Common questions

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About Flow

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What is Flow?

Flow is a conversational service desk from ServiceNow. Employees ask for help in the channels they already use. Flow answers from your connected knowledge, handles requests, and runs automations your team publishes. Operators manage the work in Conversations.

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Who is Flow for?

Flow supports teams that provide services to employees, including IT, HR, Finance, Legal, and Facilities. Start with one team and a common request, such as application access. Add more teams and services as you grow. See Set up your workspace.

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Do I need an existing ServiceNow instance?

No. ServiceNow builds and supports Flow as a standalone product. Flow has its own help desk for receiving requests, assigning work, collecting approvals, and resolving requests. See Help desk.

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Can I keep my current service desk?

Yes. Flow supports ticket sync with ServiceNow and Jira Service Management. You choose which records and updates sync through the connection’s mappings. Employees can request help through Flow while your team continues using its existing service desk. See Ticketing integrations.

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Getting started

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What do I need to set up first?

Start with one team, one requester channel, and the connections needed for its first service. Invite the people who will manage requests. Connect your knowledge, publish a service, and test a request from start to finish before inviting more employees. Follow Set up your workspace.

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Where can employees ask for help?

Employees can use Slack or Microsoft Teams, based on your organization’s connected chat provider, and email. They describe what they need and continue in the same conversation. People with browser access can also ask Flow questions from Home. See Channels. Employees can also use an AI assistant connected to Flow through Model Context Protocol (MCP) to check request progress. When your organization enables request submission through MCP, they can submit requests from the assistant too. Their Flow permissions still apply. See Connect an AI assistant.

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Does every employee need a Flow browser account?

No. Employees can request help through connected chat channels without a browser invitation. Invite operators and administrators who need to manage work in Flow. For email from new requesters, connect Directory Sync first. See End user and Email prerequisites.

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Do we need single sign-on or Directory Sync to start?

Both are optional for an initial chat rollout. Single sign-on (SSO) connects work-account sign-in. Directory Sync adds employee information, manager relationships, and group membership. Connect it when you need those details for approvals or access, or to accept email from new requesters. See Identity and directory.

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Helping employees

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Can Flow use the knowledge we already have?

Yes. Connect sources such as SharePoint, Confluence, Google Drive, and ServiceNow Knowledge Base. Choose the content to sync, then check that the first sync completes. Flow can use that content to answer questions and link employees to the original documents. See Knowledge.

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Who can see answers from our knowledge sources?

Flow checks access before using connected knowledge in an answer. Depending on the source and setup, access follows source permissions or an administrator’s selected audience. Choose the sharing settings when connecting each source. See Knowledge integrations for each provider’s options.

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What happens when a request needs a person?

Operators work the request in Conversations. They can read its history, assign it to the right person or team, reply to the requester, and resolve it when the work is complete. Approval requests go to eligible approvers. See Help desk and Approvals.

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Can we tailor Flow’s answers to our organization?

Yes. Publish organization or team instructions to guide Flow’s language and handling of requests. For example, tell Flow which information to collect before escalating a facilities request. Instructions work alongside your connected knowledge, permissions, and approvals. See Configure Flow instructions.

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Building and running automations

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Do I need to write code to build an automation?

You can start by describing the work in plain language. Flow generates an automation for you to review and test before publishing. For example, ask it to send your support team a weekday summary of urgent requests. See Build your first automation.

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Who can build automations?

Team Creators, Managers, and organization administrators can build automations when the team has automations enabled. Publishing lets you choose who can request or run the automation and which connections it can use. See Permissions and Publish and execution scope.

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Can an automation run without someone asking Flow?

Yes. Use a schedule for recurring work or an event for work that starts when something changes. For example, send a daily request summary or alert support when a request becomes urgent. See Schedule and event examples.

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Can we require approval before an action runs?

Yes. Add approval steps for work that needs a decision, such as granting application access. The automation waits for the required decision before continuing. Review the generated steps and test the approval path before publishing. See Inputs and approvals.

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Which applications can automations work with?

Flow provides integrations for tasks such as managing accounts, creating service-desk requests, and sending messages. Each integration lists its supported actions and required permissions. Choose the connections your automation needs when testing and publishing. Browse Automation integrations.

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Security, results, and support

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How does Flow protect our data?

Flow encrypts data in transit and at rest. Organization and team roles control access to work, and permission and approval checks apply to AI actions. Uploaded and imported files undergo malware checks before use. See Product security, including the security data sheet for your review team.

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Can we see who changed something or approved a request?

Yes. Administrators can review security and administrative activity in the audit trail, including permission changes and approvals. For automation work, run history shows the steps and outcomes. See Audit and API access and Monitor automations.

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How can we measure whether Flow is helping?

Open Analytics → Dashboard to track request volume, AI deflection, automation success, and human time to resolve. Choose a reporting period and team to compare results over time. The Analytics guide explains each measure with examples.

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Where can I get help with Flow?

Use Feedback in the Flow sidebar to report a product problem. Include what happened, what you expected, and the affected conversation or automation run when available. For account or commercial questions, use your organization’s Flow support channel. See Support.