in the original table and a row for each record that is present in the original table.

  • A view named table_name__view_with_deleted that contains the same data as table_name__view as well as rows for records that have been deleted in ServiceNow®.

Note

After starting the connector, it may take some time for the views to be created.

View creation depends on data in the ServiceNow® sys_db_object, sys_dictionary and sys_glide_object tables. The connector loads metadata from these tables after a business table is enabled for synchronization. When the metadata tables are ingested, a background task will create flattened views of the enabled tables. The task is run as often as the schedule of the most frequent table ingestion. After the metadata tables are synced, the task also captures any table schema changes and updates the already created views accordingly (only the views with the suffixes __view and __view_with_deleted, but not with __view_with_display_values).

As it’s not an immediate process, status of view creation process is available under the CONFIGURED_TABLES view. If the view creation takes too long, the CONNECTOR_ERRORS view can also be checked for any related errors.

Warning

If you plan to set ROW ACCESS POLICIES on the tables and views created by the connector, make sure they do not block access to the role with the same name as the connector application. For example, if your connector application instance is called MY_CONNECTOR_SERVICENOW, then your policies cannot block a role named MY_CONNECTOR_SERVICENOW. Otherwise, the policies will interfere with the data ingestion process.

The following sections explain how to grant the privileges to access this data and how to access the data from these tables and views.

Granting Privileges for Accessing the ServiceNow® Data in Snowflake

After the Snowflake Connector for ServiceNow®V2 synchronizes the data with Snowflake, to access the ServiceNow® data a role needs:

Snowflake recommends creating a dedicated role with these privileges that can be granted to users who need access to the ingested ServiceNow® data. If the connector has been installed with Snowsight then the role provided during Configure step already has the necessary privileges.

For example, if you configured the connector application called my_connector_servicenow to store the ServiceNow® data in the dest_db database and dest_schema schema, you can create a role named servicenow_data_reader_role and grant the privileges for accessing the data to that role.

The following example shows how to grant these privileges:

CREATE ROLE servicenow_data_reader_role;
GRANT USAGE ON DATABASE dest_db TO ROLE servicenow_data_reader_role;
GRANT USAGE ON SCHEMA dest_db.dest_schema TO ROLE servicenow_data_reader_role;
GRANT APPLICATION ROLE my_connector_servicenow.DATA_READER to role servicenow_data_reader_role;
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Note

  • Do not run GRANT OWNERSHIP ON FUTURE TABLES IN SCHEMA on the schema that contains the ServiceNow® data in Snowflake. Also, do not change the ownership of the tables that are already created by the connector. Changing the ownership prevents the connector from ingesting the data to the table.

  • Do not change the ownership of the views in the schema that contains the ServiceNow® data in Snowflake. Changing the ownership prevents the connector from updating the views when changes occur in the ServiceNow® table schema.

Accessing the Raw Data

For each ServiceNow® table that you synchronize, the Snowflake Connector for ServiceNow®V2 creates a new table with the same name in the database and schema for the ServiceNow® data in Snowflake.

For example, if you configured the connector to store the ServiceNow® data in the dest_db database and dest_schema schema, and if you configured the connector to synchronize the incident table in ServiceNow®, the connector creates the table named dest_db.dest_schema.incident.

This table contains raw data ingested from ServiceNow®. This table contains the following columns:

Column

Data Type

Description

sys_id

VARCHAR

The value of the sys_id of the record in ServiceNow®.

raw

VARIANT

The data for the record in raw form.

is_deleted

BOOLEAN

Specifies whether or not the record was deleted in ServiceNow®.

last_update_date

TIMESTAMP_NTZ

The last time the record was updated in Snowflake. Note that the displayed timestamp is provided in the UTC timezone with no offset, which may differ from the timezone of dates displayed in the ServiceNow instance.

The following is an example of the output for a SELECT statement that retrieves the data for the dest_db.dest_schema.incident table:

SELECT * FROM DEST_DB.DEST_SCHEMA.INCIDENT LIMIT 5;

+----------------------------------+-------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
| SYS_ID                           | RAW:ACTIVE              |  IS_DELETED | LAST_UPDATE_DATE         |
+----------------------------------+-------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
| caa04d36db8ba0106e9643c81396197b | {"active": "true", ...} |  FALSE      |  2021-08-24 12:59:23.932 |
| cea045be1b03e010eac562c4bd4bcbb2 | {"active": "true", ...} |  FALSE      |  2021-08-24 12:59:23.932 |
| caa0c9bedb8be010f9f19c41ba961934 | {"active": "true", ...} |  FALSE      |  2021-08-24 12:59:23.932 |
| caa0c9bedb8be010f9f19c41ba961969 | {"active": "true", ...} |  FALSE      |  2021-08-24 12:59:23.932 |
| b9a0c53adb436410d6fa2b691396190a | {"active": "true", ...} |  FALSE      |  2021-08-24 12:59:23.932 |
+----------------------------------+-------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+
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Accessing the Flattened Data

For each table that contains data, the connector creates two flattened views over the raw data. The names of the views are the names of the table with the suffixes __view and __view_with_deleted. For example, for the ServiceNow® table named incident, the connector creates the following views:

  • dest_db.dest_schema.incident__view

  • dest_db.dest_schema.incident__view_with_deleted

The view with the __view suffix contains the records that are in the ServiceNow® table. The view with the __view_with_deleted suffix includes these same records as well as the records that were deleted from the ServiceNow® table.

Note the following:

  • The names of the columns in these views are in uppercase. You cannot use lowercase names to access these columns.

  • Columns with time and timestamps are always saved using the UTC timezone, regardless of the timezone set in the ServiceNow instance. As a result, depending on the ServiceNow instance configuration, their displayed values may differ from the values displayed in the ServiceNow instance. The difference relates only to displayed values, timestamps both in ServiceNow and Snowflake are referring to the same point in time.

  • There are no views for empty tables. After data appears in the table in ServiceNow®, the view is created.

  • Although the connector handles changes to the schema, the connector does not reload the data.

    As a result, in the case of schema changes, records from the old schema are not updated.

The following is an example of the output for a SELECT statement that retrieves the data from the dest_db.dest_schema.incident_view view. In this example, the incident table in ServiceNow® has columns named ACTIVE, APPROVAL, CATEGORY, and ESCALATION.

SELECT ACTIVE, APPROVAL, CATEGORY, ESCALATION
FROM DEST_DB.DEST_SCHEMA.INCIDENT__VIEW LIMIT 5;

+--------+----------------+------------------+------------+
| ACTIVE | APPROVAL       | CATEGORY         | ESCALATION |
+--------+----------------+------------------+------------+
| TRUE   | not requested  | software         | 0          |
| TRUE   | not requested  | Cloud Management | 0          |
| TRUE   | not requested  | software         | 0          |
| TRUE   | not requested  | network          | 0          |
| TRUE   | not requested  | database         | 0          |
+--------+----------------+------------------+------------+
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Viewing the Event Logs for a Table

The Snowflake Connector for ServiceNow®V2 can track the changes made to records in ServiceNow®. This tracking information is stored in tables called event logs.

For every ServiceNow® table enabled for synchronization, the connector creates an event log table within Snowflake named <destination_db>.<destination_schema>.<table_name>__event_log.

Each event log table has the following columns:

Column

Data Type

Description

sys_id

VARCHAR

The value of the sys_id of the record in ServiceNow®.

sys_updated_on

VARCHAR

The date the record was last updated in ServiceNow®. If there is no sys_updated_on field in the ServiceNow® table, this column contains null values. Note that the displayed timestamp is provided in the UTC timezone with no offset, which may differ from the timezone of dates displayed in the ServiceNow instance.

event_date

TIMESTAMP_NTZ

The date the event was inserted in the event log. Note that the displayed timestamp is provided in the UTC timezone with no offset, which may differ from the timezone of the dates displayed in the ServiceNow instance.

raw

VARIANT

The current data of the record event. For DELETE events, this is the data of the record at the time of deletion.

event_type

VARCHAR

Specifies if the record was inserted, updated, or deleted from ServiceNow®.

The event log reflects the history of data changes in the corresponding ServiceNow® table. For example, if a new record is inserted into the u_ip_port table in ServiceNow®, a record with event_type set to INSERT event type is added to the dest_db.dest_schema.u_ip_port__event_log table in Snowflake.

Similarly, if a record is updated or deleted in a table in ServiceNow®, a record with event_type set to UPDATE or DELETE is added to the dest_db.dest_schema.u_ip_port__event_log table.

The tables in Snowflake that contain the raw data (dest_db.dest_schema.table_name) are derived from the corresponding event log tables (dest_db.dest_schema.table_name__event_log). For example:

  • If a record for an INSERT event is added to table_name__event_log, the connector adds a corresponding record to the table_name table.

  • If an UPDATE event for the given sys_id is added to the event log table, the connector updates the corresponding record with the sys_id in the table_name table with new data.

  • If a DELETE event occurs, the is_deleted flag of the corresponding record in table_name is set to true.

Getting the Display Value of a Reference Field

In ServiceNow® tables, some fields are reference fields, which contain references to records in other tables.

In the example below, the field opened_by in the incident table is a reference field that contains a reference to the record with the sys_id <sys_id> in another table (sys_user):

{
  "link": "https://testingatt1.service-now.com/api/now/table/sys_user/<sys_id>",
  "value": "<sys_id>"
}
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To show the reference fields in the table, call the SHOW_REFERENCES_OF_TABLE stored procedure with the following argument:

CALL SHOW_REFERENCES_OF_TABLE('<table_name>');
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Where:

table_name

Specifies the name of the table you want to show the reference fields for.

This stored procedure inspects the schema of the table and returns a JSON list of objects containing the following properties:

Property

Description

columnName

Name of the reference field.

referencedColumnName

Name of the field that the reference points to.

referencedTableName

Name of the referenced table.

Enabling Data Synchronization for Referred Tables

If a table contains references to other tables, you can enable data synchronization of the referred tables. To synchronize data for referred tables, call the ENABLE_REFERENCED_TABLES stored procedure with the following argument:

CALL ENABLE_REFERENCED_TABLES('<table_name>');
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Where:

table_name

Specifies the name of the table (with the table reference fields) for which you want to enable data synchronization.

Creating a View Containing Reference Fields

If the table containing the reference fields and the tables referenced by the those fields have been processed, you can create a view that replaces the references with display values.

To create this view, call the CREATE_VIEW_WITH_DISPLAY_VALUES stored procedure.

CALL CREATE_VIEW_WITH_DISPLAY_VALUES('<table_name>');
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Where:

table_name

Specifies the name of the table containing the table reference fields for which you want to create a view with display value.

Note

Only reference fields with the sys_id as reference key are supported.

Important

This procedure is only run manually, therefore each time the table schema is changed the view must be recreated manually to reflect the schema change.

After the view is created successfully, the stored procedure returns the name of the newly created view. The view name is the table name with the __view_with_references suffix added. For example, for a ServiceNow® table named incident, the stored procedure creates the view incident__view_with_references. Reference fields are replaced with display values and a new metadata column is added for each reference field.

The display value column has the same name as the reference column being replaced and may be null when if the display value is null or the reference is not resolved. The metadata column name is the name of the reference column with the __metadata suffix. For example, for a reference column named user, the procedure creates a column named user__metadata. The content of this column is a JSON object with a field named reference_field with the following properties:

Property

Description

key

sys_id of the referred row. If the reference column or reference column field value is null, this property is also null.

reference_table

Name of the referenced table. If the reference is not resolved this property is null.

link

ServiceNow® link to the referred row. If the reference column or reference column field link is null, this property is also null.

display_value

Display value. If the reference is not resolved this property is null.

resolved

true if display value is resolved. false when the connector cannot resolve the reference.

reason

Reason the reference failed to resolve. For example Display value is not ingested yet. If the reference is resolved this property is not displayed.

The following example shows how a pair of display value and metadata columns in a view created by the stored procedure CREATE_VIEW_WITH_DISPLAY_VALUES looks like. The example table incident has opened_by column which references (by sys_id as reference key) to the sys_user table.

The incident__view_with_references view created by the stored procedure resolves the reference, so the displayed values can be obtained with a simple SELECT.

SELECT OPENED_BY, OPENED_BY__METADATA
  FROM DEST_DB.DEST_SCHEMA.INCIDENT__VIEW_WITH_REFERENCES;
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This command displays information in the following format:

+-----------+------------------------------------+
| OPENED_BY | OPENED_BY__METADATA                |
+-----------+------------------------------------+
| "JOHN"    | {                                  |
|           |   "reference_field": {             |
|           |     "display_value": "JOHN",       |
|           |     "key": "b177...",              |
|           |     "link": "https://...",         |
|           |     "reference_table": "sys_user", |
|           |     "resolved": true               |
|           |   }                                |
|           | }                                  |
+-----------+------------------------------------+