What happens when employees don’t know exactly what to ask for — but still need support?
Inclusively, a US-based workforce intelligence company, developed Retain to address exactly that challenge: to help organizations understand what employees need, what employers already offer and where programs deliver impact.
Retain enables employees to describe workplace barriers in natural language and receive personalized Success Enabler recommendations. At the same time, HR leaders gain aggregated, real-time visibility into unmet demand — turning employee support into a measurable, data-driven system.
Since its launch in 2023, Retain has been helping organizations take a more proactive approach to workforce strategy.
The next step was integrating Retain with ServiceNow®, making it available to customers through the ServiceNow Store.
Integrating with ServiceNow
In many companies, ServiceNow is the platform employees already use to access services, workflows and internal resources. Embedding Retain directly into the ServiceNow Employee Center meant meeting employees where they already work.
But integrating with ServiceNow — and preparing for a certified publication — requires more than a connector.
It requires:
- Scalable scoped application architecture
- Alignment with platform data standards
- Secure, governance-ready integration
- Structured certification preparation
That’s where the close collaboration between Inclusively and Devhd began.
The Result
Retain Connector is now available on the ServiceNow Store — embedding anonymous barrier discovery and AI-driven Success Enablers directly into the ServiceNow Employee Center.
Employees can access personalized accommodations, benefits and workplace tools within their existing ServiceNow experience, while HR leaders gain aggregated visibility into unmet needs and emerging workforce trends.
Behind the scenes, the application was designed as a fully scoped, governance-ready solution — securely connected to Inclusively’s APIs and aligned with platform standards.
Customers can explore Retain Connector on the ServiceNow Store.
The following screenshots illustrate how Retain Connector is embedded within the ServiceNow Employee Center.
From Product to Store-Ready Application
Together with the Inclusively team in the US, we designed and built the Retain Connector as a scoped application for the ServiceNow platform — aligning architecture, security and data flows with certification standards from the very beginning.
Devhd supported the full lifecycle, from solution design and scoped architecture to API integration, development and certification preparation. It was a close collaboration between product SMEs at Inclusively and ServiceNow platform specialists at Devhd.
As Nataly Cardenas, Lead Product Manager at Inclusively shared:
“Bringing Retain into ServiceNow was a natural next step - meeting employees inside the platform they already use every day is core to how we think about access and adoption. Devhd didn't just meet the technical requirements; they understood our objectives deeply enough to make architectural decisions we hadn't even thought to ask for.”
Designing for the ServiceNow Store
Becoming a ServiceNow Build Partner is essential — but it’s only the first step.
Publication requires platform fluency, architectural alignment with ServiceNow standards, structured solution design and disciplined preparation for review and validation.
It also requires a shift in mindset.
Publishing a Store application is less like building a house for one family and more like designing a residential building — where scalability, governance and long-term maintainability must support diverse needs and usage patterns.
A scoped application must therefore be scalable, secure, governance-read and aligned with platform best practices, ready to perform across industries, organization sizes and data volumes.
That level of preparation comes from experience — not only in building integrations, but in understanding how the ServiceNow platform behaves beyond a single implementation. It reflects years of hands-on work within the ecosystem — experience Devhd has built as a long-standing ServiceNow partner.
Architecture in practice
One of the most interesting aspects of this integration was how we at Devhd approached the platform design.
Instead of creating custom tables to store Success Enabler data, we leveraged ServiceNow’s out-of-the-box Knowledge Base framework.
Success Enablers were represented as Knowledge Articles, with categories mapped using Knowledge Categories. An initial data import established the necessary structure, while detailed descriptions were dynamically retrieved through secure API calls to Inclusively.
To surface this content within the Employee Center, we adapted an out-of-the-box Knowledge Article widget. The widget was extended to trigger API communication with Inclusively, allowing employees to access enriched information without duplicating data inside the platform.
This approach allowed us to:
- Minimize custom data structures
- Preserve platform performance and governance standards
- Maintain architectural alignment with ServiceNow best practices.
By building on native capabilities instead of replacing them, the integration remained scalable, certification-ready and aligned with long-term maintainability principles.
Practical Lessons from the Build
As Alex Dobre, Senior ServiceNow Consultant at Devhd, explains:
“When you build for the Store, you’re building for scale. The architecture, data handling and solution design must work across industries and organization sizes — not just for one customer.”
He highlights three principles that guided the collaboration:
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Think scalability from day one.
A Store app won’t run in just one environment. It has to perform equally well for companies with 500 employees or 50,000. That means designing data structures, integrations and performance models with scale in mind — regardless of record volume or instance complexity.
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Invest properly in solution design.
Before writing a single line of code, processes must be clearly defined, expectations aligned and technical constraints validated within platform boundaries. A strong architectural phase prevents delays and rework during certification.
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Treat it as a joint effort.
Store publication requires close collaboration between product SMEs and ServiceNow platform experts. Agility brings value when it’s grounded in a clear design and a shared end goal.
These principles proved essential throughout certification and release — and continue to shape how we at Devhd approach Store-ready development.
Looking Ahead
Integrations are no longer a nice-to-have — they define how products gain visibility, relevance and adoption within enterprise platforms.
Bringing a product into ServiceNow — and guiding it through certification — requires more than technical connectivity. It calls for architectural discipline, platform fluency and a clear understanding of certification standards.
At Devhd, we help products enter ServiceNow — from scoped application design to certified publication.
Design | Build | Publish
We’re grateful to the Inclusively team for their collaboration and trust along the way and to our partners at Yansa Labs for their confidence and recommendation.
If you're considering bringing your product to the ServiceNow Store, we’d be glad to share what we’ve learned.
* Article by Nicoleta Daniș, Marketing and Communication @ Devhd
