The Orchestration activity designer enables a user with either the workflow_admin or activity_creator and workflow_creator roles to construct reusable activities that suit an organization's business needs.

Activities created by the activity designer offer the following advantages over core activities offered in previous releases:

Access to the activity designer requires activation of ServiceNow Orchestration. For instructions about managing transitions and conditions for all activities, see Workflow activities.

Orchestration provides numerous pre-defined activities, which are reusable components that can be used in numerous workflows without having to understand the complexities of the underlying system. These activities are grouped into activity packs, which address specific business needs, such as: Active Directory, Azure AD, Exchange, Infoblox DDI, and PowerShell. There are other ServiceNow applications which provide and maintain their own separate activity packs, such as Security Incident Response, Cloud Management, or Release Automation.

Customers can also build their own activities and activity packs. You can construct custom activities with a specified template through the Orchestration Activity Designer. Custom-built activities built with the Activity Designer are referred to as activity elements. Activity elements provide optimal operations, enable code reuse, and minimize the need to write code. They also enable you to follow the flow of data within a given workflow across orchestration activities. Incorporating activity elements limits the dependency on the scratchpad which reduces problems in complex workflows. Limit the use of core activities, like ‘Run Script’, unless you need direct access the scratchpad, for example, for a counter. Activity elements do not have direct access to the scratchpad. You can, however, pass scratchpad variables as inputs into your activities.

For instructions on using activities to construct a workflow, see Add an activity to a workflow.