ServiceNow To Acquire UltimateSuite In Task-Mining Play

‘We're trying to optimize workflows across the enterprise, really ‘X-ray’ them and get down to a low level. We have our process mining capability, which can give us the end-to-end look within our platform, or even external platforms. ... The piece we were missing, like a blind spot, was task mining,’ says Eric Schroeder, vice president of ServiceNow’s NowX product management.

Digital workflow technology developer ServiceNow Monday said it has acquired UltimateSuite, a developer of task-mining data that the company said will help improve its automation and AI capabilities and drive customer operational efficiencies.

The acquisition, for which no dollar value was provided, is aimed at helping eliminate bottlenecks in customer processes, said Eric Schroeder, vice president of NowX product management at Santa Clara, Calif.-based ServiceNow.

“We're the workflow company,” Schroeder told CRN. “And we're trying to optimize workflows across the enterprise, really ‘X-ray’ them and get down to a low level. We have our process mining capability, which can give us the end-to-end look within our platform, or even external platforms. ... The piece we were missing, like a blind spot, was task mining.”

Task mining is looking at the steps that people are taking outside a process, Schroeder said. For instance, he said, users in accounts payable or customer service often have to interact externally with multiple systems outside the ServiceNow Now platform, he said.

“This allows us to see exactly the steps that the employees are taking and gives us a better look at where we might optimize within the process,” he said. “It provides us insight into where we have potentially long-running processes, giving us information that we can take into our automation suite. We have our own robotic process automation capabilities. This will help us capture a lot of those steps and make it much easier to automate those through our own RPA technology, our own bots.”

ServiceNow expects the UltimateSuite technology, once integrated, will help capture a lot of the external steps at the API level, Schroeder said.

“And as closely as we can align it with our technology, we would hope to be able to automate the creation of these bots,” he said. “Initially, it'll be giving us insights and allowing probably an administrator to be able to more accurately and rapidly think about the bot that would automate a task that's long running for the customer.”

Process mining is native to the ServiceNow Now platform and is something the company has been working on for several years, Schroeder said.

“The next iteration is to be able to now capture the steps that employees are taking, such as an on-boarding task in HR,” he said. “We want to optimize these agents that are going to multiple systems. Now we can capture that and we can take that into our suite. We're heavily focused on this intelligent automation or hyper automation. And this is we feel is key to hyper automation or intelligent automation.”

Schroeder was not able to say when UltimateSuite would be integrated into the Now platform but said it likely will be between the second half of 2024 and the first half of 2025. However, he said, integration should be smooth.

“UltimateSuite was a nice pure-play acquisition,” he said. “We researched it. We ran proofs of concept inside of ServiceNow on the technology. And we like the way that the technology operates. It's lightweight. We feel like our customers are going get rapid value. And it already integrates almost seamlessly just as it is right now.”