Load ServiceNow data into BigQuery

You can load data from ServiceNow to BigQuery using the BigQuery Data Transfer Service for ServiceNow connector. With the BigQuery Data Transfer Service, you can schedule recurring transfer jobs that add your latest data from ServiceNow to BigQuery.

Limitations

ServiceNow data transfers are subject to the following limitations:

• The ServiceNow connector only supports the ServiceNow table API.
• We don't recommend running concurrent data transfers on the same ServiceNow instance. This can lead to delays or failures due to load on the ServiceNow instance.
  • We recommend timing your transfer start times apart to prevent overlapping transfer runs.
• To improve data transfer performance, we recommend limiting the number of assets to 20 items per data transfer.
• The minimum interval time between recurring data transfers is 15 minutes. The default interval for a recurring transfer is 24 hours.
• A single transfer configuration can only support one data transfer run at a given time. In the case where a second data transfer is scheduled to run before the first transfer is completed, then only the first data transfer completes while any other data transfers that overlap with the first transfer is skipped.
  • To avoid skipped transfers within a single transfer configuration, we recommend that you increase the duration of time between large data transfers by configuring the Repeat frequency.
• To use a network attachment with this data transfer, you must first create a network attachment by defining a static IP address.

Incremental transfer limitations

Incremental ServiceNow transfers are subject to the following limitations:

• You can only choose DATETIME columns as watermark columns.
• Incremental ingestion is only supported for assets with valid watermark columns.
• Values in a watermark column must be monotonically increasing.
• Incremental transfers cannot sync delete operations in the source table.
• A single transfer configuration can only support either incremental or full ingestion.
• You cannot update objects in the asset list after the first incremental ingestion run.
• You cannot change the write mode in a transfer configuration after the first incremental ingestion run.
• You cannot change the watermark column or the primary key after the first incremental ingestion run.
• The destination BigQuery table is clustered using the provided primary key and is subject to clustered table limitations.
• When you update an existing transfer configuration to the incremental ingestion mode for the first time, the first data transfer after that update transfers all available data from your data source. Any subsequent incremental data transfers will transfer only the new and updated rows from your data source.

Data ingestion options

These sections describe the data ingestion options for setting up a ServiceNow data transfer.

Full or incremental transfers

You specify how data loads into BigQuery by selecting the Full or Incremental write preference in the transfer configuration when you set up a ServiceNow transfer. Incremental transfers are supported in preview.

Note: To request feedback or support for incremental transfers, send email to [e-mail].

You can configure a full data transfer to transfer all data from your ServiceNow datasets with each data transfer.

Alternatively, you can configure an incremental data transfer (Preview) to only transfer data that was changed since the last data transfer, instead of loading the entire dataset with each data transfer. If you select Incremental for your data transfer, you must specify either the Append or Upsert write modes to define how data is written to BigQuery during an incremental data transfer. The following sections describe the available write modes.

Upsert write mode

The upsert write mode either updates a row or inserts a new row in your destination table by checking for a primary key. You can specify a primary key to let the ServiceNow connector determine what changes are needed to keep your destination table up to date with your source table. If the specified primary key is present in the destination BigQuery table during a data transfer, then the ServiceNow connector updates that row with new data from the source table. If a primary key is not present during a data transfer, then the ServiceNow connector inserts a new row.

When you select the upsert mode, you must select a watermark column and a primary key:

• A watermark column is required for the ServiceNow connector to track changes in the source table.

  Select a watermark column that updates every time a row is modified. We recommend columns similar to the UPDATED_AT or LAST_MODIFIED column.

• The primary key can be one or more columns on your table that are required for the ServiceNow connector to determine if it needs to insert or update a row.

  Select columns that contain non-null values that are unique across all rows of the table. We recommend columns that include system-generated identifiers, unique reference codes (for example, auto-incrementing IDs), or immutable time-based sequence IDs.

  To prevent potential data loss or data corruption, the primary key columns that you select must have unique values. If you have doubts about the uniqueness of your chosen primary key column, then we recommend that you use the full ingestion instead.

Incremental ingestion behavior

When you make changes to the table schema in your data source, incremental data transfers from those tables are reflected in BigQuery in the following ways:

Changes to data source	Incremental ingestion behavior
Adding a new column	A new column is added to the destination BigQuery table. Any previous records for this column will have null values.
Deleting a column	The deleted column remains in the destination BigQuery table. New entries to this deleted column are populated with null values.
Changing the data type in a column	The connector only supports data type conversions that are supported by the ALTER COLUMN DDL statement. Any other data type conversions causes the data transfer to fail. If you encounter any issues, we recommend creating a new transfer configuration.
Renaming a column	The original column remains in the destination BigQuery table as is, while a new column is added to the destination table with the updated name.

Before you begin

Before you create a ServiceNow data transfer, do the following for ServiceNow and BigQuery.

ServiceNow prerequisites

• To access ServiceNow APIs, create OAuth credentials.

• The following ServiceNow applications must all be enabled in the ServiceNow instance:

  • Procurement
  • Product Catalog
  • Contract Management

• To start a ServiceNow transfer, you must have the correct credentials to connect to the ServiceNow instance.

  • To obtain your credentials to a ServiceNow developer instance, login to the ServiceNow developer portal. You can use the username and password listed in the Manage instance password page. For information on resetting your ServiceNow password, see Password Reset
  • To obtain your credentials to a ServiceNow production or sub-production instance, contact your ServiceNow customer administrator to request the username and password.

BigQuery prerequisites

• Complete all actions required to enable the BigQuery Data Transfer Service.
• Create a BigQuery dataset for storing the data.
• If you intend to set up transfer run notifications for Pub/Sub, ensure that you have the pubsub.topics.setIamPolicy Identity and Access Management (IAM) permission. If you only set up email notifications, Pub/Sub permissions aren't required. For more information, see BigQuery Data Transfer Service run notifications.

Required BigQuery roles

To get the permissions that you need to create a BigQuery Data Transfer Service data transfer, ask your administrator to grant you the BigQuery Admin (roles/bigquery.admin) IAM role on your project. For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

This predefined role contains the permissions required to create a BigQuery Data Transfer Service data transfer. To see the exact permissions that are required, expand the Required permissions section:

Required permissions

The following permissions are required to create a BigQuery Data Transfer Service data transfer:

• BigQuery Data Transfer Service permissions:
  • bigquery.transfers.update
  • bigquery.transfers.get
• BigQuery permissions:
  • bigquery.datasets.get
  • bigquery.datasets.getIamPolicy
  • bigquery.datasets.update
  • bigquery.datasets.setIamPolicy
  • bigquery.jobs.create

You might also be able to get these permissions with custom roles or other predefined roles.

For more information, see Grant bigquery.admin access.

Set up a ServiceNow data transfer

Add ServiceNow data into BigQuery by setting up a transfer configuration using one of the following options:

Console

1. Go to the Data transfers page in the Google Cloud console.

   Go to Data transfers

2. Click Create transfer.

3. In the Source type section, for Source, select ServiceNow.

4. In the Data source details section, do the following:

   • (Optional) For Network attachment, select a network attachment from the drop-down menu, or click Create Network Attachment.
     • Select a network attachment to configure this data transfer to use a single, consistent IP address. You can use this option if your ServiceNow instance is configured to only accept traffic from specific IP addresses.
     • For more information about creating a network attachment, see Configure connections with network attachments
     • For more information about defining IP addresses in ServiceNow, see Define allowed ServiceNow internal IP addresses
   • For Instance ID, enter the ServiceNow instance ID. You can get this from your ServiceNow URL—for example, https://INSTANCE_ID.service-now.com.
   • (Optional) For ServiceNow Cloud Type, select the cloud type for your ServiceNow account:
     • Select Commercial if your ServiceNow instance URL follows the pattern https://INSTANCE_ID.service-now.com. This is the default value.
     • Select Government Community Cloud (GCC) if your ServiceNow instance URL follows the pattern https://INSTANCE_ID.servicenowservices.com.
   • For Username, enter the ServiceNow username to use for the connection.
   • For Password, enter the ServiceNow password.
   • For Client ID, enter the client ID from your OAuth credentials. To generate credentials, see Create OAuth Credentials.
   • For Client secret, enter the client secret from your OAuth credentials.
   • For Enable legacy mapping, select true (default) to use the legacy data type mapping. Select false to use the updated data type mapping. For more information about the data type mapping updates, see March 16, 2027.
   • For Ingestion type, select Full or Incremental.
     • If you select Incremental (Preview), for Write mode, select Upsert. For more information about write modes, see Full or incremental transfers.
   • For ServiceNow tables to transfer, click Browse:
     • Select any objects to be transferred to the BigQuery destination dataset. You can also manually enter any objects to include in the data transfer in this field.
     • If you have selected Upsert as your incremental write mode, you must select a column as the watermark column, and then select one or more columns as the primary key.
   • For Value type, choose one of the following:
     • To transfer the values stored in the database, choose Actual.
     • To transfer the display values of the columns, choose Display.

5. In the Destination settings section, for Dataset, select the dataset that you created to store your data.

6. In the Transfer config name section, for Display name, enter a name for the data transfer.

7. In the Schedule options section, do the following:

   • In the Repeat frequency list, select an option to specify how often this data transfer runs. To specify a custom repeat frequency, select Custom. If you select On-demand, then this data transfer runs when you manually trigger the transfer.
   • If applicable, select either Start now or Start at set time, and provide a start date and run time.

8. Optional: In the Notification options section, do the following:

   • To enable email notifications, click the Email notification toggle. When you enable this option, the transfer administrator receives an email notification when a transfer run fails.
   • To enable Pub/Sub transfer run notifications for this data transfer, click the Pub/Sub notifications toggle. You can select your topic name, or you can click Create a topic to create one.

9. Click Save.

bq

Enter the bq mk command and supply the transfer creation flag, --transfer_config:

bq mk
    --transfer_config
    --project_id=PROJECT_ID
    --data_source=DATA_SOURCE
    --display_name=DISPLAY_NAME
    --target_dataset=DATASET
    --params='PARAMETERS'

Replace the following:

• PROJECT_ID (optional): Your Google Cloud project ID. If a project ID isn't specified, the default project is used.
• DATA_SOURCE: the data source (for example, servicenow).
• DISPLAY_NAME: the display name for the transfer configuration. The data transfer name can be any value that lets you identify the transfer if you need to modify it later.
• DATASET: the target dataset for the transfer configuration.

• PARAMETERS: the parameters for the created transfer configuration in JSON format. For example: --params='{"param":"param_value"}'. The following are the parameters for a ServiceNow data transfer:

  ServiceNow parameter	Required or optional	Description
  connector.networkAttachment	Optional	Name of the Network attachment to use for ensuring connectivity to the ServiceNow Instance.
  connector.instanceId	Required	Instance ID of the ServiceNow instance
  connector.authentication.username	Required	Username for the ServiceNow instance of user.
  connector.authentication.password	Required	Password for the ServiceNow instance of user.
  connector.authentication.oauth.clientId	Required	Client ID for OAuth authentication with the ServiceNow instance.
  connector.authentication.oauth.clientSecret	Required	Client Secret for OAuth authentication with the ServiceNow instance.
  connector.instanceCloudType	Optional	Specify the cloud type of your ServiceNow account. Supported values are: COMMERCIAL_CLOUD, if your ServiceNow instance URL follows the pattern https://INSTANCE_ID.service-now.com GOVERNMENT_COMMUNITY_CLOUD if your ServiceNow instance URL follows the pattern https://INSTANCE_ID.servicenowservices.com
  ingestionType	Optional	Defines the method for transferring data from the source ServiceNow to the destination, determining whether a full dataset reload or an efficient incremental update is performed.
  writeMode	Optional	If using incremental ingestion, determines the synchronization strategy for incremental ingestion, specifying Upsert (updated if existing, inserted if new) into the destination table. This field is required for incremental transfers.
  assets	Required	List of the names of ServiceNow tables be transferred from ServiceNow as part of the transfer.
  watermarkColumns	Optional	If using incremental ingestion, source table field (typically datetime) used to track the last successful synchronization point, enabling the connector to efficiently query and transfer only the records that have been created or modified since that specific time. This field is required for incremental transfers.
  primaryKeys	Optional	If using incremental ingestion, the unique column or combination of columns used to uniquely identify each row in the source table. This field is required for incremental transfers.
  valueType	Optional	Controls how specific data types from ServiceNow are mapped to BigQuery data types.
  connector.legacyMapping	Required	Set to true (default) to use the legacy data type mapping. Set to false to use the updated data type mapping. If you are making an incremental transfer, this value must be false. For more information about the data type mapping updates, see March 16, 2027.

  When specifying multiple assets during an incremental transfer, the values of the watermarkColumns and primaryKeys fields correspond to the position of values in the assets field. Ensure the order of tables and their respective columns is maintained consistently across all related configuration lists.

  For example, the following command creates a ServiceNow data transfer in the default project with all the required parameters:

    bq mk
      --transfer_config
      --target_dataset=mydataset
      --data_source=servicenow
      --display_name='My Transfer'
      --params='{"connector.authentication.oauth.clientId": "1234567890",
          "connector.authentication.oauth.clientSecret":"ABC12345",
          "connector.authentication.username":"user1",
          "connector.authentication.password":"abcdef1234",
          "connector.instanceId":"dev-instance",
          "connector.networkAttachment": "projects/dev-project1/regions/us-central1/networkattachments/na1"}'
  

  The following command creates an incremental ServiceNow data transfer in the default project, and uses the UPSERT write mode.

    bq mk
        --transfer_config
        --target_dataset=mydataset
        --data_source=servicenow
        --display_name='My Transfer'
        --params='{"assets": ["incident", "change_request"],
            "connector.authentication.oauth.clientId": "1234567890",
            "connector.authentication.oauth.clientSecret":"ABC12345",
            "connector.authentication.username":"user1",
            "connector.authentication.password":"abcdef1234",
            "connector.instanceId":"dev-instance",
            "ingestionType":"incremental",
            "writeMode":"WRITE_MODE_UPSERT",
            "watermarkColumns":["sys_updated_on","sys_updated_on"],
            "primaryKeys":[["sys_id"], ["sys_id"]]}'
  

API

Use the projects.locations.transferConfigs.create method and supply an instance of the TransferConfig resource.

When you save the transfer configuration, the ServiceNow connector automatically triggers a transfer run according to your schedule option. With every transfer run, the ServiceNow connector transfers all available data from ServiceNow into BigQuery.

To manually run a data transfer outside of your regular schedule, you can start a backfill run.

Data type mapping

Note: On March 16, 2027, the ServiceNow connector will update some of its data type mapping. For more information, see March 16, 2027.

The following table shows how data types are mapped in a ServiceNow data transfer:

ServiceNow data type	BigQuery data type	Updated BigQuery data type
decimal	FLOAT64
integer	INTEGER
boolean	BOOLEAN
glide_date	DATE
glide_date_time	DATETIME
glide_list	STRING	ARRAY
glide_time	INT64
reference	STRING
currency	STRING
sys_class_name	STRING
domain_id	STRING
domain_path	STRING
guid	STRING
translated_html	STRING
journal	STRING
string	STRING
list	STRING	ARRAY

Troubleshoot transfer issues

The following sections detail common problems when setting up a ServiceNow data transfer.

For more information, see Troubleshoot transfer configurations.

Transfer fails due to ServiceNow enablement

An issue occurs causing data transfers to fail when the Procurement, Product Catalog, or Contract Management applications aren't enabled in ServiceNow. To fix it, enable all three applications:

• Procurement
• Product Catalog
• Contract Management (enabled by default)

Issue occurs during transfer run

An issue occurs causing the transfer run to not be created as intended. To resolve the issue, do the following:

• Check that the ServiceNow account credentials, such as Username, Password, Client ID, and Client secret values, are valid.
• Check that the Instance ID is the valid ID of your ServiceNow instance.

Other errors

For information about other errors that occurred during a ServiceNow data transfer, see ServiceNow transfer issues

Pricing

For pricing information about ServiceNow transfers, see Data Transfer Service pricing.

What's next

• For an overview of BigQuery Data Transfer Service, see Introduction to BigQuery Data Transfer Service.
• For information on using transfers including getting information about a transfer configuration, listing transfer configurations, and viewing a transfer's run history, see Working with transfers.
• Learn how to load data with cross-cloud operations.