OpenText Legal Hold - ServiceNow Integration and Automation

Common Integration Use Cases Between OpenText Legal Hold and ServiceNow

OpenText Legal Hold and ServiceNow complement each other well in enterprise legal, compliance, and service management workflows. OpenText Legal Hold provides structured legal hold management, custodian tracking, and preservation controls for litigation and investigations, while ServiceNow acts as the operational workflow layer for intake, approvals, tasks, notifications, and cross-functional case coordination. Integrating the two platforms helps legal teams move faster, reduce manual follow-up, and improve auditability across departments.

1. Legal Hold Request Intake and Workflow Automation

Data flow: ServiceNow to OpenText Legal Hold

When legal or compliance teams receive a new litigation or investigation request in ServiceNow, the case can be routed through approval workflows and then automatically create a legal hold matter in OpenText Legal Hold. Key details such as case name, matter type, jurisdiction, relevant dates, and responsible attorney can be passed into OpenText to start the preservation process without duplicate data entry.

• Reduces manual setup time for legal hold matters
• Ensures consistent intake and approval controls
• Improves traceability from request to hold activation

2. Custodian Assignment and Notification Management

Data flow: OpenText Legal Hold to ServiceNow, with updates back to OpenText Legal Hold

Once custodians are identified in OpenText Legal Hold, ServiceNow can be used to generate tasks for HR, IT, or managers to validate employee details, confirm reporting lines, or support notification delivery. ServiceNow can also track completion of related operational tasks and send status updates back to OpenText Legal Hold.

• Coordinates legal, HR, and IT actions in one workflow
• Improves accuracy of custodian contact and employment data
• Provides a clear operational record of notification activities

3. Preservation Hold Enforcement for Employee Offboarding

Data flow: ServiceNow to OpenText Legal Hold

When an employee subject to a legal hold is terminated or transferred, ServiceNow can trigger an integration event to OpenText Legal Hold so the custodian remains preserved and any required hold actions are maintained. This prevents accidental release of relevant content during offboarding and helps IT apply the correct retention controls.

• Reduces risk of spoliation during employee exits
• Aligns offboarding workflows with legal preservation requirements
• Supports defensible compliance with litigation obligations

4. Legal Hold Status and Exception Tracking in ServiceNow

Data flow: OpenText Legal Hold to ServiceNow

ServiceNow can receive hold status updates from OpenText Legal Hold, such as active, acknowledged, released, or overdue acknowledgment. These updates can be surfaced in ServiceNow dashboards or case records so legal operations, compliance, and management teams can monitor progress and identify exceptions without logging into multiple systems.

• Improves visibility into hold compliance across matters
• Supports escalation of overdue acknowledgments
• Enables operational reporting for legal and compliance leadership

5. IT Evidence Preservation Requests and Task Coordination

Data flow: ServiceNow to OpenText Legal Hold and ServiceNow to IT fulfillment teams

Legal teams can create preservation requests in ServiceNow for specific systems, mailboxes, file shares, or collaboration platforms. ServiceNow can then route tasks to IT teams for technical preservation actions while OpenText Legal Hold maintains the legal hold record and custodian scope. This is especially useful when preservation requires coordination across infrastructure, messaging, and records teams.

• Creates a single operational entry point for preservation work
• Improves accountability for IT execution tasks
• Supports faster response to litigation and regulatory deadlines

6. Release of Legal Hold and Downstream Workflow Closure

Data flow: OpenText Legal Hold to ServiceNow

When a legal hold is released in OpenText Legal Hold, ServiceNow can automatically create closure tasks for IT, records management, and business owners to resume normal retention schedules, remove preservation flags, and confirm completion. This helps ensure that hold release actions are executed consistently and documented properly.

• Prevents holds from remaining active longer than necessary
• Restores standard retention and deletion processes in a controlled way
• Provides evidence that release actions were completed

7. Audit, Compliance, and Executive Reporting

Data flow: Bi-directional

ServiceNow can consolidate operational metrics from OpenText Legal Hold, such as number of active matters, custodian acknowledgment rates, overdue responses, and release timelines. These metrics can be combined with ServiceNow reporting to provide compliance dashboards for legal operations, internal audit, and executive stakeholders.

• Gives leadership a unified view of legal hold performance
• Supports audit readiness and regulatory reporting
• Helps identify bottlenecks in hold administration

Overall, integrating OpenText Legal Hold with ServiceNow creates a more controlled and transparent legal hold process. OpenText Legal Hold manages the preservation obligations, while ServiceNow orchestrates the surrounding business workflows, task management, and reporting needed to execute those obligations efficiently across the enterprise.