Learning ServiceNow

Learning ServiceNow

by Tim Woodruff
Released June 2018
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781788837040

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Book description

IT service management automation at your fingertips

About This Book
  • Learn to leverage ServiceNow's capabilities for improved IT automation by following step-by-step, practical instructions
  • Build core administration, development, and maintenance skills with IT service management in ServiceNow
  • Improve your workflow efficiency by designing and creating responsive and automated workflows, business logic, and front-end automation
Who This Book Is For

This book is for IT professionals and administrators who are planning to or are already trying to implement ServiceNow in their organization for Enterprise IT service management tasks.

Some familiarity with web technologies (JavaScript) would be helpful. Prior ServiceNow experience is not necessary.

What You Will Learn
  • Read and write clear, effective code for the ServiceNow platform
  • Identify and avoid common pitfalls and missteps that could seriously impact future progress and upgradeability
  • Use debugging tools to troubleshoot when things go wrong
  • Discover tips and tricks from top ServiceNow developers, architects, and administrators. Find out what the pros wish they knew when they were starting out
In Detail

This book is an updated version of Learning ServiceNow, that will cover the new and updated features of the ServiceNow platform. It will show you how to put important ServiceNow features to work in the real world, while introducing key concepts via examples of managing and automating IT services. It'll help you build a solid foundation of knowledge, and will demonstrate how to effectively implement and configure modules within ServiceNow. We'll show you how to configure and administer your instance, and then move on to building strong user interfaces and creating powerful workflows.

We also cover other key elements of ServiceNow, such as notifications, security, reporting, and custom development. You will learn how to improve and automate your business' workflow and processes. By the end of this book, you will be able to successfully configure and manage ServiceNow like a pro.

Style and approach

This book is a step-by-step practical tutorial to help you quickly deploy and configure ServiceNow in your organization. It guides you through the process of building applications and understanding the underlying systems, to help you become a more effective ServiceNow/ITSM administrator and/or developer.

Publisher resources

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Table of contents

  1. Learning ServiceNow Second Edition
    1. Table of Contents
    2. Learning ServiceNow Second Edition
      1. Why subscribe?
      2. PacktPub.com
    3. Contributors
      1. About the author
      2. About the reviewers
      3. Packt is Searching for Authors Like You
    4. Preface
      1. Who this book is for
      2. What this book covers
      3. To get the most out of this book
        1. Basic knowledge of JavaScript
        2. A free developer instance of ServiceNow
        3. Download the color images
        4. Conventions used
      4. Get in touch
        1. Reviews
    5. 1. The Interface
      1. Versions
      2. Frames
        1. Banner frame
          1. System settings
          2. Help
          3. Connect chat conversations
          4. Global text search
          5. Profile
        2. The application navigator
        3. Filter text box
        4. Favorites
        5. History
      3. Important application menus and modules
      4. Content frame
      5. UI settings and personalization
      6. Summary
    6. 2. Lists and Forms
      1. List v2 versus List v3
      2. Lists and tables
        1. Creating a custom table
          1. Creating an update set
          2. Creating the table
          3. Adding a field
        2. List view
        3. Condition builder
          1. Building a filter
          2. Dot-walking
      3. Forms
        1. Form designer
        2. Form layout
        3. Related lists
      4. Summary
    7. 3. UI Customization
      1. UI15 versus UI16
        1. Switching between UI15 and UI16
      2. Branding your instance
      3. Custom themes
      4. UI-impacting system properties
      5. Configuring service portal UI
      6. Creating a custom homepage
      7. Styling pages and widgets
      8. Setting up the War Room page
      9. Styling the CMS
      10. Summary
    8. 4. Understanding Data and Relationships
      1. One-to-many relationships in ServiceNow
      2. Many-to-many relationships in ServiceNow
        1. Creating a M2M table
        2. Other M2M relationships
      3. Enforcing one-to-one relationships
      4. Defining custom relationships
      5. Database table inheritance
      6. Summary
    9. 5. Tasks and Workflows
      1. Important task fields
        1. Active
        2. Additional comments and work notes
          1. Assigned to and Assignment group
          2. Created, Created by, Updated, and Updated by
          3. Description and short description
          4. Number
          5. State
      2. Journals and the activity formatter
      3. Extending the task table
      4. Workflows
        1. Important workflow activities
          1. User and group approval
          2. Approval coordinator
          3. If
          4. Switch
          5. Wait for Condition
          6. Create Task and Catalog Task
          7. Branch and Join
          8. Return value
          9. Run Script
          10. Set Values
        2. Pausing workflows
        3. Workflow Stages
          1. Demo
      5. SLAs
      6. Approvals
      7. Assignment
      8. Creating Task fields
      9. Summary
    10. 6. UI and Data Policies
      1. UI policies
        1. Catalog UI policies
      2. Reverse if false
      3. Scripting in UI policies
      4. UI Policy Order
        1. Demo
      5. Data policies
        1. Demo
      6. Converting between data and UI policies
        1. Demo
      7. Data policies versus ACLs
      8. Summary
    11. 7. User Administration and Security
      1. What is a user?
      2. Groups and roles
        1. Impersonating users for testing
      3. Emails and notifications
        1. Demo
        2. Notification devices
      4. User preferences
        1. Default preferences
        2. Preferences in update sets
        3. Scripting user preferences
      5. ACLs – security rules
        1. ACL process order
        2. High security plugin
      6. Summary
    12. 8. Introduction to Scripting
      1. To script, or not to script?
      2. Client-side versus server-side APIs
        1. Client-side APIs
        2. Server-side APIs
      3. Where scripting is supported
        1. Access controls
        2. Business rules
        3. Client scripts and catalog client scripts
        4. Condition builder (and the URL)
        5. Default value
        6. Script includes
        7. UI actions
        8. UI policies and catalog UI policies
        9. UI scripts
        10. Workflow activities
      4. Integrated development environment
        1. Script tree
        2. Script auto-completion
        3. Script editor macros
          1. Documentation macro
          2. For-loop macro
          3. GlideRecord macros
          4. Demo
      5. Summary
    13. 9. The Server-Side Glide API
      1. The structure of an API class
      2. Server-side APIs
      3. GlideRecord
        1. Initialize
          1. Example usage
        2. addQuery()
          1. Available query operators
          2. Example usage
        3. addActiveQuery()
        4. addNullQuery() and addNotNullQuery()
          1. Example usage
        5. canRead(), canWrite(), canCreate(), and canDelete()
          1. Example usage
        6. deleteRecord() and deleteMultiple()
          1. Example usage
        7. get()
          1. Example usage
        8. getDisplayValue()
          1. Example usage
        9. getValue() and getUniqueValue()
          1. Example usage
        10. hasNext()
          1. Example usage
        11. initialize() and insert()
          1. Example usage
        12. next()
          1. Example usage
        13. orderBy() and orderByDesc()
          1. Example usage
        14. query()
          1. Example usage
        15. setAbortAction()
          1. Example usage
        16. setLimit()
          1. Example usage
        17. setValue()
          1. Example usage
        18. setWorkflow()
          1. Example usage
        19. update() and updateMultiple()
          1. Example usage
      4. GlideElement
        1. changes(), changesFrom() and changesTo()
          1. Example usage
        2. getDisplayValue()
          1. Example usage
        3. getED()
          1. Example usage
        4. getReferenceTable() and getRefRecord()
          1. Example usage
        5. nil()
          1. Example usage
        6. toString()
          1. Example usage
      5. GlideDateTime
        1. Adding or removing time
          1. Example usage
        2. getDayOfMonth() and getDayOfWeek()
          1. Example usage
      6. GlideSession
        1. getClientData() and putClientData()
          1. Example usage
      7. GlideSystem
        1. addErrorMessage() and addInfoMessage()
          1. Example usage
        2. debug()
          1. Example usage
        3. eventQueue()
          1. Example usage
        4. getProperty()
          1. Example usage
        5. getUser()
          1. Example usage
        6. getUserID()
          1. Example usage
        7. hasRole()
          1. Example usage
      8. GlideUser
        1. getPreference() and savePreference()
          1. Example usage
        2. hasRole()
          1. Example usage
        3. isMemberOf()
          1. Example usage
      9. Summary
    14. 10. The Client-Side Glide API
      1. Client-side APIs
      2. GlideAjax
      3. GlideForm (g_form)
        1. Setting/clearing messages on the form and fields
        2. Dealing with drop-down list fields
        3. Getting and setting values on the form
        4. Controlling field visibility
        5. Setting fields mandatory and read-only
        6. Submitting a client-side form
        7. Disabling checking for mandatory fields
      4. GlideUser (g_user)
        1. Getting user details
        2. Checking user permissions
        3. Getting client data
      5. GlideRecord
        1. Querying for one or more records
        2. Deleting a record asynchronously
      6. Summary
    15. 11. Server-Side Scripting
      1. Dot-walking and GlideElement
      2. Script includes
        1. Server-side GlideAjax
      3. Business rules
        1. After business rules
        2. Asynchronous business rules
          1. Display business rules and g_scratchpad
      4. Default versus calculated field values
        1. Default values
        2. Calculated values
      5. Summary
    16. 12. Client-Side Scripting
      1. Client scripts
        1. Client script types
          1. onLoad
          2. onChange
          3. onSubmit
          4. onCellEdit
      2. Security
      3. Compatibility
      4. Build for performance
        1. Reference fields
        2. GlideAjax and asynchronous GlideRecord
        3. g_scratchpad
      5. UI scripts
        1. Running only necessary scripts
      6. Scripts from the server
      7. Summary
    17. 13. Service Portal Scripting
      1. Setting up appointments
      2. URLs in the service portal
      3. Creating the meeting widget
      4. Aesthetic changes
      5. Option schema
      6. Troubleshooting widgets
      7. Summary
    18. 14. Debugging
      1. Logging
      2. Client-side debugging
        1. Debugging field visibility
      3. Server-side debugging
        1. Reference versus value
        2. Debugging security
      4. JavaScript debugger
        1. Debugger interface
        2. Breakpoints
      5. General debugging
      6. Summary
    19. 15. Pro Tips
      1. Admin pro tips
        1. List personalization
        2. Update set selector
        3. Reference field background color
        4. List v3 rendering
        5. List, form, and new window shortcuts
        6. Adding the ServiceNow frame by URL
        7. Impersonation simplification
        8. Derived field risks
        9. Finding derived fields and other field data
        10. Dictionary overrides
      2. Scripting pro tips
        1. Avoiding nested loops
        2. Limit logging
          1. Always use getters and setters
      3. What the pros wish they knew
        1. Field case
        2. Generating encoded query strings
        3. How to modify OOB scripts
        4. Other technical best practices
      4. Summary
    20. Index

Product information

  • Title: Learning ServiceNow
  • Author(s): Tim Woodruff
  • Release date: June 2018
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781788837040