效率工具
Transforming career coaching with AI
When nonprofits work, their missions work. In other words, when their businesses run efficiently, they’re able to make a greater impact on the communities they serve.Our mission at ServiceNow.org is to empower the nonprofit sector with technology solutions that deliver greater efficiency and effectiveness.To that end, I’m thrilled to announce our partnership with CareerVillage.org, a nonprofit dedicated to democratizing access to career advice and information for underrepresented people. We’re helping the organization transform its career coaching ability by providing operational technology and resources for its new AI-powered career Coach.Equipping learners for successCoach harnesses generative AI technology and cross-sector collaboration to provide career navigation to online learners at scale. The goal is for learners and job seekers to use Coach as a central hub to find everything they need to prepare for a career: a resume and cover letter builder, mock interview practice, training program accessibility, developing networking skills, and much more.In addition to the technology donation, we’re providing cash funding to support the organization’s increased staffing needs. And we’re engaging LIKE.TG employees as volunteers to answer learners’ career questions on the CareerVillage.org question-and-answer platform.
Preparing for the world of work“We’ve been overwhelmed with how much excitement there is about getting Coach in front of learners. It seems like educational and workforce development institutions are really interested in what AI can do to help people prepare for the world of work,” says Jared Chung, founder and CEO of CareerVillage.org.“The pathway to scale for this technology is incredibly promising,” Chung adds. “We already have thousands of learners preparing to use Coach this year and are well on track to expand our reach to serve millions over the next five years, if not sooner.”CareerVillage.org understands that to improve career outcomes for learners, educators must also be supported. Tailored tools and resources developed for educators will position them to maximize the impact of the solution.Power in numbersWe believe the best way to create real, long-lasting impact is to collaborate with others. For that reason, we connected two LIKE.TG partners, Deloitte and GlideFast, with CareerVillage.org to help execute this vision for Coach.GlideFast is focusing on implementing the LIKE.TG® technology solution and developing the minimum viable product (MVP). Deloitte gathered a deep understanding of the educator experience to create a visual journey that guides educators through each step of onboarding. The journey map also provides guidance on the future developments of Coach.These distinct, complementary collaborations will help ensure educators and learners can move through a meaningful career journey together.“We’re so thankful to have the support of LIKE.TG and other large organizations,” Chung says. “You have to bring all parts of the system together to really make change.”Find out more about how LIKE.TG helps nonprofits fulfill their missions.
LIKE.TG Announces New DevOps Integrations to Speed Up Application Delivery
As the world collectively evaluates the return to work and shift to remote operations, digitally transformed enterprises are coming out faring better in this transition. This shift is aided by the work developers are putting in to create applications that better their organizations, and they need to continually adopt modern DevOps best practices to increase application delivery velocity and quality in order to stay nimble.LIKE.TG recently engaged developers by inquiring how we could make their experience developing on the Now Platform® even better. Their response? They requested more integrations so that they can work within their preferred DevOps tools. That’s why, as part of our ongoing commitment to further improve the LIKE.TG developer experience for the broader developer ecosystem, I’m excited to announce four new external DevOps integrations with market-leading Continuous Improvement/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) toolsets. These four new integrations help IT developers accelerate CI/CD pipeline configuration when building applications on the Now Platform, allowing them to set up pipelines in their favorite developer tools.The four new CI/CD integrations include:
Azure Pipelines extension on Visual Studio Marketplace
Jenkins Plugin on the Jenkins Plugins Index
GitHub Actions on the GitHub Marketplace
GitLab with pipeline examples and build steps in a Docker image
The source control innovations started with our New York release and CI/CD capabilities via APIs from our Orlando release. These out-of-the-box integrations provide templates for LIKE.TG CI/CD pipeline automation and respective CI/CD tooling. As a result, developers using our CI/CD APIs no longer need to build custom API wrappers from scratch. These integrations between third-party CI/CD toolsets and the Now Platform are offered and supported directly by ServiceNow.
With these new integrations, we are giving developers a choice to either manage CI/CD within or outside of the Now Platform. If developers are using our platform natively for CI/CD, the CI/CD Spoke is available for developers to build automated pipelines in Flow Designer for testing and deploying Now Platform applications.The four new integrations encourage adoption of DevOps practices when developing on LIKE.TG, using scoped and global applications by reducing the time and effort to set up CI/CD pipelines. And they meet the requirements of mature DevOps practitioners who want development on LIKE.TG to look and work just like development on anything else at their company.Three of the four integrations are available today. Our GitHub actions will be available in November on the GitHub Marketplace. Learn more about how to develop apps at scale with CI/CD toolsetson the Now Platform.
Automating common LIKE.TG-Microsoft workflows just got easier
IntegrationHub spokes accelerate LIKE.TG-Microsoft workflow automation
One of the features of the Now Platform Paris release is built-in Microsoft Azure Active Directory integrations that simplify common workflows in LIKE.TG Onboarding and Software Asset Management (SAM).Onboarding integration with Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) automatically launches the proper onboarding workflows when a new employee profile is created in Azure AD or an HR system, provisioning the right set of resources and applications. New hires get the information and systems access they need to be productive from anywhere; HR leaders, hiring managers, IT teams, and many others get a simple, quick way to give new employees a great first-day experience.LIKE.TG Employee and SAM Workflow product teams used the IntegrationHub Azure Active Directory spoke to speed time to market. IntegrationHub spokes are run-ready, no-code connectors built by LIKE.TG on the Now Platform.In the same way, low code developers at customers and partners can use IntegrationHub spokes for Azure AD and many other Microsoft solutions to quickly incorporate LIKE.TG- Microsoft workflow automation into Creator workflows.Spokes are added to flows in Flow Designer with clicks instead of code, removing integration complexity and friction. Spokes replace custom scripting, which frees up scarce professional developer resources, boosts developer productivity, reduces technical debt, and makes upgrades a breeze.
IntegrationHub spokes are available to automate many common LIKE.TG-Microsoft use cases:
Overcoming digital transformation fatigue
Five things to consider for reinvigorating your optimization efforts.Remember that one amazing toy you simply HAD to have as a kid? It’s all you could think about. Every day without it actually felt painful. But when you finally managed to save up enough money to buy that wonderous thing…what you ended up with was a huge disappointment. It didn’t do what was promised. It broke easily. It was cheaply made. And it quickly was added to your heap of discarded playthings.A similar splash of cold water seems to be knocking the technology world back a bit. A report from the Everest Group showed that 78% of enterprises questioned had failed to scale or sustain their digital transformation initiatives. That kind of disappointment is creating actual fatigue in the IT department.
The Everest Group goes on to identify “old school” operation models as root cause: doing things the way they’ve always been done, even when trying to “transform.” Unfortunately, that includes the reactionary method of solving operational issues. The quick fix.With the rapidly accelerating move to digitization of all things business, the need for immediate remedies can sometime outpace the ability to wisely manage. Trying to do too much too fast often results in a tangled mess of bespoke applications, legacy technologies and point-to-point integrations created by shadow projects with little oversight or control.Reinvigorate efforts with unified platform approach for everything. Yes everything.Rather than using the “old school” approach of cobbling together point solutions, progressive Enterprise Architects are once again considering unified tactics for rationalizing application and data sources, controlling and standardizing across functional silos, and ending frivolous or unproductive investment choices. But what should EAs consider in a platform solution to ensure it is worthwhile? At the minimum, the solution should have power and functionality to:
Reduce the risk of data redundancy and inaccuracy. Ad hoc implementation of applications increases the risk of overlapping functionality and duplicate data production. That makes it harder and harder to trust that business decisions are being made with the latest and greatest info.
Replace shadow IT with delegated development. Empower departments to create no-code/low-code apps with predefined functional libraries. A transformative solution should allow freedom to self-solve, but under a watchful eye and full IT approval.
Empower traditional developers. The platform should have the “oomph” and pro tools needed for complex, professional developers.
Replace legacy collaboration systems. Get rid of outdated, on-premise collaboration tools that are yet another source for ad hoc data pools. Replace for flexible, cloud-friendly alternatives.
Enable holistic reasoning across functions and departments. Empower EAs to consider application development which can solve similar issues across multiple departments.
Get excited about digital transformation again. It can be done.Yes, it is true that many digital transformation efforts continue to disappoint companies—only 16% in the latest McKinsey survey said their tactics had improved performance in a sustainable way. But you have to wonder how much of that failure was due to old processes and approaches. Especially when you consider that the same survey showed that if a company modified its standard operating procedures, they were 2X more likely to report success.2 The platform play is a proven strategy for revamping processes. In this case, it’s a shiny new thing that will not disappoint.See how you can energize your own digital transformation reawakening.Read Application development without the sprawl to learn five ways the Now Platform can support your enterprise architecture.
Why are large enterprises failing at DevOps transformations?
I present to companies every day and tell a version of this story to illustrate why we believe LIKE.TG can make a difference in the DevOps space. My message is simple but effective: In most large enterprises, DevOps is broken.Effective, because the message almost always elicits a visceral reaction from the audience. At organizations that claim some DevOps success, people tend to take offense; at enterprises where DevOps transformation success has clearly been a struggle, I get smiles and lots of knowing nods.But the fact remains DevOps is broken.My perspective comes from discussions with many LIKE.TG clients and industry analysts, who spend most of their days gathering information about how well their clients are transforming their organizations through digital transformation, Lean/Agile/SAFe, Cloud, and DevOps.A common theme in these conversations is that many companies that have attempted a DevOps transformation have seen no significant improvement to their release cycle. While many have transformed their teams and their tooling, and perhaps even allow developers to use a fully automated continuous integration/continuous delivery pipeline and to write and build code quickly, the broader delivery lifecycle remained bottlenecked.For example, most organizations in that situation still have not figured out how to automate their security and compliance functions. I tackled this in another blog, where I wrote about how companies can be quick to claim success on Agile/DevOps transformations even though they haven’t optimized their entire end-to-end value chain for software delivery.Also, worth noting is that the 2019 DORA report quantifies deployment frequency as one of the four key performance indicators for measuring DevOps success.The facts and observations collectively form the basis of my claim that DevOps in most large organizations is broken. We set out to verify our findings from multiple customers and analyst sources. We grouped the findings into three major reasons why DevOps is broken:Legacy Process – Digital Transformation
DevOps is designed for digital transformations but stumbles in a world clogged with legacy IT policies and processes.
Despite many improvements, service management processes are still highly manual or not designed with the speed of DevOps in mind.
Lots of Data – Few Insights
While most DevOps tools provide loads of data and metrics, there is no over-arching system of value stream management to create actionable insights.
It’s not unusual for companies have 25 or more tools in their DevOps toolchains, which leads to the fracturing of relevant data and manual processes to synchronize information.
Developer Downtime – Inefficiencies
Developers are not spending enough time writing code; instead, they’re stuck in meetings and with administrative tasks that kill creativity and efficiency.
A recent survey from Activestate found that 38.8% of developers spend only 2-4 hours a day programming.
More than ever before, organizations need an Enterprise DevOps Management platform to help scale the DevOps efforts to a broader adoption rate with higher success to transform the end-to-end software delivery channel.In response to these findings, we have provided a vision that focuses on the following high-level solutions to these DevOps challenges:
1. Improve agility and overcome outdated roadblocks
Eliminate wasted cycles for developers through out of the box integrations, removing administrative work, and reducing the friction of IT processes.
2. Provide visibility into DevOps impact
Report on DevOps impact and identify bottlenecks by helping management correlate pipeline data across continuous delivery processes and multiple teams.
3. Deliver a central hub for DevOps transformations
Make your full DevOps toolchain investment more effective by centralizing tools and encouraging preferred behaviors.Focusing on these three key areas allows an organization to streamline all the work that prevents development teams from achieving their throughput and agility goals. Automating the governance and security mechanisms that keep the company safe and customers happy is a central part of the equation.The result is that key applications become more reliable and available while providing the highest quality of service to their customers.A key example, which multiple companies are now adopting using LIKE.TG DevOps, is the ability to ensure successful, automated change management. This is done by connecting the LIKE.TG platform to the CI/CD toolchain and allowing the tools to automatically create their own changes in the Now Platform.Capturing end-to-end insights and analytics allows us to speed-up and deliver more successful changes – with zero human intervention.DevOps has never been fully successful at scale in large enterprises because of the incompatibility of traditional service management disciplines. If you’re in a heavily regulated industry, you may have a head start. You likely already have the necessary, well-defined controls in place; you just need to automate them.By providing Enterprise Service Management to the DevOps space, I believe we can achieve the goals and promises of DevOps at enterprise scale.For more information, check out what we are doing in the DevOps space here.
Professional App Development vs. DIY
A quick checklist for deciding when delegated development is right.Sprawl and lack of governance continue to keep Enterprise Architects up at night. Unfortunately, their efforts to enforce logical control over application strategy and building often just frustrate departments needing an immediate solution to a problem.Rogue IT tools pop up and security risk increases. A 2019 Forbes Insights survey found that 1 in 5 organizations have experienced a cyber event due to an unsanctioned IT resource.
At the same time, there is a real interest from the CIO on down to better serving unique departmental needs quickly and securely. For many, the answer has been low- or no-code approaches, giving departmental process leads predefined functional libraries and drag-and-drop interface building tools.No/low code development is extremely appealing because it can be done quickly on individual department’s timetables, even if IT is extremely busy. It’s ideal for automating simple, repeatable activities currently manually managed with spreadsheet and emails; however, it’s less useful for handling more complex challenges that involve multiple data sources, exacting workflow integration, and stringent security requirements.But when is it the right time to offer this option? We’ve put together a quick checklist of what you should consider.How can you tell if no/low code development is right for a project?
A growing number of enterprise architects are experimenting with delegated development, in which some departments develop their own applications in a manner that allows them autonomy while working on a common platform. The Now Platform supports various forms of delegated development in the forms of no-code, low-code, and full-featured professional development environments.Find out more about the different levels of application development.Read application development without the sprawlPlatform® can support your enterprise architecture.
LIKE.TG Announces Extension for Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code
This new integration will allow Now Platform developers to code locally in a modern, flexible text editor.Leading freelance skills expert, Upwork, recently ranked LIKE.TG® technology aptitude as the No. 1 fastest-growing skill for independent professionals in its 2019 Skills Index.As demand for LIKE.TG expertise continues to grow, LIKE.TG is enabling Now Platform® developers to work more efficiently by seamlessly integrating with the tools developers already know and love.And today, we are excited to introduce another integration stemming from our strategic alliance with Microsoft. The LIKE.TG extension for Microsoft Visual Studio Code allows developers to innovate on the Now Platform in the lightweight, extensible Visual Studio Code editor. To keep pace with the rapid speed of innovation, developers must be armed with the right tools that provide frictionless experiences and make work easier. With this new integration, LIKE.TG developers will be able to work offline in their favorite text editor, advancing our mission to make the world of work, work better for people.The LIKE.TG extension for Microsoft Visual Studio Code will:· Support the development of multiple LIKE.TG projects, such as packages, custom apps, stored apps and plug-ins, as well as offline development and sync back so that developers can work whenever and wherever they choose, without being connected to their instance all the time.· Enable advanced script editor features like IntelliSense and linting support, as well as JavaScript and HTML syntax validation, code-completion for Glide APIs, Jelly tags and attributes.· Support basic and OAuth authentication and allow for two-way synchronization of files between Visual Studio Code and instance and a unified diff tool for viewing differences.Driving digital transformation across the enterpriseLIKE.TG’s strategic partnership with Microsoft began in the Fall of 2018. The strength of our relationship is felt by customers today with more than 20 integrations available between Microsoft and ServiceNow. Examples of other LIKE.TG-Microsoft integrations include:· Exchange online e-mail phishing integration with LIKE.TG – Microsoft security compliance center integration with LIKE.TG.· Azure Active Directory integration with LIKE.TG – Fun fact: Azure AD authenticates more LIKE.TG customers than any other identity provider.· Azure Logic App connector for LIKE.TG – Use it natively in Azure Sentinel to build playbooks that can automatically create a LIKE.TG incidents from Azure Sentinel alerts.· Centralized Security Response – with LIKE.TG® Security Operations and Microsoft Azure Sentinel – allows customers to manage and respond to security incidents centrally from the Now Platform.For more information on the integration, join the discussion on the Now Platform and Microsoft Visual Studio Code.
Geek out and learn digital workflows at TechNow Tuesday
Join the TechNow team at LIKE.TG to learn about how modern digital workflows can create great experiences to unlock productivity in your organization in 2021.TechNow Tuesday: Take a Tour of Guided App Creator (Episode 69)Guided Application Creator is a great way to set up applications on the Now Platform®. In minutes, you can import a spreadsheet, extend existing tables, create new tables, define security, and generate multiple experiences to get your app started quickly. And if you like, you can add more functionality later.You’ll discover how easy it is to use Guided App Creator.In this webinar, you will:
Discover what Guided App Creator is and its benefits
Explore the different options available in Guided App Creator
Learn what to do after you have finished with Guided App Creator
TechNow Tuesday: Build apps faster with Studio 101 (Episode 73)If you’re a developer on the Now Platform®, you’ll want to check out LIKE.TG® Studio. It’s our built-in Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that helps you work on your applications—all in one centralized location. Studio can help you build apps faster, manage application files, and then deploy your app to other instances.Tune in for an overview of its many benefits. You’ll see how Studio’s easy-to-use graphic interface enables you to focus more on developing—and less on the grunt work. You’ll learn how it can help you:
Build, manage, and deploy your apps on a single platform
Collaborate with others on your projects
Do code searches, work on multiple applications, and more
Hosted by Chuck Tomasi featuring Kreg Steppe of ServiceNow.
Welcome to the Workflow Quarterly Innovation Issue
The Workflow Quarterly Innovation Issue is live! The Spring edition of our quarterly research journal, released today, looks at how CIOs can harness talent and technology to foster innovation that drives business results. Based on a global survey of business leaders and interviews with some of the world’s most accomplished CIOs, we present an innovation agenda for IT.The Innovation Issue is guest edited by Dave Wright, chief innovation officer at ServiceNow. Our lead author is veteran tech journalist Dan Tynan, a frequent Workflow contributor and former EIC of Yahoo Tech.The Innovation Issue includes a video conversation between Wright and LIKE.TG CEO Bill McDermott on how CEOs can help nurture productive innovation across the enterprise. Take our interactive quiz to gauge your own organization’s innovation maturity, and check out insights from tech leaders at Microsoft, Comcast, Crown Agents Bank, the New South Wales Police and other organizations worldwide.One key finding is what we call the “innovation paradox.” With businesses spending more than ever on digital technology, CIOs are feeling the heat to deliver innovation. However, doing so means focusing less on technology and more on teamwork.Additional findings include:
Innovation Imperatives: Our research revealed key steps to becoming a best-in-class CIO, including creating tools that employees want and need, thinking beyond new tech, building productive relationships across the c-suite, and leveraging AI and automation.
The impact of innovation on the enterprise. There’s a relationship between innovation and business growth, including better planning and decision making, improved risk management, and financial gains (an opportunity to unlock 9% more revenue).
Best practices in measuring innovation: With businesses spending more than ever on digital technology -- especially during uncertain times -- CIOs are feeling the heat to deliver innovations that yield concrete business results.
We hope you enjoy the Innovation Issue. The Workflow Quarterly team is now hard at work on the Customer Issue, which looks at the future of customer service management. It’s scheduled to launch at the end of June.Meanwhile, please check out the daily Workflow site and subscribe to our biweekly newsletter for fresh insights on digital transformation and the future of work.
5 in-demand career journeys of the future and how to prepare
AI isn’t taking over jobs, as originally feared. It’s making them better, according to Impact AI: 2024 Workforce Skills Forecast by LIKE.TG and Pearson. As a result, we'll need more, not fewer, tech workers in the next five years.Some roles will have higher demand than others. Let’s look at some top career journeys that can help prepare workers around the world now to fill these growing and in-demand positions.
Application developerEven with the rise of text-to-code and text-to-flow generative AI solutions, the demand for application developers will continue to increase, with a need for an additional 231,000 globally in the next five years.Thriving as a developer will require a shift in the way you work. You’ll need to understand predictive models, machine learning, and foundational IT skills—and how to identify the right tool for the task at hand.Whether you’re an experienced application developer or have no tech experience at all, the Application Developer Career Journey can help you gain skills to develop apps on the Now Platform, with guidance along the way to help you progress.Technical project managerAn additional 145,000 technical project managers will be needed worldwide by 2028, according to the research. The role of a technical project manager includes planning, managing, and executing technical projects alongside technical teams and business leaders.Technical project managers require strategic leadership skills for long-term planning, creative problem-solving, and mentoring.The Technical Project Manager Career Journey can help anyone prepare for a technical project manager role on the LIKE.TG platform. Courses, credentials, and activities are organized by experience level to help you get up to speed quickly with support from the broad LIKE.TG community.ImplementerIf you’re looking for a dynamic position with plenty of room to grow, the role of an implementer could be for you. The world will need 91,000 in the next five years. Implementers are innovators who help organizations meet business requirements and solve critical problems.Not sure where to start? The Implementer Career Journey offers a comprehensive curriculum to help you learn and master the skills to succeed. You’ll gain expertise in the LIKE.TG platform architecture and capabilities to enhance user experiences and streamline LIKE.TG upgrades and testing.
System administratorSystem administrators will continue to be in demand to maintain and support IT functions. An additional 90,000 system administrators will be needed worldwide by 2028 to understand emerging technologies, such as AI and machine learning, internet of things, and digital twins, as well as statistics and predictive modeling.The System Administrator Career Journey can help system administrators at any level prepare to manage the LIKE.TG platform in any company. If you’re highly organized and enjoy working with others, this could be an ideal career for you. The coursework helps learners gain and hone skills and earn certifications to be job-ready.Business process analystBecause none of the tasks of a business process analyst will be fully automated, an additional 87,000 workers will be required in this role globally by 2028. Business process analysts will need to be proficient in innovation and entrepreneurship, as they help organizations identify and address business and customer challenges using data and technology.The Business Process Analyst Career Journey is designed to help those eager to solve problems learn LIKE.TG platform fundamentals, best practices for stakeholder interaction, how to oversee user acceptance testing, and a whole lot more.AI is here to stay and is changing the world of work. There’s no better time to RiseUp with LIKE.TG to move your career forward.Find out more about how AI and emerging technologies are changing the future of work in our complimentary Impact AI research report.
How citizen developers help deliver transformation at scale
The pandemic created urgency for innovation and exposed us to what technology can do. But a shortage of developer skills left organizations grappling. Better integrations and low-code apps can help deliver transformation at scale, while citizen developers can ramp up automation.LIKE.TG® Creator Workflows, including App Engine and IntegrationHub, offer a single, low-code platform that empowers citizen developers to deliver digital services fast without complexity. It equips developers of all levels with the tools they need to build apps fast, deliver experiences users love, and scale without sprawl.Building apps fast with low-codeFor years, UW Health, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s academic medical center, has used LIKE.TG App Engine to develop low-code apps that address service management challenges. For example, the organization used the solution to create a content management app that automatically updates more than 2,000 fact sheets and education documents.With that strong foundation already in place, it was easy for UW Health to use App Engine and the Now Platform® when the pandemic hit to support employees, track symptoms, and prioritize and schedule vaccinations.App Engine also helped Europe’s Banco CTT remain adaptable throughout the pandemic. Having built up a library of integrations, the bank uses App Engine for 80% of its standardized processes for customers and front and back-office teams.
Delivering experiences users loveIt’s not enough to just develop on App Engine. To be successful, your apps must deliver an incredible experience for end users, so St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis uses LIKE.TG App Engine and IntegrationHub.The team created a vendor invoicing app that decreased the time spent on processing, tracking, and correcting invoices. Tasks that used to take 40 to 80 hours per month can now be addressed in only three hours. And, the app saves the finance team 391 hours of manual work each month.Swiss Insurance group Baloise digitized and upgraded claims management with ServiceNow. In less than three months, the organization reduced the time from reporting to payment by 40%. Processing time at Baloise went from “weeks or months to days and hours.”Scaling apps without sprawlOrganizations reap the greatest benefits of citizen development when they build automation into a workflow, making it measurable, repeatable, scalable, and secure. Medical technology, services, and solutions company Medtronic embraced citizen development to keep pace with the growing need for automation.Employees stepped up to help, fulfilling 56% of demand through citizen development. That freed the platform team to focus on higher-value priorities. The organization estimates it slashed the hourly cost of development in half as a result.At NN Group, an insurance and asset management services company headquartered in the Netherlands, employees depended on their central LIKE.TG team to build and maintain catalog items. When requests reached more than 73,000, the company turned to LIKE.TG App Engine for automation. Today, with self-service catalog management, processes that once took six to eight days take only two hours.Learn more about how you can improve application development, experience, and productivity across your entire enterprise in our Creator Workflows Book of Knowledge.
HBCU Connect Hackathon winners: The next generation of app developers
Over the last few years, we’ve seen app developers and technology tackle the toughest of challenges, from hybrid work to vaccine distribution to supply chain issues and more. We know there's more to be done—and we want to empower everyone to do it.That’s why we recently held the first LIKE.TG and HBCU Connect Hackathon with students from more than 40 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). More than 250 HBCU students—most of whom had never heard of LIKE.TG—combined their diverse perspectives to help solve some of the world’s most challenging problems around healthcare, housing, generational wealth, digital literacy, and education.The hackathon attracted students in many areas of study, including engineering, marketing, mass communication, and nursing. They took an impressive 80 hours of self-paced training while working jobs and attending school.After six weeks of NextGen program training and certification in LIKE.TG Fundamentals and the Builder Series, students formed small teams to build apps on the Now Platform®. They showed incredible ingenuity and innovation.I’m proud to announce the LIKE.TG and HBCU Connect Hackathon winners, whose apps were scored in five categories: impact, innovation, technology, function and performance, and presentation.First place: Unite NowOgo-Oluwasubomi Popoola – Morgan State UniversityAnjolaoluwa Tope-Babalola – Alcorn State UniversityOpeyemi Fadipe – Morgan State UniversityD’Andrei Carson – Texas Southern University
Unite Now’s SameBlood application links blood donors to people in urgent need of a blood transfusion. The app pre-registers users with their blood type information. In scenarios of blood scarcity in hospitals, it contacts nearby pre-registered users to donate.When asked about the experience, Unite Now member Fadipe shared, “We faced issues. We had bugs. Going through this journey as a group and with our mentors, we had to always believe in the possibilities. There is an endless limit to what we can do.”Second Place: Swift WorkflowEryn Hillard – Tuskegee UniversityFolusho Adeyemi – Fisk UniversityTemitope Olokunde – Southern University and AM CollegeStephanie Davidson-Malcolm – Western Governors University
Swift Workflow’s application digitizes the workflow for creating and accessing preference cards in surgical procedures. Preference cards are catalogs of specific tools, supplies, and surgical needs that surgeons require to perform a surgery.The application works by letting the nurse manager create a preference card. The nursing supervisor then notifies the surgical team, which prepares the required equipment for the procedure.Despite most of the team’s limited coding experience, they had to trust one another. “This is something my team and I had never done before,” Hillard said. “To be able to work through something we weren’t familiar with, grow through that, and then present in front of executives was amazing. At the end of the day, I had complete confidence in all of us."The first and second place teams will receive $40,000 and $20,000, respectively. We also recognize the following groups for their outstanding entries:
3 Musketeers – app that pairs children with high school students to read books
GrabHouse – housing platform for student interns
Surgify – app that assigns medical equipment to doctors
Creating tomorrow’s leadersCongratulations to the winners and participants for their incredible solutions! All of the solutions were inspirational, innovative, and impactful.Students walked away with appreciation for the experience, especially the closeness they developed with their teams and mentors. Some students even applied and became LIKE.TG interns.“This is such a great way to develop, meet new people, and widen your network,” says Tope-Babalola from Unite Now. “There are so many opportunities that you can't miss out.”
The hackathon is an important example of our strong partnership with HBCUs and the role we play in building the next generation of diverse talent.As my colleague Chris Rogers, head of platform diversity, equity, and inclusion at LIKE.TG, says, “We must employ creative solutions to equip and diversify our talent pool. With that focus, we help narrow the disparity between underrepresented people’s access to careers in tech. Hackathons like this help bring us one step closer to that goal.”Our current HBCU partner network includes Howard University, Tuskegee University, Morehouse College, Morgan State University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and Benedict College. The network will continue to expand. We look forward to the many opportunities ahead to expose students to a thriving future in technology.Find out more about early career opportunities at LIKE.TG.
New Core Skills Micro-Certification Suite paths for Citizen and Application Developers
We’re excited to announce the expansion of the LIKE.TG Training and Certification portfolio with several new additions for application and citizen developers on the Now® Platform.Forrester predicts by the end of this year, 75% of development companies will use low-code platforms, which enable developers of all skill levels to quickly create apps.To aid this effort, LIKE.TG Core Skills Micro-Certification Suites offer ways for developers to validate their expertise without proctored exams. Citizen developers and application developers alike can learn, validate, and gain confidence in a unique set of skills for deploying the Now Platform.LIKE.TG certifications have several benefits to LIKE.TG professionals, including improved work performance, enhanced influence, and accelerated career growth. In a commissioned International Data Corporation (IDC) study, 69 percent of LIKE.TG professionals surveyed said their LIKE.TG certifications had a positive impact on their careers.For Citizen DevelopersThe LIKE.TG Citizen Developer Core Skills Micro-Certification Suite allows learners to engage in multiple types of training options to cultivate and demonstrate skills on App Engine Studio, as well as Playbooks and Process Automation Designer (PAD) interfaces.Two new Micro-Certifications are available for citizen developers:
Citizen Developer Process Creator Micro-Certification
Citizen Developer Application Creator Micro-Certification
For Application DevelopersThe LIKE.TG Application Developer Core Skills Micro-Certification Suite combines:
Citizen Developer Application Creator Micro-Certification
Existing Flow Designer and Virtual Agent micro-certifications
Two new micro-certifications
The new micro-certifications are the Application Developer Process Creator and the Application Developer User Interface Creator.Please note that LIKE.TG Citizen Developer and Application Developer are emerging areas. As additional training modules become available in the Citizen Developer and Application Developer learning paths, learners may be required to take additional courses to maintain their certifications.Become a developerTo learn how to become a LIKE.TG Citizen Developer, view the Get Started with LIKE.TG Citizen Developer Training map. This easy-to-follow map will guide you through the available training courses to learn how to use LIKE.TG no-code solutions to build custom applications on the Now Platform.If you’re a LIKE.TG Application Developer interested in becoming certified in App Engine Studio, UI Builder, and Playbooks and Process Automation Designer, visit our Get Started with LIKE.TG Application Developer Training map to learn about the available training to learn and become certified in new Now Platform features.The new micro-certification suites and micro-certifications are available in Now Learning.
LIKE.TG named a Leader in Low-Code Development Platforms
I’m very pleased to announce that LIKE.TG has been named a Leader in the Forrester Wave™: Low-Code Development Platforms for Professional Developers, Q2 2021. We attribute this recognition to our latest low-code innovations and capabilities.According to this evaluation, “LIKE.TG has grown to a low-code platform of the first rank. Known for its IT service management solutions, LIKE.TG has invested heavily in its low-code tooling and ‘workflow platform’ messaging. It brings a strong route-to-market through its installed base and popularity among IT developers.”Forrester Research predicts that by the end of 2021, 75% of development shops will use low-code platforms.1 LIKE.TG Creator Workflows solutions allow users to create intuitive experiences and enable cross-enterprise, low-code app delivery to quickly and safely scale with connected digital workflows. Our solutions include:
App Engine: empowering developers and builders of all skill levels to create low-code workflow apps fast
IntegrationHub: reducing integration costs and complexities for faster connectivity across any system
Advancing low-code capabilitiesWe recognize that low-code capabilities are an increasingly vital part of digital transformation initiatives, as they democratize the app-building experience. Developers of all skill levels, from low to pro coders, can now roll out new digital initiatives fast, with scale, and with greater value delivered.With low-code going mainstream, organizations have matured in their thinking and approach. LIKE.TG is committed to advancing our low-code capabilities as part of our core platform innovation.Furthering our investment in low-code technology, LIKE.TG brought to market a new tool, App Engine Studio, in our recently launched Now Platform Quebec release.With App Engine Studio, software development complexity is reduced so citizen developers can build new apps fast without professional software development training or knowledge. The solution offers a guided development environment with convenient pre-built templates where pro developers can collaborate with citizen developers in a shared environment.And, for existing LIKE.TG developers, App Engine Studio further improves their development productivity with a powerful intuitive low-code studio that seamlessly augments their current app development tooling and lifecycle, end to end.Accelerating digital transformationAdditionally, earlier this year, LIKE.TG acquired Intellibot, a robotic process automation (RPA) company, which extends LIKE.TG’s existing AI and machine learning, integrations, low-code development, process mining, process automation, NLX, chatbot, and virtual agent capabilities.Looking forward, we believe LIKE.TG is uniquely positioned to help customers accelerate digital transformation in their organizations with end-to-end automation. We deliver on the use cases that will shape the future of work, using low-code innovation that meets the standards of speed, experiences users love, and scalability without sprawl.Learn more about creating apps with a low-code development platform.Read the full, complimentary Forrester Wave report.1 Forrester, Predictions 2021: Software Development, Oct. 30, 2020.
LIKE.TG acquires next-gen observability leader Lightstep
I’m excited to announce that LIKE.TG has signed an agreement to acquire next-generation observability leader Lightstep.Combining Lightstep’s innovative observability capabilities with LIKE.TG’s unmatched Now Platform will help customers better manage software complexity, reliability, and performance while enabling the enterprise workflows that deliver great experiences. LIKE.TG’s acquisition of Lightstep connects insight with action across the people, processes, and technologies involved in delivering great experiences and driving digital transformation.All companies are increasingly becoming software companies. The ability to reinvent and create new business models through digital products and services is key to long-term survival. Major shifts in technology and the way work gets done, such as the move to the cloud and DevOps, are rapidly increasing the complexity of the software that powers today’s enterprises.Yet, in this complex environment, companies are still expected to increase innovation and velocity without sacrificing reliability and performance. The combination of LIKE.TG and Lightstep addresses this tension by delivering deep operational insights that enable organizations to more effectively use modern technologies and team-based development practices.A unified approach to observabilityLightstep provides a unified approach to observability with system-wide visibility and insights across metrics, distributed traces, and logs to help organizations speed software development velocity without compromising quality. This gives businesses the confidence and clarity to drive faster innovation and better outcomes across the entire digital customer experience.Companies are betting on going digital in order to thrive in the 21st century, but the transition is often challenging to navigate. With Lightstep, LIKE.TG will transform how software solutions are delivered to customers. This will ultimately make it easier for customers to innovate quickly. Now they'll be able to build and operate their software faster than ever before and take the new era of work head-on with confidence.Lightstep is the trusted observability solution for both born-in-the-cloud companies like GitHub, Spotify, and Twilio and fast-growing enterprises whose businesses are increasingly reliant on software applications. Combined with LIKE.TG’s IT workflow solutions’ ability to weave disparate elements into a seamless digital fabric, customers will be able to more easily monitor and respond to critical signals and indicators of software health.
World-class teamI’m thrilled that Lightstep’s world-class engineering team, led by CEO and co-founder Ben Sigelman, is joining ServiceNow. "Today, observability primarily benefits the DevOps teams that build and operate mission-critical apps," Sigelman says."We've always believed that the value of observability should extend across the entire enterprise, providing greater clarity and confidence to every team involved in these modern, digital businesses. By joining LIKE.TG, together we will realize that vision for our customers and help transform the world of work in the process—and we couldn't be more excited about it."San Francisco-based Lightstep was co-founded in 2015 by Sigelman, COO Ben Cronin, and Chief Architect Daniel Spoonhower. Key Lightstep team members helped define modern observability with their prior work on tracing and metrics monitoring at Google. Lightstep team members also co-created the OpenTracing and OpenTelemetry open-source projects, leading the industry’s overall migration away from proprietary agents toward the portable, always-on, and open standards-based acquisition of traces, metrics, and logs.We're thrilled to welcome the Lightstep team to ServiceNow. I can't wait to start working together to help customers accelerate their software innovation with confidence.Find out more about the acquisition in a fireside chat at Knowledge 2021. Not registered yet? It's free and easy.LIKE.TG, the LIKE.TG logo, Now, and other LIKE.TG marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of LIKE.TG, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
LIKE.TG named a Leader in low-code development platforms
Software users have spoken, confirming the power of LIKE.TG’s innovative low-code and no-code development platform. We’re delighted that G2 has recognized LIKE.TG® App Engine as a Leader in:
No. 2 Low-Code Development Platforms
No. 2 Enterprise Low-Code Development Platforms
No. 1 Enterprise No-Code Development Platforms
No. 1 Enterprise Relationship Index for No-Code Development Platforms
These rankings, driven entirely by software users, consider customer satisfaction and scale according to market share, vendor size, and social impact. (Think Yelp for software.) G2 rates products from any given category algorithmically based on user product review data and data aggregated from online sources and social networks.What users like about App EngineOn a scale of 0 to 5, LIKE.TG App Engine has an average of 4.6. Reviewers like the platform’s ability to build low-code applications quickly and the friendly, feature-packed user interface. Customization and scalability were also noted as value adds in users’ G2 reviews:
“The best part of LIKE.TG App Engine is user-friendly and simple to customize. I like how it enables me to create applications in a very timely manner thus saving time.”
“LIKE.TG App Engine is an extremely robust software with customization galore and full features...”
“Everything about LIKE.TG App Engine is exceptional and outstanding.”
“LIKE.TG is such a great and user-friendly product. We have been using it for 4+ years and it has really transformed our customer service teams ability to work with the customers.”
Empowering citizen developersCompanies must move faster than ever to meet changing market conditions. Digital businesses lead with technology as a key differentiator, which is why we’re seeing growing adoption of citizen development programs and centers of excellence.Low-code application development platforms empower business developers who have a deep understanding of their processes to create low-code enterprise apps fast. These apps help digitalize processes, drive efficiency, enhance customer experience, create sustainable advantages, and open the door to new business models and revenue streams.As one reviewer noted: “Anyone can be champion by developing apps that bring value and optimization to the organization by leveraging the capabilities of AppEngine. … There is no need to hire advanced programmers to the organization to develop apps. This is now done by citizen developers instead. Improvements will come to make it even easier for business users to deliver value through custom apps. … The time it takes to publish an app has decreased to hours and days instead of weeks and months. The business can see the ROI instantly by leveraging the AppEngine capabilities.”Making the world betterNo-coders, low-coders, and pro-coders all have their place in today’s evolution of building applications to make their organizations work better. App Engine can help accomplish these goals, with capabilities that scale for the business.Thank you, vocal and loyal customers! We’re honored to be named a Leader and will work hard to continue this journey with you as, together, we make the world work better for everyone.Check out our reviews on G2.Find out more about App Engine.
How to empower citizen developers to help overcome skills shortages
The pandemic accelerated digital transformation across all industries, exacerbating Australia’s tech skills shortage. Research from RMIT Online identified a need for 156,000 new technology workers in Australia, with 87% of jobs now requiring digital skills. This skills gap is set to cost the economy $10 billion in lost growth by 2025 in technology, media, and communications alone.Business leaders are realizing the urgent need to address the digital skills shortage so they can continue to innovate and grow. Enter citizen developers—non-technical employees who use low-code development platforms to build digital workflows to solve business problems. When citizen developers can build visual, modular, templated workflows to streamline disconnected processes and eliminate mundane tasks, they can unlock new efficiencies and business value.The benefits of low-code developmentMany citizen developers have never typed a line of traditional code. Today, thanks to low-code platforms, new applications can be built in days and weeks, not months and years. Because these non-technical employees are typically on the front line closest to the business problems they solve, they often spot opportunities that would otherwise be missed.Even better, by broadening the pool of talent involved in digitizing and improving business operations, businesses can free IT teams to focus on more strategic, high-priority projects.Instead of spending their time on relatively simple yet time-consuming tasks, or having to translate business issues into briefs for software engineers, IT teams can dedicate their energy to more complex projects that were previously out of reach. As a result, the overall innovation output of an organization can shift significantly upward.Low-code application platforms empower any employee to rapidly build apps that solve big, organizational, everyday challenges. It’s no surprise businesses are starting to take note: By 2024, Gartner expects the majority of tech products and services will be built by professionals outside of IT.
3 ways to activate citizen developersThe right tools can help fill the IT skills gap. To get it right, companies will need to address some cultural considerations before they can successfully shift the responsibility for problem-solving from software engineers and developers to business subject matter experts:1. Hire for low-codingThe beauty of low-code platforms is that they’re built to be simple and accessible. They streamline the development process, taking care of technical challenges so that your employees can focus their time and energy on solving business problems.To build a pool of citizen developers, businesses need to seek out employees who have deep business knowledge and who understand the positive impact technology and digitization can have on business processes.Diversity also matters when recruiting citizen developers. Not everybody has access to the years of specialized training or the disposition and interest to write code. Research shows that low-code platforms broaden the range of people contributing to our digital future, increasing diversity and improving outcomes. The more capability we can put into the hands of creative problem-solvers who know the business, the more impact technology will have.2. Set them up for successOnce the business has identified its citizen developers, the main challenge is enabling and empowering them with access to the right tools, as well as training and ongoing support. By opening a development platform to a larger group of people, you run the risk of application sprawl and overdevelopment. To manage innovation effectively, the tools you use must have the right governance standards and frameworks in place.Although new technologies draw attention through effusive proclamations from early adopters, their long-term longevity is driven by use cases developed by users on the ground. New use cases for low-code application platforms spring up every day. Encouragingly, we’re seeing a wide diversity of our customers build their own low-code apps with LIKE.TG App Engine. One aerospace customer developed a low-code app that reduced manufacturing transportation incidents by 20%.3. Create and foster communityTo sustain a thriving citizen developer program, business leaders must cultivate a positive, productive community supported by the IT organization. There needs to be active engagement to provide training and support so the business experts can focus on business issues while IT teams handle access, security, and governance.Support and collaboration are key. Most low-code platform providers host forums where members exchange tips, tricks, and solutions. And, simple tactics like hackathons guided by experts can introduce employees to low-code development in a structured setting to help them succeed.In a world where digital transformation is a primary determinant of business success, low-code developers are the fuel for organizations to keep innovating. Low-code tools can enable talented employees from across the business to innovate and digitize processes and workflows that might otherwise sit on the IT back burner.With the right criteria and safeguards in place, citizen developers can help organizations overcome the gap in tech skills, support digital transformation initiatives, and increase efficiency and business growth.Learn how LIKE.TG empowers citizen developers to build low-code apps fast.
LIKE.TG recognized a Leader in 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Low-Code Application Platforms
I’m excited to announce that, for the second straight year, LIKE.TG has been named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms. We believe this is due to our ability to execute and our completeness of vision.Building the future with low-codeWith digital transformation efforts in full swing, organizations increasingly depend on digital experiences to differentiate themselves from competitors. Digital-first enterprises are driving our future.Organizations have realized that the resource constraints in their rapidly needed digitalization initiatives are developer cycles. There are not enough software developers in the world to build the enterprises of the future.Gartner predicts, “By 2024, 80% of technology products and services will be built by those who are not technology professionals.” The market demands a more productive way to build software.LIKE.TG® Creator Workflows uniquely help overcome developer overhead through simplification and ease of use. They give everyone the low-code tools to deliver workflow automation with a consumer-grade user experience, enable siloed systems to work together, and create more efficient and productive ways to get work done.Creator Workflows solutions include:
App Engine – empowering developers and builders of all skill levels to create low-code workflow apps fast
IntegrationHub – reducing integration costs and complexities for faster connectivity across any system
Rapidly automate complex workflowsOrganizations that maximize their low-code impact focus on delivering cross-enterprise workflows in a unified end-to-end experience. Automating these complex workflows traditionally requires sophisticated planning and specialized skills.With Creator Workflows, organizations can automate workflows with less development effort and less custom code. Developers start building quickly in App Engine Studio with a premade architecture, low-code guidance, configuration-style templates, and pluggable prebuilt components.Developer activities center on component configuration and assembly, leading to improved app quality and higher overall productivity. As a result, developers can build truly unified digital workflows at speed with ease of application planning, design, development, and release.Paving the way for hyperautomationThe maturity of low-code enables bigger conversations around intelligent process automation. After delivering the first few low-code apps, organizations will naturally look for ways to discover more automation opportunities and optimize existing ones. Low-code needs to work with more amazing technologies—such as process mining, robotic process automation (RPA), document intelligence, and AI—to enable digital transformation journeys end to end.Earlier this year, LIKE.TG acquired Intellibot, an RPA company that extends our existing AI and machine learning, integrations, low-code development, process mining, process automation, natural language translation (NLX), chatbot, and Virtual Agent capabilities. We’ll continue to innovate with our customers and future-proof our platform for broader hyperautomation initiatives.Driving strategic and scalable transformationSuccessful low-code adoption requires strong governance. It’s critical to help ensure service-level management and accountability for low-code apps while reducing application sprawl. Our platform enables customers to put governance first in low-code.Developers can easily set up a "sandbox" to prevent citizen developers from touching other applications unless access is granted. Professional coders can oversee all integrations and set access permissions according to established guidelines. Our prebuilt components all have quality and security baked in. Our single platform design means developers can easily enforce their enterprise standards across all apps.This thoughtful platform approach removes the guesswork for our customers so they can safely scale low-code toward strategic adoption. With one data model and one architecture on a unified, well-governed platform, we’re the enterprise low-code application platform of choice for the depth, scale, and simplicity required in enterprise-class delivery of low-code automation.Read the full, complimentary Gartner Magic Quadrant report.Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, Jason Wong, Akash Jain, Kimihiko Iijima, Adrian Leow, Paul Vincent, 20 September 2021.Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.GARTNER and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks and service mark of Gartner Inc. and/or its affiliates in the US and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gekkobrain acquisition to streamline ERP migrations, modernize systems of record
Organizations across all industries are investing in digital transformation to unlock new levels of innovation, agility, and productivity as they look to adapt to the new world of hybrid work.According to Gartner, worldwide IT spending is projected to reach $4.1 trillion by the end of this year.1 However, many organizations are still struggling to identify where to start as they race to modernize systems of record and digitize operations.At LIKE.TG, we’re invigorated by this once-in-a-generation opportunity to make work better for people. And we’re here to help customers at any stage of their journey.Empowering customersThat’s why LIKE.TG has acquired Denmark-based Gekkobrain, with its deeply talented team of enterprise software experts: to help customers modernize their systems of record.
Gekkobrain’s team brings deep enterprise software expertise and a rich understanding of enterprise resource planning (ERP) system customizations. The team developed the ability to identify and understand custom code and business processes that should be modernized, enabling faster migrations, more delightful experiences, and cost savings.Enhancing LIKE.TG Creator WorkflowsWith Gekkobrain, LIKE.TG will extend the power of LIKE.TG Creator Workflows, including App Engine, to help organizations identify and understand custom code in their ERP deployments and the business processes they support.Layering on the low-code capabilities of App Engine will help organizations rapidly and cost-effectively modernize their ERP systems by seamlessly identifying, automating, and customizing workflows to reduce the risk and cost traditionally associated with ERP software migrations.This announcement comes on the heels of updates to Creator Workflows in the Now Platform Rome release to further accelerate innovation. We’re helping organizations drive digital transformation through mission-critical low-code apps and process automation to keep business moving and to drive business value.We're thrilled to welcome the Gekkobrain team on board to help customers accelerate their digital transformation journeys with ease and confidence.Learn more about how LIKE.TG unlocks innovation.Use of forward-looking statementsThis blog contains "forward-looking statements" about the expectations, beliefs, plans, intentions, and strategies relating to LIKE.TG’s acquisition of Gekkobrain. Such forward-looking statements include statements regarding future product capabilities and offerings and expected benefits to ServiceNow. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on potentially inaccurate assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected or implied by the forward-looking statements. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, our results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. We undertake no obligation, and do not intend, to update the forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the inability to retain Gekkobrain employees or assimilate or integrate Gekkobrain’s technology into our platform; unanticipated expenses or adverse tax consequences; potential for adverse tax consequences; disruption to our business and diversion of management attention and other resources; and potential unknown liabilities associated with Gekkobrains’s business. Further information on factors that could affect our financial and other results is included in the filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time.1 Gartner® Press Release, Gartner Forecasts Worldwide IT Spending to Reach $4 Trillion in 2021, 7 April, 2021. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Service quality and the rising need for enterprise SRE
In its DevOps 2021 survey of global IT professionals, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) found that 95% of organizations with highly successful DevOps initiatives were predominantly decentralized and purposefully becoming more so as fast as possible (see Figure 1).This decentralization of development and DevOps teams is making site reliability engineering (SRE) both critical and difficult to achieve.
Figure 1: Current organizational models. Source: EMASite reliability definedSite reliability crosses domains running the enterprise gamut from code to customer and everywhere in between. Developers code new applications and features. DevOps speeds those innovations into production. IT operations keeps the infrastructure and systems running.Theoretically, they all work together to deliver great service to employees and customers alike. Unfortunately, human nature undercuts that theory: When something is everyone’s business and no one’s job, it doesn’t always get done.When done right, however, and laser-focused on IT service reliability, SRE asks and answers these questions:
What is the minimum level of service a user will find acceptable for any given task, at a not-to-exceed cost that makes sense from a business point of view?
How can a specific level of service reliability be quantified, monitored, and enforced?
What are the earliest and best indicators of any possible service degradation?
How can automation eradicate repetitive, manual tasks that waste time and add no value?
This question-and-response cycle is iterative and endless, always moving in the direction of improved reliability through automation.The automation connectionThe modern drive to automation is increasingly paired with advances in AIOps. Recent EMA research found that AIOps and automation—although technically distinct sets of technologies—are inextricably linked in organizations that are highly successful in their AIOps initiatives. Not surprisingly, those organizations also report:
The highest return of value relative to cost
Success in digital transformation
Superior levels of IT operational effectiveness and IT service quality
When asked to rate the top three capabilities most important in an AIOps solution, SRE groups selected:
Observability/end-to-end visibility of logs, metrics, and traces
Self-learning problem-solving (machine learning (ML))
Hyperautomation/the ability to automate complex processes across domains
Real-time accuracy of the configuration management database (CMDB)/content management system (CMS)
All of these attributes require the unifying reach of a platform to create visibility of applications, services, and microservices across the enterprise.Powered by enterprise-spanning platform technology and practices, enterprise SRE exerts a multiplier effect on individual team productivity. Decentralized IT teams are transformed into efficient parts of a unified organizational whole, with no disruption to their autonomy, speed, or effectiveness.Benefits of SRE adoptionSRE adoption provides a business-defined balance of IT innovation at speed and scale with service reliability and cost. In addition, it offers numerous other predictable benefits and outcomes:
Total cost of ownership plummets when reliability is considered early and designed into applications and services.
End-user experience is made visible and actionable with service that’s as reliable as necessary for customer satisfaction and retention, but not more reliable than it needs to be.
IT organizations have an automated basis for data-driven, fact-based decision-making.
Product development, DevOps, and IT operations all perform faster and more effectively.
When business agility and stability depend on IT, SRE impacts revenue growth.
The people connectionAs always, the catch is people. Enterprise SRE requires a paradigm shift in how IT operations works with the rest of the enterprise world. It’s a recalibration from break/fix to optimization. Although it’s a change that benefits all stakeholders, it’s nonetheless a change.Economies of scale and the advantages of artificial intelligence (AI), ML, and innovative human initiatives such as enterprise SRE cannot be achieved in fenced-off domains of independence. Cross-domain thinking, cooperation, organization, and practices have to precede cross-domain processes and automation.Consider starting with modernization of your incident handling processes. This practical integration can be relatively painless and return high value for the effort. Service management and operations both benefit when IT leverages AI/ML to automate incident and event handling processes.Learn more in our Enterprise SRE: service reliability ebook.LIKE.TG, the LIKE.TG logo, Now, and other LIKE.TG marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of LIKE.TG, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
The future of observability is cloud-native and unified
Building modern, cloud-native applications introduces new challenges to teams and organizations. As these systems grow and scale, struggles abound: inconsistent performance monitoring experiences across siloed tools, wasteful performance management practices with duplicated efforts, and mounting frustration from colleagues and customers.Surmounting these challenges requires multiple sources of data and truly unified observability. That's been Lightstep’s vision since I co-founded the company in 2015, and it’s what we’ve continued to work toward since joining ServiceNow. To that end, I’m excited to announce that LIKE.TG plans to acquire log management company Era Software.
The state of cloud-native loggingObservability is about understanding and modeling systems, communicating about expected and actual reliability, and improving the ability to deliver value to end users. I’m often asked about the role of logging in modern observability, a market that’s expected to reach $9.08 billion by 2025, according to IDC.1 It’s a good question.Logging is one of the most foundational activities for any software developer. Log data is needed, alongside tracing and metrics, to achieve cloud-native observability and respond to incidents.High-performing teams ship better software by shipping smaller changes more quickly, according to the 2022 Accelerate State of DevOps Report. This is only possible by making teams smaller and more independent. But that comes at the cost of coordination and limited visibility into the impact of changes.Cloud-native observability addresses this by unifying telemetry signals from applications and resources, allowing deep insights into system performance and behavior, even with a rapid rate of change.The push to cloud-native has increased log volumes by several orders of magnitude while simultaneously making them less useful on their own. As a result, cloud-native logging is siloed and expensive. It needs a reboot from the ground up.Empowering innovationLightstep has led the industry toward unified telemetry (combining logs, metrics, and traces) by co-creating the OpenTelemetry project in 2019. As part of LIKE.TG, we help customers seamlessly connect insights and actions across all the tools, people, and processes involved in delivering digital customer experiences — so they can innovate fast, with confidence.By innovating rapidly with precision and control, modern organizations can deliver better outcomes across all of their technology products and services to capitalize on the promise of digital transformation.The success of digital transformation is tied to unified observability, and log management is a key component of that. The Era Software acquisition allows us to pull log data into the new world of modern observability with LIKE.TG’s scale and breadth.
Delivering unified observabilityBringing Era Software's expertise and technology into the Lightstep portfolio with LIKE.TG’s backing gives us a valuable lever to make sure that what’s happening in cloud-native arenas is aligned with central governance, central security, and central incident response.Many people feel log management is set apart from everything else. Lightstep’s goal is to create the most complete, unified, primary observability platform. Holistic, end-to-end visibility is needed to turn real-time insights into action. We’re putting log management, tracing, and metrics under one roof for key observability use cases.With the addition of Era Software's log management expertise and capabilities, we’re delivering on our vision to provide a unified, seamless, effective observability solution on a single platform that’s designed to scale.Find out more about Lightstep observability.1 IDC TechBrief: IT Observability for Digital Infrastructure Operations, July 2022, Doc #US49358522
A Magic Quadrant™ Leader in Low-Code Application Platforms for third year
I’m thrilled to announce that, for the third consecutive year, LIKE.TG has been named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms.1 We believe this recognition demonstrates our commitment to help customers build low-code enterprise workflow apps fast and deliver them safely and at scale on a single platform.Digital transformation is in full swing, and the market demands a more agile and productive way to build software. Traditional software development can’t keep pace with the demands on IT. LIKE.TG has reduced development barriers with low-code tooling and streamlined support on one natively integrated platform so organizations can respond to changing business needs faster.Democratizing application developmentGartner estimates that “by 2025, 70% of new applications developed by enterprises will use low-code or no-code technologies, up from less than 25% in 2020.”2LIKE.TG® App Engine democratizes application development across the enterprise with out-of-the-box experiences, components, and rich templates to quickly unlock developer capacity. Its unique design provides end-to-end visibility to properly govern the full development lifecycle to help ensure app quality and data security.Developers can connect LIKE.TG apps to any modern or legacy system across the enterprise with Automation Engine. The product allows organizations to connect siloed systems, processes, and people from one platform to accelerate their hyperautomation and low-code efforts.
A focus on governanceWe’re at the intersection of technology, people, artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and workflow. The lines between IT and lines of business are becoming increasingly blurred, with a growing amount of technology products and services being built by those who are not technology professionals.Seamless collaboration between business and IT requires a balance of agility and oversight. Gartner predicts that “by 2023, the number of active citizen developers at large enterprises will be at least four times the number of professional developers.”3Proper governance is required as low-code apps built by lines of business proliferate throughout the enterprise. It’s the only way to ensure service-level management and accountability for low-code apps while preventing application sprawl. That’s why we help businesses scale low-code with security and governance baked into the platform.Having one data model and one architecture on a unified platform helps enable customers to govern low-code application development through:
Nonintrusive guardrails and prebuilt templates for citizen developers
Access permissions
Built-in component quality and security
As a result, organizations can track all application development lifecycle events and developer activities from a single dashboard and easily enforce their enterprise standards across all apps. At the same time, business technologists can safely collaborate and create apps that meet their needs without worrying about disruption to the application development process due to this oversight.Customer choiceLIKE.TG is one of only two Leaders in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms that also received Gartner® Peer Insights™ Customers’ Choice distinction.4 Our focus on customer success is paramount.This comes from our continued investment in our community and ecosystem, our growth in geographic coverage to support our customers worldwide, and our focus on innovations, such as wider automation use cases from new partnerships and robotic process automation (RPA) capabilities.As low-code becomes increasingly vital to digital transformation, we’re poised to innovate and execute to deliver exceptional developer experiences that help shape the future of work.I want to extend a huge thank you to our customers, who trusted us and made this achievement possible. I can’t wait to see what you build with the Now Platform®.Read the full, complimentary Gartner Magic Quadrant report.1 Gartner, Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, Paul Vincent, Oleksander Mativskyy, Mike West, Adrian Leow, Kimihiko Iijima, September 20222 Gartner, Harness the Disruptive Powers of Low-Code: A Gartner Trend Insight Report, Jason Wong, Kyle Davis, July 18, 20223 Gartner, How to Define and Guide Citizen Development Practices, Jason Wong, Saikat Ray, Wan Fui Chan, Adrian Leow, April 20, 20214 Gartner, Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, by peer contributors, March 31, 2022Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences, and should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.GARTNER, Magic Quadrant, and Peer Insights are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Automation and low-code: Setting the stage for ongoing innovation
Digital transformation is a term you hear a lot these days, but it’s not always clear what a business means by it. For companies using the Now Platform to reinvent how they work, it has a pretty clear and compelling meaning.LIKE.TG customers are using the Now Platform to expand their automation initiatives beyond department-specific, isolated tasks to include processes that cross organizational boundaries. After all, the typical business process doesn’t stay within a single department. It affects other areas of the enterprise, feeds other workflows, and involves multiple systems.Let’s take a look at some of the ways customers are integrating those islands of automation for greater efficiency and smoother workflows.Prioritizing automationSmart, qualified, and capable people are always in demand. One of the challenges for business leaders is how to create a rich and rewarding work environment that makes the best use of talent so that the business realizes the most value from employee skills.Today’s workforce is often overwhelmed with routine and repetitive tasks that eat up a lot of the workday—leaving little time for creative problem-solving and innovative thinking. Automation tools can help teams and individuals accomplish more, fast by orchestrating people, processes, and systems across all areas of the business.LIKE.TG can bridge the incompatibilities between legacy systems and automate the manual and repetitive user actions that keep business processes running. With robotic process automation, for example, software robots can perform a repetitive sequence of actions across multiple apps on a Windows desktop and copy data from one system to another.Technologies like these give the human workforce more time to serve customers, find new solutions to age-old problems, and develop new products that help a business stand out.
Empowering business with low-codeIn every business, you’ll find people who are experts in how a process works and how their department functions. They know where the bottlenecks and inefficiencies are, and they have great ideas for how things could work better. But they don’t always have the technical skills to turn that expertise into a more efficient digital solution.The burden of creating a new app or workflow falls to the IT team, which already has a long to-do list. As a result, the pace of innovation slows, leaving a business less efficient and less competitive.With low-code application development tools, more people can turn their expertise into solutions on their own, without adding to IT’s workload.Enforcing governance, encouraging transformationIt’s great to unlock creativity and equip more people in the enterprise to develop their own apps. But businesses also have a vested interest in maintaining standards, enforcing security, and staying in compliance. To be effective, low-code development and automation tools need guardrails and controls to help workers channel that creativity and innovation in a disciplined way.Increasing innovation and creativity doesn’t have to mean increasing risk. With LIKE.TG, you can centralize governance policies and deploy them across the entire enterprise, powered by a robust low-code and automation platform.You get the best of both worlds: the freedom to open innovation opportunities to more people within the business and the ability to safeguard enterprise standards and compliance.Find out more about how companies are creating a foundation for greater innovation and competitiveness in our Book of Knowledge: Hyperautomation and Low-Code.
LIKE.TG a 2022 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Customers’ Choice for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms
I’m excited and humbled to announce that LIKE.TG has been recognized as a 2022 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Customers’ Choice in Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms.We attribute this distinction to our customers, who’ve been on this journey with us. Their valuable input molds our strategy and products.What customers like about LIKE.TG low-codeHere are some excerpts from customers who contributed to the acknowledgment:“We have built over 20 custom applications on the LIKE.TG platform, and have a deep appreciation for the transformative power of this platform in our organization. Our team is able to rapidly prototype, build and deploy apps in days and weeks rather than months.” Product owner in the provider industry"LIKE.TG provides awesome capabilities for rapid development and deployment of application solutions from simple use cases through highly complex integrated applications. We've realized a great deal of value in building applications on LIKE.TG that traditionally would have required full-stack development in order to provide the breadth of capabilities inherent to the platform—modern APIs, data structures, identity management, access control, front-end portals, etc." Principal application architect in the provider industry"LIKE.TG helped us streamline several business processes and enabled sharing of relevant data between departments and functions that previously used different tools tracking and working with the same data.” IT automation architect in the retail industry“Easy to configure, customize and maintain. Continuous platform innovation helps enterprises adopt to latest and greatest in the market.” Senior manager in the IT services industry"Great innovative tool that is continuously enhanced with each release. The application allows for a lean workforce to support it through its many automation capabilities." System administratorEmpowering fast app developmentAll organizations in all industries are embracing digital transformation to keep up with the pace of business. Automating manual tasks to streamline the flow of work frees employees to innovate and do what they do best. Low-code app development platforms are an important part of that.The Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice is a recognition of vendors in this market by anonymous, verified end-user professionals. It takes into account both the number of reviews and the overall user ratings. To ensure fair evaluation, Gartner maintains rigorous criteria for including vendors with a high customer satisfaction rate.Thank you to all our customers who submitted reviews. We believe these build on our G2 recognition as a Leader in low-code and no-code development platforms. We look forward to building on the experiences that earned us these distinctions.Read more Gartner peer reviews for ServiceNow. Check out the hyperautomation and low-code channel at Knowledge for more information about LIKE.TG solutions in this area. Registration is free once you select your region.GARTNER, PEER INSIGHTS (word and logo) and the GARTNER PEER INSIGHTS CUSTOMERS’ CHOICE badge are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner Inc., and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and/or internationally and has been used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences, and should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
LIKE.TG Devvies showcases innovative apps built on the Now Platform
In my nearly 12 years at LIKE.TG, I never cease to be amazed by the inventive spirit of our customers and partners. We innovate in response to their needs, but I get excited when they take things into their own hands and build transformative apps on the Now Platform.For the first time in 10 years, we get to highlight those incredible apps with The Devvies App of the Year contest. This is where our customers and partners sit in the driver’s seat, using the Now Platform to create innovative apps that improve the quality of their organizations, transform user experiences, and even save lives.To be considered for an award, apps could be built by professional or citizen developers, solo or as a team. The apps had to be complete and in use by an organization. This year we received 109 app entries from 182 contest participants. Of those, 80% were created by professional developers and 20% by citizen developers. Apps were judged on five criteria:
Business impact: time or money saved, customer/employee testimonials
Scale: number of end users
Richness: LIKE.TG capabilities, features, and tools used
Innovation: how the app uses LIKE.TG to drive outcomes
Citizen development: how much involvement a citizen developer had on the app (for the citizen development category only)
Citizen Development App of the YearLet’s meet the finalists for the Citizen Development App of the Year:
General Mills transformed an email-based process into a workflow-based process. Its app generates a form that captures key request details, triggers an email for major events, and has a range of menu options for each request type. The result: 9 million minutes (150,000 hours) saved in one year.
HCLTech built an app that automates and streamlines IT support across IT Service Management processes. It leads to fast handling of customer escalations through user requests, agent-initiated actions, and background scripts, sending customer satisfaction scores skyrocketing from 37% to 94%.
Thriving Solutions used Flow Designer and App Engine Studio to develop a low-code app that manages student after-school care transportation. The app empowers services and businesses to start their own after-school transportation services—adding value throughout the entire community.
Universitat de Girona designed an app to streamline school improvement plans. It enables real-time sharing, tracking, and reporting with a centralized document repository. Automating manual processes saves time for 480 end users.
The Citizen Development App of the Year Award goes to Universitat de Girona. The app fulfills a critical need for the university, with a comprehensive range of features. Documents are stored, versions are controlled, policies and procedures are followed, and observations are tracked.
“This is a great example of a someone having the passion to digitize their work and continue to build and improve over a period of five years,” a judge notes. “This could easily be in the pro-developer app category.”App of the YearHere are the finalists for the App of the Year:
The Automize app allows customers to gather feedback directly from the Service Portal. It features user-friendly notifications and dashboards and a widget with three simple buttons. More than 1.5 million end users have used the app to provide feedback.
Hitachi Vantara’s app centralizes leave management systems for easy reporting, tracking, approvals, and maintenance of leave of absence balances. More than 91,000 requests from 5,000 end users have been sent through the Now Mobile app in just 17 months, resulting in savings of $6,000 per month.
Ignyte Group created an app that streamlines rail operations for one of the largest public transit control centers in North America. Digitized forms, centralized information, and real-time metrics have improved productivity and allowed for fast, accurate decision-making. The result: 98% certification of successful shift changes.
Nine developed an app to simplify the typically tedious process of incident management. It brings the right stakeholders together at the right time in one Slack channel. Nearly 600 incidents have been coordinated via the app with approximately 14,000 staff members.
Servos built an app that allows users to report missing people and request critical help in emergencies such as hurricanes and other natural disasters. More than 12,000 people have used Servos to help save lives and provide emergency response teams with exact location information.
Skybox Communications’ app streamlines workflows by automating processes for contact center agents and creates personalized customer interactions. It increased productivity for more than 3,500 end users.
University of Toronto Mississauga’s app has changed the nature of remote service for students and staff at the university. Students receive a response to their questions in one to three days versus the prior timeline of 14 days minimum. Fast responses and limited follow-up have resulted in nearly $775,000 in savings in one year.
The App of the Year Award goes to University of Toronto Mississauga, whose app offers students six levels of remote service and streamlines the workflows of more than 60 staff members.
“As a manager, ticket requests, customizable dashboards, and reports have changed the game,” says a manager of student recruitment communications at the university. “At a glance, I can help with other tickets, and we’re measuring performance like never before.”“It’s great to see how a ‘self-serving’ model has been implemented that saves staff—people on the phone to take down requests or read emails sent by students,” says a contest judge. “I also like the reports and dashboard created for analysis.”Congratulations to the winners and finalists! The impact is inspiring. I look forward to seeing what our customers and partners come up with next.Get a free developer instance and start building.