What it is (plain English)
The plumbing that lets ServiceNow talk to your other systems — your email, chat tools (Teams/Slack), HR system, monitoring tools, and anything with an API. Most real implementations live or die on integrations, because ServiceNow is rarely the only system in the building.
Problems it solves
- Data trapped in other tools has to be re-typed into ServiceNow (and goes stale).
- Notifications don't reach people where they actually work (email, Teams, Slack).
- Other systems can't create or update tickets automatically.
What must exist first
Platform Core Setup — authentication and service accounts must be sorted before anything can connect securely.
What the customer needs to provide
- A list of the systems that must connect, and what should flow in which direction.
- A technical contact for each system on that list (the single biggest schedule risk on integration work is waiting for the other system's owner).
- Service accounts / API credentials for each connected system, arranged through your security team.
- Decisions on which system "wins" when two systems disagree about the same data.
Where it can go next
Specific module integrations build on this: monitoring-tool feeds into incident and event management, HR systems into employee workflows, and automated actions through IntegrationHub spokes.