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Cortex connects to many third-party vendors whose system interfaces frequently change. As a result, integration behavior or configuration steps may shift without notice. If you encounter unexpected issues, check with your system administrator or refer to the vendor’s documentation for the most current information. Additionally, integration sync times vary and are subject to scheduling overrides and timing variance.
ServiceNow is a CMDB (configuration management database) to define, manage, automate and structure IT services. Cortex integrates with ServiceNow to provide engineers with better developer experience while adhering to governance standards. The integration syncs data between systems so both stay current. Integrating your ServiceNow instance with Cortex allows you to:
Some Cortex users link business applications to ServiceNow projects, creating a clear map of ownership and project alignment. This enables visibility into which projects tie to which business apps, helping track migrations, risk programs, and compliance projects.

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How to configure ServiceNow with Cortex

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Prerequisites

Your ServiceNow user must have the sn_cmdb_user permission enabled. You must have the Configure Integrations permission in Cortex.

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Step 1: Configure the integration in Cortex

  1. In Cortex, navigate to the ServiceNow settings page:
    • Click Integrations from the main nav. Search for and select ServiceNow.
  2. Click Add configuration.
  3. Configure the ServiceNow integration form:
    • Instance name: Enter your instance identifier.
      • This can be found in your instance URL, e.g., <instance-identifier>.service-now.com.
    • Username and Password: Enter your ServiceNow username and password.
  4. Click Save.
Stay on this page for the next steps.

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Step 2: Configure table mappings

You can add more than one table mapping for the same domain relationship. This is useful if your ServiceNow domain hierarchy has more levels than a single table can represent, for example a division that rolls up through several layers of committees before reaching a business unit. Add a separate table mapping for each level, and Cortex builds the full hierarchy from the combined mappings.
  1. On the ServiceNow integrations settings page, click Add table mapping on the right.
  2. Configure the “Add table mapping” form:
    • Choose a mapping type: Select whether your data will map to Domains, Services or Teams.
    • Table name: Enter a descriptive name.
    • Table filter query: Optionally, enter a table filter query.
    • ID column name: Enter the column name that contains the ID of the record.
    • Name column name: Enter the column name that contains the name of the record.
    • Description column name: Enter the column name that contains the description of the record.
    • Note: To import teams, you must configure table mappings for the team, its team members, and their relationships.
  3. Click Preview.
  4. From the preview screen, you will be able to view summary counts, warnings, entity tree, and raw table data that was found based on the the configuration details. Once you’ve confirmed the data looks correct, you can select save.

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How to connect Cortex entities to ServiceNow

To import entities from ServiceNow, follow the steps described below.

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Import entities from ServiceNow

See the documentation on:

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Enable automated import of domains for ServiceNow

You must have the Configure Settings permission. Enabling automated domain import ensures that your domain structure in Cortex stays up-to-date with your ServiceNow configuration.
  1. In Cortex, go to the ServiceNow settings page.
  2. Toggle the setting on to enable the automated import of any domains and domain relationships from ServiceNow.
The automatic sync runs daily at 2 p.m. UTC.

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Manually sync domains

You must have the Enable Relationship graph permission. To force a sync of newly-discovered domains:
  1. Go to Tools > Relationship graphs and select Domains.
  2. Click the 3 dots icon in the upper right, then click Sync.

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Editing the entity descriptor

When an entity is connected to ServiceNow, the entity YAML will look like the following:

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Configuring your ServiceNow teams as owners

To import teams, configure the table mappings to pull teams, team members, and their relationships from ServiceNow. After doing so, follow the steps to import them. When an entity is owned by a ServiceNow team, the YAML will look like the following:
The value for name should be the name of the team as defined in ServiceNow (case-sensitive). Learn more about ownership in Defining ownership.

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Using the ServiceNow integration

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Scorecards and CQL

With the ServiceNow integration, you can create Scorecard rules and write CQL queries based on ownership and team details. See more examples in the CQL Explorer in Cortex.
A special built-in type that supports a null check or a count check, used to enforce ownership of entities.Definition: ownership: Ownership | NullExampleAn initial level in a security Scorecard might include a rule to ensure an entity has at least one team as an owner:
List of owners, including team members and individual users, for each entityDefinition: ownership.allOwners()ExampleThe Scorecard might include a rule to ensure that entity owners all have an email set:
List of teams for each entityDefinition: ownership.teams(): List<Team>ExampleThe Scorecard might include a rule to ensure that an entity owners all have a description and are not archived:

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View integration logs

This feature is available in Cortex cloud.
While viewing an integration’s settings page, select the Error logs tab to view errors from the last 7 days. You can filter the logs list by configuration and by operation (for example, you could filter to view errors surfaced only via Scorecards).
The 'Logs' tab on an integration's settings page shows error information over the past 7 days.
Click into a row to get more information, including time stamp, status code, full error, and request path.

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Workflows

After integrating, you can set up Workflows to trigger actions in ServiceNow. See an example of this in Guides > Create ServiceNow incident.

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ServiceNow Incidents plugin

You can install a plugin that makes ServiceNow incidents more visible on your entity details pages: Learn more about installing the plugin in Cortex Plugin Marketplace. You must have the Edit Plugins permission.

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Background sync

Cortex conducts a background sync of ServiceNow domains, domain relationships, and services every day at 2 p.m. UTC.

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Still need help?↗

The following options are available to get assistance from the Cortex Customer Engineering team:
  • Email: help@cortex.io, or open a support ticket in the in app Resource Center
  • Slack: Users with a connected Slack channel will have a workflow added to their account. From here, you can either @CortexTechnicalSupport or add a :ticket: reaction to a question in Slack, and the team will respond directly.
Don’t have a Slack channel? Talk with your Customer Success Manager.
Last modified on September 9, 2026