ServiceNow CSA Notes

I. User Interface & Navigation (20%)

a. ServiceNow Overview

The Now Platform is an Application Platform-as-a-Service (aPaas).

The applications delivered by ServiceNow are divided into four different workflows:

• IT Workflows

• Employee Workflows

• Customer Workflows

• Creator Workflows

*Now Platform is its multi-instance architecture. There are three interfaces in Now Platform: Next Experience Unified Navigation (primary way), Now Mobile App (on the go), Service Portal (self-service experience).

To access to Service Portal: _https://.service-now.com/sp_.

Roles contain a collection of permissions.

b. Lists and Filters

Each column in a list corresponds to a field in the table. Each row corresponds to a record in the table.

Context menus provide three different levels of list control:

• list title menu
• list column context menu

• list fields context menu

• Bar Chart and Pie Chart.

• Export can save in serveral formats: Excel, CSA, PDF,…

• The activity stream icon appears in the list title bar.

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Where do we go in Next Experience to create a new view?

Configure > List Layout.

Name of the interface we’ll use to create a new view?

List collector.

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c. Forms and Templates

Forms are displayed in the content frame.

Forms configured with the activity formatter display a stream of activities associated with the record.

Managing attachments > Click the attachments icon or drag and drop.

Insert and Stay : when you want to copy a record and just make a few changes.

Work notes are for internal conversation with those resolving the task.

Additional comments are for customer visible comments.

Form Designer, which allows you to add form views, as well as add and remove fields on forms. The admin or personalize_form role is required to configure forms using Form Designer.

Form Designer vs Form Layout Interface

The list collector interface allows you to select multiple items from an Available list and remove items from a Selected list

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II. Collaboration (20%)

a. Task Management

Automation repeatable processes

Save time. The Task table is one of ServiceNow’s core tables.

Task specifics functionality:

• Approvals: can be generated to a list of Approvers, either manually or automatically, according to approval rules. Approvals can be incorporated into workflows or can stand alone.
• Assignment: rules can automatically assign tasks to users or groups, ensuring that tasks are handled by the most appropriate team members.

  All > System Policy > Rules > Assignment.

• Service Level Agreements: can track the amount of time that a task has been open, to ensure that tasks are completed within an allotted time.

Activity Stream appear in Notes tab.

Visual Task Boards (VTB) to collaborate on tasks in real-time with group members, create personal to-do lists, and more.

There are three types of Visual Task Boards:

• Guided: can be created from a list and use the values of a specified field (e.g. State) as lanes. Tasks in the list are updated when cards are edited or change lanes on the Visual Task Board.

  updates automatically.

• Flexible: also created from a list, but lane changes do not update underlying task data.
• Freeform: can act as your personal organizer to manage individual tasks of any kind. Lane changes do not update underlying task data.

Lanes allow you to sort records by field values or other user-defined values.

Work notes are only visible to those who can view the task, Additional comments are only visible to the customer (caller), and Activities are read-only record entries.

Which of the following are ways to collaborate with team members on Tasks?

User presence, Activity Stream, Work Notes.

b. Notifications

Emails, meeting notification, text messages.

Sys admin can define notification in All > System Notification > Notifications.

  When to send, Who will received, What it will contain.

To customize the content message go to Show Notification Scripts.

c. Reportings

Now Platform Report Designer to build reports.

After you create a report, it appears in the All > Reports > View/Run module under the My reports list.

Performance Analytics (PA) allows users to create dashboards with widgets to visualize data over time in order to identify areas of improvement.

Keys: Enter a Report name, Source type, and a Table or a Data source > Data Tab.

Select the report visualization format > Type Tab.

Define the report grouping > Configure.

Choose colors, title, and chart properties > Style.

d. User Administration

A good practice is to assign roles to groups rather than to users.

More about impersonate a user: Docs

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III. Self-Service & Process Automation (20%)

a. Knowledge Management

• Informations store in Knowledge Base (KB).

• Self-service > Knowledge Base or go to Service Portal /sp.

• Helpful ?, rating a star, leave a comment.

• End users can post questions and answer in Social Q&A.

• The Most Useful item in the Knowledge Management Service Portal displays articles that have the highest percentage of users marking them helpful.

b. Service Catalogue

• Request items.
• Access in All > Self-Service > Service Catalog.
• Catalog Builder use to create or edit catalog items, view the available catalog items, templates, recently updated.
• Administrators can manage all and scripting, Catalog administrators also can manage all except scripting.
• Products and services in the service catalog organized in Categories and Subcategories.
• Flow and Workflow fulfillment process for a service catalog item.

task-based records

c. Workflows/Flow Designer

• Flows automate business logic.
• Flow Designer bulding and enabling process automation, without code.
• To access All > Process Automation > Flow Designer.
• Flow Designer trigged by Record-based, Application-based, Schedule-based (Date).
• Actions are operations executed by Flow Designer, such as looking up a record, updating a field value, requesting an approval, or logging a value.
• Flow Designer Data : data pills

IV. Introduction to Development (10%)

a. Scripting

• Plugins are software components that provide additional optional features and functionalities within a ServiceNow instance.

  Access: Sytem Definition > Plugins.

• Client-side see more and Server-side Scripting see more.

• A UI policy action can change fields on a form to be madatory (required), visible/hidden, or read-only.

• UI Policy and Client Script run client-side.

b. Migration and Integration

• An update set tracks changes to applications and platform features, then groups them together so they can be moved from one instance of ServiceNow to another.

• Update Sets work by writing changes from tracked tables to the Customer Update [sys_update_xml] table. (newest change overide the old one).
• Merge Update Sets the most recent change will be the one moved to the merged update set.
• Data records, Dashboard are not captured in an update set.
• To create an Update Set : All > System Update Sets > Local Update Sets. Then click New.

Standard integrations for ServiceNow include:

• Login (Single Sign-On)
• LDAP
• Communications
• Monitoring
• Systems Management

Intergation Hub

c. Development

• App Engine Studio (AES) build apps even faster using app templates for pre-built solutions.
• The Automated Test Framework (ATF) enables you to create and run automated tests to confirm that your instance works after making a change.
• Delegated developers are non-administrator users and groups that are assigned one or more permissions to develop applications (without having the admin role).
• To delegate All > System Applications > My Company Applications. select Developer (invidual) or Groups.

  The Guided Applicatio Creator is used to begin the creation of an application.

V. Database Administration (30%)

a. Data Schema

• Each record corresponds to a row in a table, Each field on a record corresponds to a column on that table.
• Adding a reference field to a form makes the other fields in the referenced table available to the form (Reference Lookup icon).
• You can use the Tables and the Tables & Columns module to create a new table.
• When creating a new table -> Module with the plural of the table and Application menu with the same name as table Lable will be created.

b. Import Set & CMDB

• An Import Set is used to import data from various data sources and then map that data into ServiceNow tables
• Transform map is used to determine relationships between fields in an import set and an existing table.

• Coalesce option allows you to update existing Target Table records when importing data from an import Set.

• Configuration Management Database (CMDB), including modules for hardware and other configuration items.

• Base Configuration Item [cmdb] is the base CMDB table for non IT CIs.
• Configuration Item [cmdb_ci] stores the basic attributes of all the CIs.
• CI Relationship [cmdb_rel_ci] contains CI relationship data.

What is a CI?

Tangible, Intangible, configuration item.

c. Application/Access Control

• Access Control: Create Read Write Delete.
• ACL (Access Control List): contains all of an instance’s access control rules.
• Conditions, roles, and a script can be configured in an access control.
• security_admin role is required to modify access controll rules.
• AC are evaluated first at the table-level (specific to general), then at field-level (specific to general).