How to Access Live ServiceNow Data in Power Automate Desktop via ODBC

Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism

The CData ODBC Driver for ServiceNow enables you to integrate ServiceNow data into workflows built using Microsoft Power Automate Desktop.

The CData ODBC Driver for ServiceNow enables you to access live ServiceNow data in workflow automation tools like Power Automate. This article shows how to integrate ServiceNow data into a simple workflow, moving ServiceNow data into a CSV file.

Through optimized data processing, CData ODBC Drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live ServiceNow data in Microsoft Power Automate. When you issue complex SQL queries from Power Automate to ServiceNow, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to ServiceNow and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (e.g. SQL functions and JOIN operations).

About ServiceNow Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live ServiceNow data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

Get optimized performance since CData uses the REST API for data and the SOAP API for schema.
Read, write, update, and delete ServiceNow objects like Schedules, Timelines, Questions, Syslogs and more.
Use SQL stored procedures for actions like adding items to a cart, submitting orders, and downloading attachments.
Securely authenticate with ServiceNow, including basic (username and password), OKTA, ADFS, OneLogin, and PingFederate authentication schemes.

Many users access live ServiceNow data from preferred analytics tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Excel, and use CData solutions to integrate ServiceNow data with their database or data warehouse.

Getting Started

Connect to ServiceNow as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

ServiceNow uses the OAuth 2.0 authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, register an OAuth app with ServiceNow to obtain the OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret connection properties. In addition to the OAuth values, specify the Instance, Username, and Password connection properties.

See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide on connecting to ServiceNow.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing workflows.

Integrate ServiceNow Data into Power Automate Workflows

After configuring the DSN for ServiceNow, you are ready to integrate ServiceNow data into your Power Automate workflows. Open Microsoft Power Automate, add a new flow, and name the flow.

👁 A new flow in Power Automate

In the flow editor, you can add the actions to connect to ServiceNow, query ServiceNow using SQL, and write the query results to a CSV document.

Add an Open SQL Connection Action

Add an "Open SQL connection" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

Connection string: DSN=CData ServiceNow Source

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Open SQL connection' action

Add an Execute SQL Statement Action

Add an "Execute SQL statement" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

Get connection by: SQL connection variable
SQL connection: %SQLConnection% (the variable from the "Open SQL connection" action above)
SQL statement: SELECT * FROM incident

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Execute SQL statement' action

Add a Write to CSV File Action

Add a "Write to CSV file" action (Actions -> File) and configure the properties.

Variable to write to: %QueryResult% (the variable from the "Execute SQL statement" action above)
File path: set to a file on disk
Configure Advanced settings as needed.

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Write to CSV file' action

Add a Close SQL Connection Action

Add a "Close SQL connection" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

SQL Connection: %SQLConnection% (the variable from the "Open SQL connection" action above)

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Close SQL connection' action

Save & Run the Flow

Once you have configured all the actions for the flow, click the disk icon to save the flow. Click the play icon to run the flow.

👁 A fully configured workflow

Now you have a workflow to move ServiceNow data into a CSV file.

👁 Application data in a CSV file (Salesforce is shown)

With the CData ODBC Driver for ServiceNow, you get live connectivity to ServiceNow data within your Microsoft Power Automate workflows.

URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/servicenow-odbc-power-automate.rst