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What is A Service Level Agreement, or SLA?

A Service Level Agreement, or SLA, is a record that defines a set amount of time for a task to reach a certain condition. If the task does not reach the condition by a set amount of time, it is marked Breached. SLAs are used to ensure that a task reaches end conditions within a certain amount of time.

How many types of Agreement between the provider and the customer?

As per ITIL standards, there are 3 types of agreements:

-Service Level Agreements (SLA) - Service Provider and Customer

-Operational Level Agreements (OLA) - Internal between two teams

-Underpinning Contract - Vendor and Service Provider

Explain the SLA Components?

There are three major components that work together to power the Service Level Agreements Plugins:

-SLA Definition - the record which defines the conditions that trigger the SLA.
-Task SLA - the individual instances of the SLAs associated with particular tasks.
-SLA Workflow - the workflow which powers events or actions based on the SLA definition..

Explain SLA Definition?

The SLA [contract_sla] table contains the definitions of SLAs, to define a specific set of criteria that would result in an SLA being generated. Define some of the following parameters:

.Table: The task table that the SLA is defined for.

.Duration: The time duration in which the service must be provided to the customer.
.Schedule: The schedule, which indicates valid working and non-working days that the service provider follows to deliver the service
. The selected schedule is used to determine when the SLA breaches.
.Conditions: The conditions under which the SLA starts, pauses, stops, or resets.

Explain Task SLA?

When an SLA definition is triggered against a particular task, the task SLA record is generated and contains all the tracking data for the specific SLA on that record.
For example, if an SLA definition exists for P1 incidents a task SLA record attaches to the P1 incident record and captures all the data associated with it. Often there are multiple task SLA records against a single task because many definitions apply.
On the Task SLA form, you can also select the target for the SLA: Response, Resolution, or None.

Explain how SLA and workflow work together?

SLA typically uses workflows to send out notifications.
You can create and edit workflows using the Workflow Editor. The default workflow that is available with the SLM plugin is Default SLA Workflow
The Default SLA Workflow creates the events that send out notifications. For example, it creates an event to send a notification to the user assigned to a task, such as an incident, when the task SLA reaches 50%, 75%, or 100% of its allotted time. -Test
The SLA Notification and Escalation Workflow create the events that send out notifications. When a task reaches 50% of its allotted SLA duration, a Warning notification is sent to the assignee and the user listed in the incident.
At 75% and 100%, a Warning & Breach notification is sent to the assignee and the assignee's manager.

SLA TIPS to know?

The default workflow that is available with the SLM plugin is Default SLA Workflow.
Every workflow is run on table task [sla
1)To connect to use SLA type on search bar =sla d
2) Or workflow e
3) Schedule type: on schedules

What is an Update set?

An Update set is a group of customizations that can be moved from one instance to another.
Update sets allow administrators to group a series of changes into a named set and then move them as a unit to other systems. In most cases, Update Sets allow customizations to be developed in a development instance, moved to a test instance, and then applied to a production instance.
For example, a set of enhancements to incident management can be grouped in an Update set called Incident Management 2.0. While Incident Management 2.0 is marked as the current update set, all changes are tracked in it.

Update Set Table: sys_update_set
Before using update sets, we should know how to plan the update process and avoid common pitfalls. Then, create an Updated set and use it to make changes on a development instance. You can report on updates, merge update sets, and compare update sets to ensure the desired changes are ready to move.

What are some processes of An Update set?

A set of record details that uniquely identify the update set.
A list of configuration changes.
A state that determines whether another instance can retrieve and apply configuration changes.

By default, update sets only track changes to baseline applications and platform features. This allows developers to create functionality on a sub-production instance and promote the changes to another instance. Administrators have the following options with update sets.

Create an update set to store local changes.
Select the current update set to store local changes.
Compare update sets to determine what differences they contain.
Merge separate update sets into a single update set.
Retrieve update sets from remote instances.
Apply retrieved update sets.
Back out changes applied from an Update set.
Preview & Commit an Update Set

Planning the Update set Process?

Before working with update sets, create a standard process for moving customizations from instance to instance. Review the following items to ensure that there are no problems during the update set process:

1) Check that both instances are the same version. Customizations may not work if they rely on code that has changed between versions.yes
2) Determine the changes to make in a single update set. ServiceNow recommends limiting update sets to a maximum of 100 records. This maximum value helps to prevent conflicts and makes reviewing the update set easier.
3) Ensure that all base system records have matching sys_id fields. Some base system records are created on an instance after provisioning and do not match between different instances, leading to problems with update sets. The best way to avoid this issue is to:
Provision production and sub-production instances. Clone the production instance onto the sub-production instance.

Planing An Update set Continue?

4) Identify a common path for update sets to move from instance to instance and maintain that model. Never migrate the same update set from multiple sources. The best practice is to move update sets from dev to test and then from test to production.
5) Plan for when to commit the update set to production. Avoid committing an update set to a production instance during business hours. The instance may perform slower temporarily as the update set applies.
6) Make sure update set names are clear. Create a naming convention to coordinate changes from multiple developers and to reference when committing the changes to another instance.
If update sets are being generated as fixes for problems, consider including the problem ticket in the name (for example, PR10005 - Duplicate Email Issues Fix).
If more than one update set is needed to address a problem, include a sequence number in the naming convention so that update sets are applied in the order that they were created (for example, PR10005 - Duplicate Email Issues Fix and PR10005.2 - Duplicate Email Issues Fix).

Some common Pitfalls Of Update set?

In addition to planning the process, make sure to avoid common pitfalls:
1) Do not delete the Update set. If an Update set is deleted, any updated records may be overwritten in the next update.
2) Do not back out the Default update set. This action causes damage to the system.
3) Do not mark an update set as Complete until it is ready to migrate. Once an Update set is complete, do not change it back to In progress. Instead, create another Update set for the rest of the changes, and make sure to commit them together in the order that they were created. Naming conventions may help in this case (for example, Performance Enhancements and Performance Enhancements 2).
4) Do not manually merge updates into an Update set. Always use the Merge Update Sets module. This tool compares duplicate files between update sets and selects the newest version.
5) If a committed update set has a problem in the test instance, build the fix in another update set in the development instance. Commit this set to the test instance, and then make sure both sets are migrated to the production instance and committed in the order they were made.
6) Always preview an Update set before committing it.
7) Set completed update sets on the production instance to ignore. This state ensures the update set is not reapplied when cloning the instance.
8) Keep a to-do list of manual changes and data loads that need to be completed after an Update set is applied.
9) Do not make too many changes at one time. Verify that the correct changes have been made incrementally.

Customizations in an Update Set?

An Update Set is an XML file that contains a list of changes to an instance. Administrators can save an Update Set as a local file that can be transferred to another instance.
Typically you create an Update Set when one of the following conditions apply:
The two instances do not have network connectivity so you cannot retrieve Update Sets from the remote instance nor create a data source to pull, or import, data directly from the source instance
You do not want to provide administrator credentials to the source instance (for example, you do not want to share an administrator password with people outside your company) so you cannot retrieve Update Sets nor create a data source You want to back up important customizations locally

Practical Session

Creation of an Update Set
Previewing an Update Set
Execution of an Update Set
Merging Of an Update Set
Transfer from one instance to another instance

What is Notification in ServiceNow and how it is Used?

Notifications are important communication tools that keep users informed of events that concern them. You can use email notifications and SMS to send and receive communication from within the system. Notifications are triggered by system events, but unlike business rules, require no scripting knowledge.
Users can subscribe to notifications of interest or unsubscribe from notifications that they do not want with the subscription-based notifications feature.
The subscription-based notifications feature enables users to subscribe to notifications of interest or unsubscribe from notifications that they do not want. This feature also enables administrators to send mandatory notifications that users cannot block.

What is Notification in ServiceNow and how it is Used continues?

Notifications can be triggered by events in the platform, but unlike Business Rules, require no scripting knowledge and can also be created for conditions
A notification is a tool for alerting users that concern them have occurred, including
Email
SMS
Meeting Invitation
Push Notifications
Received by
Configured users
Voluntary Recipients

What is anEvent in Notofication?

An Event is an indication to the ServiceNow processes that something notable has occurred.
Events are caused by
User actions
Logging in, approving a request, renaming an attachment
Scripts
Business Rules, Workflows

Note: The Event definitions are in the sys_event table. System Administrators can view the definitions using the System Policy > Events > Registry
Note: The most common ways of generating events are by Business Rules and Workflow activities
Event Queue includes Script, business,workflow, script actions, Email notification.

Email Notification Tasks?

For email messages, an administrator writes a simple form email that is sent out every time a certain event occurs. For example, an email notification generated by an incident can contain information about who opened the incident, the incident's priority, and the description.

Users can enable or disable the email notifications for themselves. They can also define more specific rules regarding which email notifications to receive if subscription-based notifications are active. Users who receive email notifications can respond to the email, which triggers an inbound email action. Inbound email actions are the other half of the communication functionality that email notifications provide. By responding to email notifications, users can interact with the system through their email provider, without logging in to the instance.

Configuring notifications for Email tasks.?

This follows the below 5 tasks approach
Configure Email Properties
Create Events and Business Rules
Create Email Notifications
Configure Email Addresses and Subscribe to Notifications
Create or Update ServiceNow Records via Email

Configure Email Properties Configure your SMTP and POP server settings in the email properties. The default settings are intended for the ServiceNow mail server and need not be changed unless you intend to use your own SMTP or POP server.

Create Events and Business Rules If the events in the base system do not provide the necessary level of detail or do not suit your customized instance, create custom events to trigger notifications.

Create Email Notifications
Create email notifications for your users. The base ServiceNow system provides many useful notifications. Create new records or edit an existing notification if the default functionality does not suit your business needs. Edit the notification message either in the notification record or in the email template the notification uses.

Configure Email Addresses and Subscribe to Notifications Users can subscribe to or unsubscribe from the subscription-based notifications feature. This provides users with the flexibility of configuring the email notifications they see and the delivery method.

Create or Update ServiceNow Records via Email Use inbound email actions to perform various actions in ServiceNow. Inbound email actions behave like business rules and use conditions and scripts to perform tasks.

What is SMS Notification Tasks?

Short messaging service (SMS) is the standard protocol used to deliver short text messages to cell phones. Most cell phones support SMS, even if they do not support more sophisticated messaging like email.
Note: This is particularly useful when critical events require immediate attention and an email notification may be too slow.
SMS messages, unlike emails, are limited to extremely short text strings, 140 characters in most cases. To compensate for this limitation, subscription-based notifications provide the SMS alternate field for the Email Template and Email Notifications forms. Administrators can use this field to enter brief messages for SMS notifications. ServiceNow sends SMS messages through an SMTP gateway to the cell phone companies. The carriers then forward the information to the devices. If the cell phone provider has an SMTP gateway, it can send SMS messages.

Configure notifications for SMS devices, such as cell phones, perform the following tasks?

This follows the below 4 tasks approach:
Create Events and Business Rules
Create Notifications for Users
Create an SMS Device
Subscribe to the Notification
Create Events and Business Rules

If the events in the base system do not provide the necessary level of detail or do not suit your customized instance, create custom events to trigger notifications.

Create Notifications for Users The base ServiceNow system provides many useful notifications. You can create new records or edit an existing notification if the base system functionality does not suit your business needs. You can edit the SMS notification message in the SMS alternate field in either the notification record or in the email template the notification uses. The SMS alternate field enables you to configure SMS messages that meet the 140 character limit. Keep in mind, hyperlinks embedded into SMS messages will not work correctly.

Create an SMS Device Configure SMS devices and select the carrier in the Notification Preferences form
Subscribe to the Notification Allow users to subscribe or unsubscribe from notifications on their SMS device or block delivery of certain notifications in the Notification Preferences form

What is Push Notifications?

In addition to sending email and SMS notifications, an instance can send push notifications to mobile devices. A push notification is a text message that appears on a user's mobile device to alert them about something important or to ask them to perform an action. Your instance supports push notifications.

Use push notifications to send messages to users when certain conditions are triggered on your instance, such as the assignment of an incident to the user. A push notification can even ask for a reply, and the instance can process the reply by acting on the related records. For example, you can have the instance send an approval request for a Change to a user. You can let the user approve or deny the Change by clicking a response button on the push notification. The user's response can then update the status of the Change record.
You can set up push notifications in a similar manner to email and SMS notifications. Determine:

who to send the notification to
when it should be sent
what it should contain

By default, the ServiceNow mobile application supports push notifications. But you can also develop your own push application and configure your instance to send push notifications to it.

Email Basic Setup?

All production instances can send and receive email using ServiceNow-provided resources. The instance has an email address of instance@service-now.com.

How does System Mailboxes work in serviceNow?

Email messages can be seen in the System Mailboxes menu, which gives you access to the system Inbox, Outbox, and Sent mailbox.
The system mailboxes menu shows your current POP and SMTP status.
The System Mailbox is hosted by ServiceNow, which has sole access to the mailboxes. By default, once the instance pulls an email message, it is deleted from the mail server and stored in the application on the Email [sys_email] table.

=> Inbound emails: All inbound mail is placed into the Inbox until it is processed. After it is cleared, the email moves to the Received state. If the email message matches the criteria in an inbound email action, the email is changed to Processed. If not, it is changed to Ready. If the system is restarted for any reason (such as during a system upgrade), all inbound mail waits on the external mail server until the system can request delivery.

=> Outbound emails: All outbound mail is placed into the Outbox until it is processed. Once cleared, it is moved to Sent (if sent) or Skipped (not sent, as in the case of no valid recipients). If the system is restarted for any reason (such as during a system upgrade), all outbound mail waits in the instance database until the system comes online, and the scheduler looks for mail to deliver.

What is SLA Notifications?

SLA sends notifications at certain events defined in the workflow.
By default, SLA notifications are sent on three occasions:

=> SLA is at 50% of the duration specified in the SLA Definition: Notification is sent to the user in the Assigned to field mentioned in the incident form.
=> SLA is at 75% of the duration specified in the SLA Definition: Notification is sent to the user in the Assigned to field mentioned in the incident form and the manager of the user.
=> SLA is breached: Notification is sent to the user in the Assigned to field mentioned in the incident form and the manager of the user.

What is Inbound Email Actions?

Inbound email actions enable an administrator to define the actions ServiceNow takes when receiving email. Inbound email actions are similar to business rules, using both conditions and scripts. The inbound email action checks the email for a watermark that associates it with a task and checks for other conditions. If the conditions are met, the inbound email action runs the script.

By default, if an email has no identifiable watermark, an inbound email action attempts to create a new incident from the message. If the email has a watermark of an existing incident, an inbound email action updates the existing incident according to the action's script.

To add an Inbound Email Action:
Navigate to System Policy > Email > Inbound Actions
Click New
Complete the fields on the form

What is Workflow in ServiceNow?

Workflow is a virtual representation of tasks consisting of connected steps planned out in a sequential manner.
The Graphical Workflow engine automates multi-step processes. Each workflow has a sequence of activities, such as generating records or running scripts, and transitions between them based on conditions..
The workflow starts when a triggering event occurs. Common triggers include a record being inserted into a specific table, or a particular field in a table being set to a specified value. For example, you might create a workflow that runs whenever a user requests approval for an item they want to order from the catalog. .

When an activity completes, the workflow transitions to the next activity. An activity might have several different possible transitions to various activities, depending on the outcome of the activity. Continuing the example above, if the user's request is approved, the activity might transition to an activity that notifies someone to order the item; if the user's request is denied, the activity might transition to notifying the user that their request has been denied.

what is Graphical Workflow Editor?

The graphical Workflow Editor represents workflows visually as a type of flowchart. It shows activities as boxes labeled with information about that activity and transitions from one activity to the next as lines connecting the boxes.

For each step in the workflow:

1) An activity is processed; the behavior determined by the activity occurs.
2) When the action completes, the workflow checks each of the activity's conditions
. 3) For each matching condition, the workflow follows the transition to the next activity.

When the workflow runs out of activities, the workflow is complete.
Is an interface for creating and modifying workflows by arranging and connecting activities to processes
Activities can be added, removed, or rearranged
Transitions can be drawn or changed, and the workflow powers the process as defined visually

Note: The graphical workflow engine automates multiple-step processes. Each workflow generates a sequence of activities, for example: generating records or running scripts and the transitions between them based on conditions. Notification activities allow workflows to notify users of events that occur during the workflow

Explain Workflow Activities?

A workflow activity contains instructions that are processed by the workflow. Activities can include running scripts, manipulating records, waiting for a set period of time, or logging an event.
Workflow conditions determine whether or not the activity is performed. Activities can be added, removed, or rearranged. Transitions can be drawn between activities. This is an activity that triggers a notification:

For more information on available activities and their behaviors, see :

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/kingston-servicenow-platform/page/administer/using-workflows/concept/c_WorkflowActivities.html

What is Transitions in Workflow and how it works?

After the workflow condition is evaluated, the workflow transition determines which activity is performed when the workflow condition is met.
This is a transition that always leads from the Change Approved script to the Change Task activity:

What is Exit Conditions?

After a workflow activity is performed, the workflow condition is evaluated to determine which transition is activated. The condition determines behavior based on a change being approved or rejected:

Workflow Example
During workflow editing or while an unpublished workflow is running, only the person who checked out the workflow can view the changes. After a workflow is published, it is available to other users. The workflow moves through the process as defined in the Workflow Editor. The entire workflow is represented in one screen. For example, this is the Standard Change workflow:

How do you Validating a workflow?

You can manually validate a workflow from the workflow editor.

If validation is successful, the system updates the workflow version record to indicate the workflow has been validated and marks the record as updated by the user who ran the workflow.

Open the workflow to validate in the workflow editor. When the workflow is loaded, the workflow validator icon appears in the toolbar.

Click the validator icon to run a series of validation tests on the current workflow version and generate a report.

How do you Cancel a workflow?

Canceling a workflow stops the workflow from executing and sets the workflow context State to Cancelled. It attempts to stop the workflow gracefully by injecting a cancel command into the workflow engine.

To cancel an active workflow:

1. Navigate to Workflow > Active Contexts.
2. Select a workflow context record.
3. Select the Cancel related link. A confirmation window appears.
4. The Wait for Cancel window appears. The workflow engine attempts to cancel the workflow gracefully. If the workflow does not respond to the cancel command, the Force Cancel window appears.
5. Click Force cancel to interrupt the thread the workflow is actively executing or click Continue waiting to continue waiting for the workflow to cancel gracefully.

What is script used to delete record in global mode?

var DelObj = new GlideRecord("type the table name here");
DelObj.query();
DelObj.deleteMultiple();

Hit enter

How do you create a Workflow?

To create a new workflow, navigate to Workflow -> Workflow Editor and click New.
There are three major steps to creating a workflow:

=> Defining Workflow Properties
=> Adding Workflow Activities
=> Publishing the Workflow

Why should organizations implement a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) solution?

IT organizations must control the process and realities of change that occur within the infrastructure. A CMDB is a repository of configuration information that enables IT to meet these difficult challenges by centrally managing change across IT silos. A CMDB also helps organizations implement and maintain ITIL processes as part of an overall IT Service Management strategy.

Within an organization, who typically uses the CMDB and why?

There are multiple users of the CMDB within IT organizations:
Change and Configuration managers use the CMDB to plan, manage and assess the risk of changes and configurations across the IT enterprise.
Service desk analysts can use a CMDB to diagnose the root cause of a service outage by providing insight into the Configuration Items (CI) that supports an affected service.
Problem management uses the CMDB to investigate and solve know errors.
Architects and designers use the CMDB to help with infrastructure planning and development.

Configuration Overview

Build and maintain the logical service configurations of the infrastructure and application domains that support service. They track the physical and logical state of IT service elements and associate incidents to the state of service elements, which helps in analyzing trends and reducing problems and incidents. The configurations are stored in a configuration management database (CMDB) which consists of entities, called Configuration Items (CI), that are part of your environment. A CI may be: A physical entity, such as a computer or router A logical entity, such as an instance of a database Conceptual, such as a Requisition Service

Explain how Service-Now auto-discovery?

Service-Now provides three options for auto-discovery:

Our separate and highly robust Discovery product.
Service-Now provides a lightweight native discovery tool, Help the Help Desk, as part of the overall CMDB.
Service-Now can support integration to discovery technologies via Web Services. Scanned data can be mapped directly into the CMDB.

How is CMDB Integrated in ServiceNow It services?

The CMDB has relationships with IT service management processes in the following areas:
ITIL Incident Management: Configuration Management assists Incident Management by providing the Service Desk with immediate information on the CIs affected, and more timely resolution of faults by understanding what CIs have been affected and changed.
ITIL Problem Management: Configuration Management assists Problem Management by linking the CIs affected by problems to the incident/problem/change management processes, and ensuring the CI status is properly maintained.
ITIL Change Management: Configuration Management assists Change Management by recording which CIs have been changed and controlling the status of CIs throughout the entire CI lifecycle. Configuration Management ensures any changes made to CIs are recorded and kept accurate.

Creating Relation between two CIs in the CMDB

To create a relationship between two CIs in the CMDB, three pieces of information are required:

The first half of the relationship.
The nature of the relationship
The second half of the relationship

When using the relationship editor, the first half of the relationship has already been selected for us based on the CI we started from when we launched the editor. The editor then concerns itself with collecting the next two pieces of information.

What is Change Management?

Change Management helps organizations understand and work to minimize risks of changes to the IT environment. It is essentially a process for managing the people-side of change. ServiceNow helps implement your Change Management process by providing on-demand capabilities for creating, assessing, approving, and implementing changes to your environment. Within the platform, changes are handled using the task record system. Each change is generated through a variety of means as a task record, populated with pertinent information in individual fields. These tasks can be assigned to appropriate change management team members, who will deal with the task as appropriate. Once the change has been properly implemented, it is closed.

How does Process of Change works?

1. Raising and Recording Changes - A new change record can be generated in a number of ways: An IT team member (role: ITIL) can generate a change by hand through Change  Create New or clicking New from the change record list. An IT team member (role: ITIL) can request a change through the Service Catalog. A change can be requested from an incident. A change can be requested from a problem. If an assignment rule applies, the change will be assigned to the appropriate user or group. Otherwise, it can be assigned by hand. Email Notifications will keep involved parties informed about updates to the change request.

2. Assessing and Evaluating Changes - Once a change request is in place, the change management team must populate the change request with as much information as possible in order to fully assess the requested change.

The Process of change continue?

3. Planning Changes: Changes can be planed directly in the change record, but for complex, multi-step changes, Project Management allows specificity of planning. Projects in the Project plugin can organize many layers of tasks, and present the tasks as a Gantt Chart timeline.

4. Authorizing Changes: Specified by hand, using the Approvers related list Generated using an Approval Rule Generated using a workflow. Using automated approvals, emails will be sent out informing the appropriate user that they need to approve the change. They can either update the Approval field on the form or can simply respond to the email if the appropriate inbound email action is configured.

5. Closing Changes: Once the change has come to an end, and the change has been tested and confirmed, the change can be closed by changing the state. If the change was generated from an incident or problem, a business rule can be configured to automatically close them upon closing the change.

What is Domain Separation ?

Domain separation is a way to separate data into (and optionally to separate administration by) logically defined domains. Domain separation is best for those customers who need to:

=>Enforce absolute data segregation between business entities (data separation).
=>Customize business process definitions and user interfaces for each domain
(delegated administration).
=>Maintain some global processes and global reporting in a single instance of ServiceNow.

Domain separation is extremely well-suited for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and global enterprises with unique business requirements in various areas of the world.

Warning: Before activating domain separation, consult your ServiceNow representative to verify that it is suitable for your environment. Domain separation adds a level of administration overhead. Although it can be disabled, it cannot be removed from an instance.

Domain Separation - Basics?

Data: Bottom to Top
Process: Top to Bottom

Some global properties, data, and processes are shared across all domains.
In Process, all notifications are triggered no matter which domain you are in, both parent and child triggered.

Note In Process- When notification is not possible to be sent to all domains if a particular child domain wants a separate notification then a tool such as Overwrite parent process is used. Since that child domain wants a separate or unique notification.

Data Separation, how?

Members of a domain only see the data contained within their domain or the child domains that are lower in the domain hierarchy. By default, all users and all records are members of the global domain unless an administrator assigns them to a particular domain. Once you assign a user or a record to a domain, the instance compares the user's domain to the record's domain to determine whether the user can view the record. For example, consider the following domain hierarchy:

The global domain users can see all records, regardless of the record's domain settings.

The company domain (Parent) - Fred Luddy, ITIL User, Beth Anglin can see any records in the Database, Database Atlanta, Database San Diego, NY DB, or the global domain.

Atlanta domain (subdomain) Bow Ruggeri cannot see any records in the parent but the global domain.
San Diego domain(sub) - Don Goodliffe cannot see any records in the parent but the global domain.
NY domain(sub) - David Loo cannot see any records in the parent but the global domain.

Warning: Guest users must be part of the global domain.

What is the Domain Visibility?

Domain visibility determines whether users from one domain can access records from another domain.
For example, if Don Goodliffe is in the Database domain, and Bow Ruggeri is in the Network domain, and no incidents are in the global domain, then Don Goodliffe cannot access Bow Ruggeri's incidents since data separation prevents this.

Note: While visibility is one method to allow users to access records, it is recommended that you use Contains for more robust control.

Solution: You can add the Database domain as a Visibility Domain to the Bow Ruggeri's user record (Visibility Domains is a related list on the user record). Then, Bow Ruggeri can access Don Goodliffe's incidents since he now has visibility to the Database domain. If you remove the visibility domain, then Bow Ruggeri can no longer access incidents in the Database domain.

What is Contains Domains?

Normally parent-child relationships define the domain hierarchy. A Contains domain allows you to relate domains on an as-needed basis, independent of parent-child relationships.

However, contains domains that only grant visibility to domain data. Processes remain unaffected by contains relationships.

Note: Visibility controls what a particular user can see, while Contains controls what an entire domain of users can see.

Contains Domains vs Visibility Domains?

A contains domain: Is a many-to-many, domain-to-domain relationship. Is hierarchical. When a domain is selected, you can see the data from that domain and its children. Is controlled by the selection in the domain picker.

A visibility domain: Is a user-to-domain relationship and is explicitly granted? Is not hierarchical. Is not controlled by the selection in the domain picker. Once the user is granted access to a visibility domain, they always see data in that domain and its children.

For example, there is a user who has access to domain A (the user's home domain) and is granted visibility to domains B and C. The user selects domain A in the domain picker. In this case, the user has access to domains A, B, and C. If the user changes the domain picker to domains B, B and C are visible. C is still visible because the user still has visibility to it. A is not visible, because it is not selected in the domain picker and it is not a visibility domain.

Using visibility domains excessively is not recommended.

Domain Separation Plugins ...

All domain support features are consolidated into one plugin called Domain Support - Domain Extensions Installer.

The plugin combines the features of the previous plugins:

Domain Support (version 1.0)
Domain Support - Common
Domain Support - Partitioning (Data separation)
Domain Support - Delegated Administration
Domain Number Support

What is Incident Management?

Any disruption to the service is referred to as an Incident.

The goal of Incident Management is to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible following an incident while minimizing impact to business operations and ensuring quality is maintained.

The Service-Now platform supports the Incident Management process with capabilities to record incidents, classify according to impact and urgency, assign to appropriate groups, escalate, and manage through to resolution and reporting.

The Process of an Incident

1. LOGGING - By default any user can log an incident. There are a number of ways to log an incident:
Employee Self Service Portal
Standard UI

2. CATEGORIZATION - Incident forms have fields for category and subcategory, which allow for easy classification of incidents. These categories can be used by the system to create automatic assignment rules or notifications.
3. PRIORITIZATION: SNOW uses three metrics for determining the order in which incidents are processed.

All three are supported by incident forms: Impact: The effect on business that an incident has.
Urgency: The extent to which the incident's resolution can bear delay.
Priority: How quickly the service desk should address the incident.

Priority is generated from Impact and Urgency according to the following table:

The Process of an Incident continue?

4. RESOLUTION: Once the incident is considered Resolved, the incident state should be set by the service desk as resolved. After a sufficient period of time has passed, assuming that the user that opened the incident is satisfied, the incident state may be set to close.

5. CLOSURE: Closed incidents will be filtered out of view, but will remain in the system for reference purposes. Closed incidents can be reopened if the user or service desk believe that it needs to be reopened.

It is also possible to generate customer satisfaction surveys upon the closure of incidents. This allows the service desk to gather information about their quality of service directly from the user.

IT Service Management- What is Service ?

A service is a means of delivering value to the customers by facilitating the outcomes that customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks.

What is IT Service Management?

ITSM is a process-based practice intended to align the delivery of Information Technology (IT) services with the needs of the organization, emphasizing benefits to customers.

IT service management (ITSM) refers to the entirety of activities – directed by policies, organized and structured in processes and supporting procedures – that are performed by an organization to design, plan, deliver, operate and control information technology (IT) services offered to customers.

It is thus concerned with the implementation of IT services that meet customers' needs, and it is performed by the IT service provider through an appropriate mix of people, processes, and information technology.

What are the IT Service Management ?

To align IT Services with the current and future needs of the business and its customers
To improve the quality of the IT services delivered
To reduce the long term cost of service provision
Increasing demand from Businesses to deliver effective IT solutions/services (Cost-effective)
Increasing Competition
Increasing Pressure to realize a return on investment
Increasing Complexity of IT infrastructure and processes
Increasing IT Visibility

Core ITSM Disciplines?

Service Support
=>Day to day operational support of IT services
Service Delivery
=>Long term planning and improvement of IT service provision

Customer: The recipient of the service
. Provider: Responsible for providing.
Supplier: The third party supplying the services.
User: Using the service

What is Problem Management?

Problem Management helps to identify the cause of an error in the IT infrastructure that is usually reported as occurrences of related incidents. Resolving a problem means fixing the error that will stop these incidents from occurring in the future.

Problem resolution and elimination of root cause often call for applying a change to the configuration item in the existing IT environment.

The Service-Now platform supports the Problem Management process with capabilities to record problems, create knowledge from problems, request changes, assign to appropriate groups, escalate, and manage through to resolution and reporting.

How Problem process works?

1. Logging - A problem can be generated in a number of ways.

An IT staff member can generate one manually using Problem Create New or by clicking New from the problem record list.
An IT staff member can generate a problem from an incident.
If an appropriate inbound email action is configured, a problem can be generated from an email.

2. Assignment - A problem can be assigned to a user or group. This can be done manually or using an assignment rule.

3. Investigating & Updating - If the problem management team has a problem model process for dealing with certain problems, they can be codified in the system using workflows. This allows for standardization and automation of the process.

As a problem is updated, email notifications will be sent to concerned parties. If inbound email actions are specified, the problem can be updated via email. The platform has an in-built system of Escalations rules which can ensure that problems are handled speedily (via SLA).

How Problem process works continue?

4. Resolution: If a problem needs a change in order to be resolved, it is possible to request a change, which will be then resolved using the change management process. Once a change has been requested, the problem will appear on a related list on the change item's form. Once the problem is associated with a change item, change the Problem State to Pending Change.

It is possible to create a business rule that will close the problem automatically if the change it is associated with is closed. This automates the process of closing problems that are Pending Change. It is also possible to create a business rule that will automatically close all incidents associated with the problem if the problem is closed.

If a problem's cause has been determined but there is no permanent fix, changing the Problem State to Known Error communicates this fact to the IT staff. This helps reduce the time spent on incidents dealing with the known problem by making known errors easy to find, automatically creating a list of Known Errors.

What is Release Management in ServiceNow?

Release Management encompasses the planning, design, build, configuration, and testing of hardware and software releases to create a defined set of release components.

ServiceNow handles releases using the task record system. Each planned feature is generated through a variety of means as a task record, populated with pertinent information in individual fields. These tasks can be assigned to appropriate release management team members, who will deal with the task as appropriate until the release has been properly deployed.

Release Management can be effectively used to coordinate releases as a vehicle for planning releases, composed of individual features. Once a release is finalized, a Change Item can be generated, allowing the implementation and deployment of a release to be handled within the change management process.

What are the Release Management Concepts

Release Management consists of the following tables:

Products - represent the hardware or software for which releases will be built. A product can be linked with a Business Service in the CMDB to link it with other ITIL processes.
Releases - represent a planned release for a product. The content of a release is defined by the features (and associated Requests for Change) that it implements.
Features - represent the individual changes being made to the product. A feature may be associated with a configuration item or with a change request, and to a parent release.
Release Phases - represent the planned phases that a release will have, which are used to group the tasks required to carry out the release.
Release Tasks - represent any of the tasks required to implement a feature of a product.

What are the Release Names & Upgrade Process

ServiceNow has introduced a new naming convention, starting with ASPEN, which is based on an alphabetical system using names of world cities.

ASPEN, BERLIN, CALGARY, DUBLIN, EUREKA, FUJI, GENEVA, HELSINKI, ISTANBUL, JAKARTA, KINGSTON, LONDON, MADRID, NEWYORK, ORLANDO, PARIS

Note: Customers and Partners receive at least 30 days' notice before an upgrade.

ServiceNow Release Terminology?

1) Feature Release: Introduces new features
SCOPE: Includes all available fixes to existing functionality Is production-oriented; quality and stability are of the highest priority throughout the life-cycle.

Upgrade Policy: Applied automatically during the rollout period unless the customer pins the instance Customers received advanced notification

2) Patch Release:Scope: Supports existing functionality with a collection of problem fixes Includes all previously issued hotfixes for a given release Does not include new features

Upgrade Policy: Applied as needed on a per-customer basis ServiceNow provides patches for the current and previous feature releases only

3) Hot Fixed Scope: Supports existing functionality with a specific problem fix for a feature. release
May not include any previous fixes for a given release
Does not include new features

Upgrade Policy: Applied as needed on a per-customer basis. ServiceNow provides patches for the current and previous feature releases only

Note: Above is a hypothetical release cycle based on the types of releases that ServiceNow offers. Interim releases include Hot fixes and Patch releases

ServiceNow - ITSM Platform

ServiceNow is a leading provider of cloud-based services that automate enterprise IT operations. We focus on transforming enterprise IT by automating and standardizing business processes, transforming IT's relationship with its customers, and consolidating IT across the global enterprise.
ServiceNow is an on-demand IT Service Management Solution platform founded in 2003 by Fred Luddy, former CEO of Peregrine Systems and Remedy Corporation. Headquartered in Santa Clara, CA with offices throughout the US, EMEA, Asia, Australia, India, and customers in more than 48 countries.
Supports more than 1900+ global customers including Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 companies.
One of the fastest-growing software companies with more than triple-digit revenue growth.

Overview?

Web2.0 fast, flexible, affordable, simple & consistent.
SaaS (Software as a Service), provides remote access to ITSM through a web-based interface.
ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library), provides the framework for IT services.
PaaS (Platform as a Service), allowing to build applications without maintaining infrastructure.
IT 3.0 – IT for people.
SNOW is having a java based platform using a tomcat web server running on a Linux machine.

Features & Key Benefits of ITSM platform

Availability: Proven 99.8% availability, Automatic Upgrades, Geographically separated DR.
.
Scalability: Architected for large enterprises, Proven massive scalability, Dedicated database and Application set, Tightly integrated.
.
Security: HTTPS / SSL / TLS ,Role based security, Contextual security, Password, data encryption Datacenter physical security, VPN tunneling.
.
Other: secured, flexible, speed, easy, lower, simple and flexible.

ITSM Backup and Recovery?

Backup: 7 Daily - preserved for one week

1 weekly – preserved for one month Include data from all customer instances (Primary and secondary, Production and Non Production instances) Entire DB server backed up every night

Restore: Restoration from backup is the last resort especially in Production. While restoring, Production is unavailable. For some customers, restoration can be longer and can take hours causing downtimes.

ServiceNow Users & Licensing Model

IT support, Administrators, Employees, Implementors, Developers. Out of box users -> Admin, ITIL, and Employee

Fulfiller – Can access all functionality based on assigned roles. Approver – Can perform all requester actions. Requester – Can submit requests (typically vis ESS)

Note: Users having at least one role are counted as Licensed users in ServiceNow.
Users having an admin role can only place a request. The request has to be placed 48 hours in advance to start of cloning action by ServiceNow.

ServiceNow System Plugins?

Admins can activate any published Plugins.
System Definition -> Plugin -> Right click – activate / upgrade
Plugins activated by default on newly created instances.
Also, can be activated by request to the HI portal.

Tables and Columns om ServiceNow Platform

System tables start with sys_*
User-defined tables -> starts with u_*
core_company,
cmn_location,
sys_user,
sys-user_has_a_role,
sys_user_group,
incident,
change_request,
sys_choice,
sys_user_role,
cmdn_ci,
task,
problem,
contract_sla,
task_sla,
sys_event

Multi-Domain Instance

Single Tenant: One Domain per instance. Multi-Tenant: Multiple Domains per instance

What is ITIL ?

ITIL (an acronym for Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a set of detailed practices for IT service management (ITSM) that focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of the business.

-Developed in the 1980s in the UK in response to growing dependence on IT.
-Systematic approach to high-quality IT Service Delivery.
-Public Body for the knowledge of Service Management best practices.
-Helps organizations to improve service levels and reduce the cost of IT operations.
-A framework, defining ten interlocking processes for Service Support and Service Delivery.

Mention thethe core processes of ITIL?

Incident

What is Roles?

Roles: are defined as collections of specific responsibilities and privileges. Roles may be held by individuals or teams. Individuals and teams may hold more than one role.

ITIL emphasizes a number of standard roles include, most importantly:
Service Owner: Accountable for the overall design, performance, integration, improvement, and management of a single service.
Process Owner: Accountable for the overall design, performance, integration, improvement, and management of a single process.
Service Manager: Accountable for the development, performance, and improvement of all services in an environment.
Product Manager: Accountable for the development, performance, and improvement of the entire product.

What are The Service Lifecycle i ITIL?

Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Operation, Service Transition, Service Transition, and Continual Service Improvement

Mention Service Strategy divisions?

Strategy generation
Financial management
Service portfolio management
Demand management

Mention Service Design divisions?

Capacity, Availability, Info Security Management Service level & Supplier Management

Mention Service Operation divisions?

Problem & Incident management, Request fulfillment, Event & Access management

Mention Service Transition divition?

Planning & Support

Mention Continual Service Improvement?

Service measurement & reporting 7-step improvement process

Service Strategy Vision?

What are we going to provide?
Can we afford it?
Can we provide enough of it?
How do we gain a competitive advantage?

Perspective - Vision, mission, and strategic goals
Position
Plan
Pattern
Must fit organisational culture

Mention the Activities of Service Strategy ?

Define the Market, Develop the Offerings, Develop Strategic Assets, Prepare for Execution,

What are the Service assets?

Resources
Things you buy or pay for
IT Infrastructure, people, money

Capabilities Things you grow
Ability to carry out an activity
Transform resources into Services

Demand Management
Ensures we don’t waste money with excess capacity
Ensures we have enough capacity to meet demand at agreed quality

Service Design vision?

How are we going to provide it?
How are we going to build it?
How are we going to test it?
How are we going to deploy it?

A holistic approach to determine the impact of change introduction on the existing services and management processes

What are the Processes in Service Design?

Availability Management
Capacity Management
ITSCM (disaster recovery)
Supplier Management
Service Level Management
Information Security Management
Service Catalogue Management

What are the Service Level Management?

Agreements

Service Level Agreements (Service Provider and Customer) Operational Level Agreements (Internal between two teams) Underpinning Contracts (Vendor and Service Provider)

Success of SLM (KPIs) How many services have SLAs? How does the number of breaches of SLA change over time (we hope it reduces!)?

What are the Things you might find in an SLA?

Service Description, Hours of operation, User Response times, Incident Response times, Resolution times, Availability & Continuity targets, Customer Responsibilities, Critical operational periods, Change Response Times,

Right Capacity, Right Time, Right Cost!?

This is capacity management Balances Cost against Capacity so minimizes costs while maintaining the quality of service

ITSCM is what?

IT Service Continuity Management

Ensures resumption of services within the agreed timescale Business Impact Analysis informs decisions about resources
E.g. Stock Exchange can’t afford 5 minutes of downtime but 2 hours of downtime probably won't badly affect a departmental accounts office.

What does Information Security Management entails?

Confidentiality
Making sure only those authorized can see data
Integrity
Making sure the data is accurate and not corrupted
Availability
Making sure data is supplied when it is requested

What is Service Transition entails?

Build, Deployment, Testing, User acceptance, Bed-in
Good service transition

Set customer expectations
Enable release integration
Reduce performance variation

Document and reduce known errors Minimise risk
Ensure proper use of services

What does Change Management and types entails?

Change Management helps organizations understand and work to minimize the risks of changes to the IT environment. It is essentially a process for managing the people-side of change.

Normal
Non-urgent requires approval
Standard
Non-urgent follows established path, no approval needed
Emergency
Requires approval but too urgent for normal procedure

What is Change Advisory Board entails?

Change Manager (VITAL)
One or more of
Customer/User
User Manager
Developer/Maintainer
Expert/Consultant
Contractor
CAB considers the 7 Rs

Who RAISED?, REASON, RETURN, RISKS, RESOURCES, RESPONSIBLE, RELATIONSHIPS to other changes

What is Release in Release Management ?

The release is a collection of authorized and tested changes ready for deployment
A rollout introduces a release into the live environment
Full Release
e.g. Office 2007
Delta (partial) release
e.g. Windows Update
Package
e.g. Windows Service Pack

What is Phased or Big Bang?

The phased release is less painful but more work
Deploy can be manual or automatic
Automatic can be push or pull
Release Manager will produce a release policy

What are the Service Operation?

Incident Management, Problem Management, Event Management, Request Fulfilment, Access Management,

What are the Incident Management?

Deals with unplanned interruptions to IT Services or reductions in their quality
Failure of a configuration item that has not impacted service is also an incident (e.g. Disk in RAID failure) Reported by:

Users
Technical Staff
Monitoring Tools

What are the Event Management?

3 Types of events
Information, Warning, Exception
Can we give examples? Need to make sense of events and have appropriate control actions planned and documented

What are the Problem Management?

Aims to prevent problems and resulting incidents
Minimizes impact of unavoidable incidents
Eliminates recurring incidents
Proactive Problem Management
Identifies areas of potential weakness
Identifies workarounds
Reactive Problem Management
Identifies underlying causes of incidents
Identifies changes to prevent a recurrence

What are the Access Management?

Right things for the right users at the right time
Concepts

Access
Identity (Authentication, AuthN)
Rights (Authorisation, AuthZ)
Service Group
Directory

What are the service Service Desk entails?

Local, Central, or Virtual
Examples?
Single point of contact
Skills for operators

-Customer Focus
-Articulate
Interpersonal Skills (patient!)
-Understand Business
-Methodical/Analytical
-Technical knowledge -Multi-lingual

Service Desk is often seen as the bottom of the pile
Bust most visible to customers so important to get right!

What are the Continual Service Improvement?

Focus on Process owners and Service Owners
Ensures that service management processes continue to support the business
Monitor and enhance Service Level Achievements
PDCA (Plan – Do – Check – Act)

What are the Service Measurement?

Technology (components, MTBF, etc)
Process (KPIs - Critical Success Factors)
Service (End-to-end, e.g. Customer Satisfaction)
Why?
Validation – Soundness of decisions
Direction – of future activities
Justify – provide factual evidence
Intervene – when changes or corrections are needed

What is Reporting Performance & Tuning?

ServiceNow reports are visualizations of your data that you can share with users on dashboards, export to PDF, and send via email.

ServiceNow reports can be lists, charts, or calendar-based views of data in a particular table. The ServiceNow system also offers a range of predefined reports that pertain to applications and features like incident management and service catalog requests. If none of the predefined reports meet your needs, you can create your own reports. Use reports on homepages to display key information to different users. You can also publish reports to a URL that can be emailed.

In ServiceNow reporting, you can control the following aspects of reports:

Report Visibility
Report Types
Report Generation
Report Output formats

You can generate ServiceNow reports manually or according to a schedule.

Whate are Report Visibility?

You can control who sees reports by making them:

Globally visible to all users.
Visible only to the report creator.
Visible to one or more specific users.
Visible to one or more specific groups.

Report visibility controls which users can access individual reports.

ACLs control access to the underlying table data. List reports require the reporting user to satisfy ACLs on the target table to view records in the list. Users without sufficient permissions may see filtered list reports.

Report Types

You can generate the following types of reports, organized by category:

1) List
2) Time Series Chart

-Line -Column -Area -Spline 3) Column and Bar charts
-Bar -Pareto -Histogram 4) Pie and Donuts
-Pie -Donut -Semi-donut 5) Dials
-Speedometer -Dial

More

Report Generation?

You can generate a report manually at any time. These on-demand reports are useful for capturing information at the moment, such as the number of incidents assigned to you right now.

You can also schedule reports to generate on a regular basis.
The charting engine you use depends on the version of the ServiceNow platform you are running.

ServiceNow Release
Fuji, Eureka, Dublin,

Charting Engine

You can save the reports as JPG or PNG files using the menu icon.
Reports are generated as JPG or PNG files and sent to the client browser.
You can save these reports using screen capture software.

Report Output Formats?

You can publish reports in the following output formats. You can schedule all of these reports for regular export. Report Format

PDF, Excel, PNG,
Description
Displays a Portable Document format in either portrait or landscape orientation.
Displays as Microsoft Excel sheet.
Displays as Portable Network Graphic file.
Displays as Comma Separated Value plain text value file.

Report Designer & Builder

The Report Designer provides a guided flow for report creation. Selection of the data source, selection of the report type, configuration, and styling of the report are presented on successive tabs. The Report Builder provides most report creation functionality in a single panel.
Using the Report Designer, users can configure a report, preview it, iterate and adjust, then share it using the integrated Share panel. The older Report Builder provides functionality for naming, selection of the data source, and configuration on one page. Style option selection is provided in a pop-up.
The Report Designer supports imported data sources and MetricBase Time Series reports, but the Report Builder does not.

Copy a Report?

Copying a report enables users who cannot create their own global reports to modify a global report, and then save a personal version of the report. Navigate to Reports > View / Run.
Click the arrow next to Save.
Select Insert and Stay.
Creates a copy of the report that can be modified

Delete a Report?

Delete reports that are no longer used
Navigate to Reports > View / Run.
Select the report to Delete.
When the report opens, click the Delete icon.
If you are using the Report Builder, click the arrow next to the Save button and select Delete
Confirm that you want to delete the report.
Result The selected report is removed and is no longer available to share, publish, or view.

Network Performance?

One clear indicator of a network issue is if users in one location have very good performance while users in another location have very poor performance. This indicates that the application server is fine. If the browser settings are identical for these users, the only meaningful difference is the network.

Monitor Ping Times

The coarsest measure of network response time is a ping, which measures the total time for a packet to travel from the source machine to the target and back again. Ideally, the response time should be under 100ms in the United States or under 150 ms in Europe or Asia. In practice, though, anything under 250 ms is not a major component in perceived response time.
Running a Traceroute

If you are observing slow ping times, you can run a traceroute. Traceroutes are great tools for identifying network bottlenecks.
To run a traceroute in Windows, open a command prompt window and enter: tracers (yourinstancename).service-now.com

Application Server

Application server performance issues generally manifest themselves in slow response times. Monitoring response times and checking logs can help when identifying performance problems.
Monitor Response Times
To maintain good performance levels on the application server, regularly monitor response times throughout your instance, including at the transaction level and on forms. Track System Transaction Logs

As you operate ServiceNow, the instance automatically logs the vital statistics of every transaction it processes. That information is available to users with the admin role. Navigate to System Logs> Transactions.
Fixing the issue:
Ensure that a cache flush is not being run during business hours. Be aware, however, that when update sets are committed, they automatically trigger cache flushes, which prevent older data from interfering with changes and updates. So do not schedule update sets to be committed during business hours If there is no identifiable cause, but overall response time is still slow, contact ServiceNow Technical Support to find out if anything is affecting the application server hardware.

Browser?

Browser performance issues are often related to how the browser handles and renders compressed data. Monitoring how the browser handles caching of data from secured sites can also affect performance.
Compressing Data
Make sure that your browser always requests compressed data. Frequently, a proxy or edge device disables gzip compression. Enabling gzip compression would speed up the interactions.
Caching items from Secure Websites

If your organization has a policy to never cache items from an HTTPS location, every interaction with the ServiceNow server will fetch a large amount of JavaScript and images. To prevent this performance impact, make sure the Internet Explorer Do not save encrypted pages to disk option is off (the Microsoft default).

Performance & Tuning?

Performance issues can arise with your ServiceNow instance in the network Latency, Application Server response, and Browser Rendering

Network
Application Server
Browser

One of the first things to consider when troubleshooting performance issues is to determine where the issues originated. This can be accomplished by performing basic troubleshooting steps, such as testing the issues on different computers or using different browsers.

Consider your instance and review these five stages to determine if all or only some of them are required to keep your ServiceNow instance running like a well-tuned racecar

Step 1 – Daily instance maintenance,
Step 2 – Weekly instance performance
Step 3 – Monthly instance performance
Step 4 – Quarterly instance performance
Step 5 – Keep your instance continually improving
,
terms and definitions Instance performance administration – The instance hygiene activities that ServiceNow administrators can perform to monitor and maintain the overall health of their ServiceNow system

Step 1 – Daily instance performance?

What’s slowing you down might be simple to find. Check three areas to see if your transactions or data pulls are issues.

KEY INSIGHTS

• Look for errors in your system diagnostics to troubleshoot.
• Review your transactions’ total response times.
• Check for users who are selecting more data than they can use at once

Review the System Diagnostics homepage?

The System Diagnostics page tracks some high-level statistics for each of the nodes (JVMs) in your instance. (See Figure 1.)
When you review this information, don’t worry if the total number of JVM Classes differs between nodes. This metric is showing the number of classes that have been loaded and subsequently unloaded on each JVM. Depending on the activities users performed on each node, you might notice a legitimate disparity in what has been called since that JVM was last started.
1. Go to the System Diagnostics homepage.
2. Review the values on this page. You’ll see values either in real-time at the point the page is rendered or as cumulative counts (such as the transactions and error values) since the node was last started (see the JVM UP time).
3. Track this information in a spreadsheet or a table in your instance. Include the uptime, number of errors since the last restart, the number of transactions performed, and the number of logged-in users for each node. While the Now Platform® does have built-in performance graphs that show this information, they’re rendered on a per-node basis. If you spot an uncharacteristic jump in these numbers, it can be a good indicator there is an underlying performance issue you need to identify and address

Review the previous day’s slow transactions?

The ServiceNow system logs module provides a variety of logs that you can use to troubleshoot and debug transactions and events that take place within the instance. The transaction logs in the system log table to record all browser activity for an instance. See the image below:

Review the previous day’s slow transactions

By reviewing all users’ transaction information, you can see which transactions are taking more than a specified amount of time. Before you start, ensure you have the Client Transaction Timings plugin enabled to capture all the data. Also, note depending on the size of your instance this table can be huge and may time out before the results load, so ensure you load it with 'sysparm_filter_only=true' then specify a filter to start looking at results. In the list of transactions, you can view the total response time along with: • A breakdown of the composite parts – This includes the time spent rendering in the browser, time spent on the server processing the transaction, and calculated time spent in the network. • The details of which node processed the request • The IP address of the host making the request • The user making the request • When the transaction occurred • The session ID – Since this is also captured, it’s possible to review the application logs to dissect every action a user has performed in their session. Things that should stand out for you include: • Whether there is a particular time of day when transactions execute slowly • Whether these transactions are all being processed by the same node – This suggests one or more transactions or background jobs are consuming large quantities of memory. • Whether the transaction response times are poor across all nodes – This typically signifies the the database was working harder than usual, impacting all transactions. You might notice that the top 10 slowest transactions were all issued by a single user and are incident lists. If that’s the case, you can review the user’s settings or impersonate that user and try to recreate the issue. You may also want to filter transactions by URL to analyze the slow transactions. Additionally, reporting on aggregate response times can be a powerful way to track how overall instance performance is changing with time. For more detailed instructions on how to work with the transaction logs, see our product documentation site.

Consider your use cases

How much data do your users truly need to review on a single screen? If you identify that your list transactions are slow, find out how much data your users are requesting. When a user selects Show 100 rows per page on a list, this sets a user preference. From that point forward, every list I the platform will show that user 100 rows. This includes related and embedded lists on forms as well as the list views where the user sets the preference. If you have a sufficient number of users who are requesting high numbers of rows, you could experience a platform-wide performance degradation because those row counts are making such high demands on the memory required from the JVM to render the lists. This becomes problematic when a table with many reference fields has to render a list. The the platform has to build relationships for all of the reference fields for all the rows displayed on screen. For most service environments, agents can’t practically use more than 20–30 rows at a time. If the page load is fast, you can make a good case for “paging” to the next chunk of results rather than scrolling down. Consider using the ‘Glide.UI.per_page’ property to define the items per page drop down option visible for users.

Step 2 – Weekly instance performance

If routine tasks are a problem, finding errors, warnings, large log files, and slow jobs will help you get those tasks running smoothly. KEY INSIGHTS • Make sure your scheduled jobs run as they should. • Find the repeated errors and warnings in your logs. • Find data users logged excessively and large log files. • Determine if slow- or long-running jobs are causing issues. Review your scheduled jobs By reviewing your scheduled job activity, you can help ensure your background activities, such as scheduled reports, discovery sensors, and other routine tasks, run smoothly. Check for anything that’s running for more than an hour (3,600,000 ms). 1. Navigate to System Logs > Transactions (Background). 2. Apply a filter with the following conditions (see Figure 3): Created > on > This week URL > starts with > JOB Response time > greater than > 3600000 Note: The response may take several minutes to return. If you don’t return any results for an hour, try the same steps again with a more stringent value such as a half-hour (1800000 ms). Of course, some scheduled jobs are going to take a long time because they have a lot of work to process. Due to how the transaction log tables are stored and rotated in the database, it is not possible to use the “group by” function in the list view. Because of this, you may find it easier to do your trend analysis by exporting the result set to Excel. 3. If you see a job that has been executed multiple times for a long duration, drill down into what the problem is. The most common culprits are glide record queries, which request information from large tables with un-indexed “where” clauses or sorts/groups. These are often found inside of scripted transform maps and sometimes inside of script includes or business rules

Configure scheduled jobs to use “Burst” scheduler workers?

To insulate against backed-up scheduler worker queues, set the Priority field on the sys_trigger entry for the scheduled job to 25. This ensures that the core jobs—event processors, SMTP sender, POP reader, and SMS sender—get triggered in a timely fashion. Should all the scheduler workers be busy with other jobs, an “important” job, which is more than 60 seconds past due will spawn a “Burst” scheduler worker and execute in parallel to the core eight schedulers on the node. Using “Burst” scheduler worker is good insulation, but don’t use it as an excuse to avoid addressing the root causes of the other long-running or high-volume scheduled jobs Check for repeated errors in the error log 1. Navigate to the System Log. 2. Select Errors. 3. Look for actionable errors as well as the frequency within the warning messages. 4. Look for an increase in volume in the number of errors by checking the total number in the the top right corner of the screen. 5. If you see a message like org.mozilla.javascript.gen.sys_script_include_5daa9bf593233100fa71b33e867ffb9b_script_255 5.call(sys_script_include_5daa9bf593233100fa71b33e867ffb9b.script, you can discover more about the error by examining the script_include record with that sys_id

Check for repeated errors in the error log?

Look for repeated errors in the warnings log 1. Navigate to the System Logs. 2. Select Warnings. 3. Look for actionable warnings as well as frequency. 4. Based on the warnings you see, you may be able to search through a sys_script for the text output. Look for excessive logging Next, look for unusually large log files. This is a relatively crude—but surprisingly accurate—way to spot potential problems that warrant closer attention. 1. Navigate to System Logs > Utilities > Node Log File Download. 2. Apply a Name that starts with a local filter. This will show you all the application logs for the node your session is active on. 3. Note that the most recent five days of log files are unzipped, and the remaining files are zipped. The size value is measured in KBs. If you notice that one day is significantly larger than the others, or that there is a progressive increase in file size, you may need to investigate further.

Find log files over 1 GB

Log files over 1 GB may suggest possible frequent errors or logging issues that you need to fix. 1. First, look for a significant spike in log file size. Note: This may indicate that the gs.log or gs. print statements, which were used in sub-production testing, have not been removed. Unnecessary logging makes the tables bulky, which slows maintenance activities, like backups, and also makes searching the Syslog table slow and cumbersome. If that’s the case, try to remove the gs.log and/or gs. print statements (unless you need them) and complete steps 1–4 again. 2. Find the log files that are over 1 GB

Find slow-running jobs

1. Navigate to the System Scheduler. 2. Select Slow Job Log. 3. View the job details in the URL and Response time columns. 4. Check the SQL time column for the time the job has been in the database. 5. Check the Business rule time column for the amount of time the job has been in logic (execution). 6. Right-click the Response time column heading and select Sort (z to a). 7. Review the Response time, SQL time, and Business rule time to look for suspiciously long run times.

Find long-running jobs

1. Navigate to User Administration. 2. Select Active Transactions. 3. If there is a background job running, it will show in the User column. Check the Age column to see how long it’s been running. 4. To kill a job that’s been running for too long or seems to be completely stuck, right-click the User name and select Kill. 5. A confirmation message will appear at the top of the list.

Trend your top 20 transactions

Create a spreadsheet to trend your top 20 transactions. These may constitute the 20 most executed transactions in a given week. Or you may choose to track the most business-critical transactions (like incident or catalog transactions). Or it may be helpful to trend a mixture of these. Keep tracking data week after week. Refer to this knowledge base article on the HI Service Portal for advice on how to investigate the performance of individual transactions

Step 3 – Monthly instance performance?

Don’t let slow queries or transient data bog down your instance. KEY INSIGHTS • Track your table growth to ensure they don’t get too large. • Remove unnecessary records when the data is no longer needed. • Review your slow queries to see if you need to index or change frequent queries. There are broadly two types of data stored in your ServiceNow instance: • Persistent data that you want to retain, such as a task or user info • Transient data that needs to be cleared after a given time frame, such as log information or staging data for imports or integrations It’s normal to see persistent data growth over time. But when you see increased table sizes along with a decreased response time, you may have list definitions or glide record queries that need to be refactored or supported by appropriate indexing so you can accommodate the data growth. Or your data sets may be growing because there’s an increase in response times for end-users and an increase in execution time for maintenance tasks such as cloning, backup, and restore. If that’s the case, it’s important to monitor your table growth on a monthly basis. If you created a spreadsheet to track your top 20 request response times, you can extend it to track the number of rows rendering in your tables, as well as your slow queries, so you can track their improvement over time.

Monitor your table growth rates

When you check your table growth, you’ll look for two things: • Dramatic changes in size from month to month • The total number of records in your tables Follow these steps: 1. Navigate to System Definition. 2. Select Tables. 3. Your list of tables appears on the screen 4. Filter the table information by typing u_ in the box. This will show you all of the user-created tables. 5. Continue filtering the table by typing =NULL under Column name. This shows you all your customized tables (those that aren’t out of the box)—the tables you need to check for growth. 6. To see the total number of records in a table, type name of table.list in the navigation field at the top left of the screen 7. Look for a dramatic change between the previous month and this month. If you see this, you may need to investigate why the spike occurred. 8. Check the total records. If the total number of records in your tables is over 50K, you may need to complete one of these tasks or a combination of them: • Index the fields used in filters or other queries – To determine if you need to index fields, review the Slow Queries log. If you discover that you need to index, contact ServiceNow for support. • Request a table rotation from ServiceNow technical support – For more information, read the next section and our product page on table rotation. • Extend your tables – For more information, read our product page explaining the table extension. • Clean them by purging rows – See the next section

Clean your tables?

When you look at your transient data tables, make sure you see evidence that a sensible data retention policy is being enforced. If a record is a throwaway, there’s no need to retain it once it has been processed. Set up a table cleaner to remove the row in a timely fashion. With the advent of solid-state drives, the table cleaner can comfortably delete approximately one million rows from a table on a daily basis and keep up. When you need to purge more than one million rows at a time, you may need to request a table rotation. Table rotation is part of the Now Platform functionality and, while it’s open to users with the admin role, we recommend sending a ticket to the ServiceNow technical support team to investigate your individual requirements. To list the data you may want to purge (such as incidents older than one year): 1. Type incident.list in the navigation field, or type https://instancename.service-now.com/ incident_list.do into your browser’s address bar. 2. A count of the records will display. 3. You may want to amend your show x records preference to 10 or 20 to speed up the list rendering time. If you discover that you need to purge more than one million records, submit a ticket to the ServiceNow tech support team to handle the purge. Purging them yourself could negatively impact your instance

Review the Slow Queries log?

The Slow Queries log aggregates the data for similar queries. The platform records any SQL a statement where the total execution time exceeds five seconds. Not every slow query is a concern—you can expect to have a few. The slow queries that you need to be concerned with are the user-created tables, those that begin with “u_.” 1. Navigate to System Diagnostics > Stats > Slow Queries to see your Slow Queries log. The platform records any SQL statement that takes more than 100ms to complete. The Slow Queries log groups these transactions into similar patterns, providing you with an example set of parameters. 2. Type u_ in the Example text box. The slow query log records the slow queries’ patterns since the beginning of time (or since the last time sys_query_pattern was truncated). You may find the results more meaningful by applying a filter to show only patterns that were first sighted in the last month and that occurred more than 100 times. If you click through to an individual query pattern record, you’ll see an example URL where the query was generated, the first and last sighting, the number of executions, and the average execution time. The stack trace of the thread executing the query also displays. From here: 1. Cross-reference which element on the screen requested the information. 2. Once you know this, you can review the gauge or list that made the call and verify whether it would benefit from refactoring or supporting with an index. Many times, you can significantly reduce the execution time by simply adding active=1 to a query

Step 4 – Quarterly instance performance?

Running a quarterly review of your upgrade history can tell you a lot about your instance performance. KEY INSIGHT • Find you skipped, inserted, updated, or deleted records to find potential fixes. Once per quarter, check your instance for any configurations that could impact your upgrades—in other words, the changes or customizations made to out-of-the-box ServiceNow objects. 1. Navigate to System Diagnostics. 2. Select Upgrade History. 3. A table showing your upgrade history appears. Under the Upgrade started the column, look for the last upgrade and select it. 4. Within the upgrade record, check the Skipped Changes to Review tab to see what was skipped, updated, inserted or deleted. 5. Review the name of the table and the sys_id of the record to see exactly what was skipped and where it was skipped from. 6. Check the type of object that was skipped. If the upgrade skipped an out-of-the-box object, consider reverting that object so it is updated with every upgrade

Step 5 – Continually improve your instance?

Find out if low-response, form load, form submit, and module response times are keeping your instance is down. KEY INSIGHT • Find and fix issues with your end-to-end response time. All of the activities mentioned in this playbook so far definitely contribute to continual improvement. But you should complete the tasks in this stage if you’re experiencing: • Poor list response times • Poor form load and submit response times. 1. Navigate to your used forms and select Incident. 2. Select Create New 3. When the form opens, at the bottom right you will see the details of the end-to-end response time displayed by a colorful bar (see Figure 11), including: – Response time (ms) – The total time between clicking Create New and seeing the form load – Network – The total time spent over the wire – Server – The total time spent processing the request on the server – Browser – The total time spent rendering the form, including running the client-side script 4. Click any of the elements of the end-to-end response time to see its details. (See Figure 12.) Figure 14: An incident record showing end-to-end response time details 5. In the pop-up box, review how much time each section, script, field, etc., took to load. This information helps you identify any potential bad scripts or bottlenecks in your load times so you can address them. When you have slow form load times, the most common causes are: • Related/embedded lists – To fix this, either look for a bad query or filter or the number of rows you’re requesting. • A high number of AJAX calls – You may want to consolidate these into fewer round trips. • An inefficient client-side script – Avoid synchronous AJAX calls or DOM manipulation.

The takeaway

Find out which of these tasks—daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or continual—your instance requires. These simple steps will help you monitor and manage your performance, so you truly get the most you can from your ServiceNow instance. You’ll increase its upgradability, scalability, and performance—and you’ll reduce errors that can lead to unexpected results and data integrity issues.

What is a Glide System?

The GlideSystem (referred to by the variable name 'gs' in Business Rules) provides a number of convenient methods to get information about the system, the currently logged-in user, etc. It runs on Server Side and is used in Business Rules.

For example, the method adding message() permits communication with the user. gs.addInfoMessage('Email address added for notification');

Many of the Glide System methods facilitate the easy inclusion of dates in query ranges and are most often used in filters and reporting.

General functions
Date and Time functions
User Session functions

For more Details: http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=GlideSystem

What is Bussiness Rule?

Business Rule is server-side scripting that runs when a record is displayed, inserted, updated, or deleted, or when a client table is queried. There are also available options on ServiceNow platforms such as client scripts and UI actions you can use. To configure a Business rule first you need to determine when the business rule should run and what action it should take

What Criteria The Business Rule is based on?

1 Run on database option or when a record is being modified. The time the business rule should run are: Before: After the user submit the form BUT BEFORE any action is taken After: :After user submit the form AND AFTER any action is taken ASYNC: When the scheduler runs the rule. The rule is to put the scheduler's queue and after the user submits the form and after any action is taken in the database. Displayed: Before the for is presented to the user, just after the data is read from the database.

What are the database operations that the system takes on the record

Insert: When the user creates a new record and inserts it into the database. Update: When the user modified an existing record. Query: Before a query, a query for a record or list of records is sent to the database Delete: When the user deletes the record

What is GlideRecord?

GlideRecord in scripting is used to query the database.
gr. AddQuery adds a query to the dom.
// Example code below sends a Message that the CallerId and short description already exist.

gr(function executeRule(current, previous /*null when async*/) {
// Add your code here
var gr = new gliderecord('incident');
gr.addQuery('short_discription',current,short_description);
gr.addQuery('caller_id,current.caller_id');
gr.query();
if(gr.next())
{
current.setAbortAction(true);
gr.addErrorMessage('You cannot submit the incident as its already exist');
}

})(current, previous);

What is the difference UI Policy and Data policy?

UI POLICY

Run-on client side
Used for Mandatory, Readonly and Visibility
Related List - Visibility
Runs only on Form

DATA POLICY

Runs on Server
used for Mandatory, Readonly
Related List Visibility option is not there
Run from External Data Sources

What is blackout?

It is a period where changes cannot be made in the system. The period is blocked and people can take advantage of it by taking vacations.

The recommended amount of Record in update set is ?

The maximum amount is 100

In real life situation, what does the Project Manager do?

Contact the customer, discuss the project requirement, the cost involves, and processes to work on, and hand them to the process team.

What is the FRS doc?

It is the Functional Requirement used to plan, design using tools like workflow, incident as need by the customer requirement. Must be first approved by the customer before moving to the development.

What is the difference between Application and the module?

The Application is the parent of the Module.

What is base table?

Base table parent or core where another table can extend from it.

What is core table?

It is a System defined table, already in the serviceNow.

What is the Related table?

The related table is the Reference table example. Task table is parent and child tables can be incident, problem or change.

What is Table?

The table is the collection of field and columns

What is sys_Id?

sys_Id is an XML file that is uniquely identified from Ids, tables, etc.

How do you make other table takes properties of the parent.?

Check the extensible button

Where is thr System dictionary?

It's in the System definition. The table name is sys_dictionary. Contains all the tables and columns

What is dictionary override?

It is overriding the parent/child relationship as inheriting the parent form properties by the child.

What is a reference qualify?

It is used to filter to display only active users.

What is a Related list

It is the bottom section of the form that displays automaticlly.

What is the synchronous assycronous?

Synchronous code wait for code execution why Asynchronous does not block the execution.

It is a good practice to limit the code run on the client side than the server side True or False?

True

Ahat define a defines a condition? •

Field, Operator, or Value

The data saved to where?

• Table

Column is a field and a row is a What?

the row is a record

What steps will you take to load data from spreadsheet?

Load data, create transform map, transform

Coalescing on a field (or set of fields. means the field will be used as a unique key

True

Roles can contain other roles. When user is assigned to a role, he will inherit the contained roles as well

• True

It compares the uniqueness of data if not found, creates new record.

• Coalesce

9 What do you mean by SaaS?

Software as a Service

In which table user to group mapping is stored?

• sys_user_grmember

What is a Transform Map in ServiceNow?

A map to determine relationships between fields displaying in an Import Set to fields in an existing table

Which of the following is A steps in the Continual Service Improvement (CSI. model?

• What is the vision? • Did we get there? • Where are we now?

Which of the following is A N objective of Service Operation?

• To deliver and support IT services • To manage the technology used to deliver services • To monitor the performance of technology and processes

What is dictionary override?

It is used to override parent inheritance by the child to display the form

Which of the following is NOT one of the ITIL core publications? •

• Service Transition . Service Strategy • Service Design

Which of the following are the three main types of metrics as defined in Continual Service Improvement (CSI)? Which of the following are the three main types of metrics as defined in Continual Service Improvement (CSI)?

1. Process Metrics 2. Supplier Metrics 3. Service Metrics 4. Technology Metrics 5. Business Metrics Answer : 1, 3 and 4

The priority of an Incident refers to?

The relative importance of the Incident based on impact and urgency

Which are the missing Service Operation processes from the following?

Event management and Request Fulfillment

The BEST definition of an event is?

An occurrence that is significant for the management of the IT infrastructure or delivery of services

Technical Management IS responsible for?

• Maintenance of the technical infrastructure • Documenting and maintaining the technical skills required to manage and support the IT infrastructure • Diagnosis of, and recovery from, technical failures

The following options are considered within which process? 1. Big bang vs. Phased 2. Push and Pull 3. Automated vs. Manual

Release and Deployment Management

Setting policies and objectives is the primary concern of which of the following elements of the Service Lifecycle?

• Service Strategy

Which of the following BEST describes the purpose of Event Management?

The ability to detect events, make sense of them and determine the appropriate control action

If an organization can become more proactive in its ITSM processes, what is likely to happen to support costs?

They are likely to gradually reduce

Which of the following BEST describes a Local Service Desk structure?

A Service Desk that is situated in the same location as the users it serves

What is the role of the Emergency Change Advisory Board (ECAB)?

• To assist the Change Manager in evaluating emergency changes and to decide whether the change should be approved

What is the CORRECT order of the first four activities in the 7 Step Improvement Process?

• Define what you should measure, define what you can measure, gather data, and process data ----------- ANSWER • Gather data, process data, analyze data, and present data • What is the vision, where are we now, what do we want to be, how do we get there? • Gather data, process data, define what you should measure, and define what you can measure

At which stage of the service lifecycle should the processes necessary to operate a new service be defined?

• Service design: Design the processes

Which of the following is an objective of business relationship management?

• To ensure high levels of customer satisfaction

Which of the following BEST describes service strategies value to the business?

• Enabling the service provider to have a clear understanding of what levels of service will make their customers successful

Which two processes will contribute MOST to enabling effective problem detection?

• Incident and event management

Which process is responsible for managing relationships with vendors?

• Supplier management

What is the name of the group that should review changes that must be implemented faster than the normal change process?

• Emergency change advisory board

The BEST description of an incident is:

• An unplanned interruption to service or a reduction in the quality of service

Which one of the following is the CORRECT set of steps for the continual service improvement approach? •

• What is the vision? Where are we now?; Where do we want to be?; How do we get there?; Did we get there?; How do we keep the momentum going?

What body exists to support the authorization of changes and to assist change management in the assessment and prioritization of changes?

The change advisory board

What should a service always deliver to customers?

• Value

Which process is responsible for the availability, confidentiality and integrity of data?

• Information security management

Which user receives notification, meeting invites on behalf of another user

• Delegate

How do you edit/ create a workflow?

• Graphical Workflow Editor

How do you know which release version of Service Now you are working on?

• Go to System Diagnostics->Stats and check the Build name

How do you change the color of the instance?

• Using Navigation Menu under Content Management

When user creates a table "abc", how does ServiceNow name it?

u_abc

A transform map is a set of field maps that determine the relationships between fields in an import set and fields in an existing ServiceNow table?

True

How is the application Navigator (left nav) populated onload?

It is populated based on the role of the logged-in user

Moving an entry from Available to Selected slush bucket removes it from the form. ?

False

What table is used to store the SLAs definition?

• contract_sla

How will you approve a change request?

Right-click change record in approver tab and click approve

Applications and modules are loaded based on?

Roles

What is difference between Save & Insert action on form?

Save: saves the record & stays on form & Insert: creates a new record & redirects to list view.

How do you modify the field behavior?

• Right click> Configure > Dictionary

SLA, OLA and UC are configured in which module?

• SLM

In which table role to group mapping is stored?

sys_group_has_role

How will you define a workflow?

Define Workflow properties, Define Workflow activities, Publish it

If a notification has a template attached and the subject is filled out on the notification, then on the email getting fired, what will happen?

• Subject from the notification will be used.

What does the Out-Of-Box 'Insert and Stay' Context menu represents?

• It inserts a new record and stays on the new form • It inserts a new record and copies all the field values

Workflow versions captured in wf_workflow_version

• True

Does ESS have a role?

NO

Retroactive start when activated Sets start to equal when the ticket was created

TRUE

How are users related to roles or groups?

many to many relationships

What is Business Rules?

A business rule is a server-side script that runs when a record is displayed, inserted, updated, or deleted, or when a table is queried. Use business rules to accomplish tasks like automatically changing values in form fields when certain conditions are met, or to create events for email notifications and script actions.

Note: Business rules can make use of scripts to take actions on records in the database. However, there are several other scripting options available on the ServiceNow platform, such as client scripts and UI actions.

How Business Rule Work:

To configure business rules, you first need to determine when the business rule should run and what action it should take.

Which of the following is An ITIL core publications?

• Service Transition • Service Design

When Business Rules Run?

Business rules run based on two sets of criteria:

1) The time that the business rule is configured to run relative to a record being modified or accessed.

2) The database operation that the system takes on the record.

The following options are provided to determine the time the business rule should run:

BEFORE: After the user submits the form but before any action is taken on the record in the database.

AFTER: After the user submits the form and after any action is taken on the record in the database.

ASYNC: When the scheduler runs the rule. The rule is put into the scheduler's queue after the user submits the form and after any action is taken on the record in the database

Display: Before the form is presented to the user, just after the data is read from the database.

What Business Rules Takes?

The following options are provided to determine the database operation that the system takes on the record: insert: When the user creates a new record and the system inserts it into the database update: When the user modifies an existing record. Query: Before a query for a record or list of records is sent to the database. Typically you should use a query for before business rules. Delete: When the user deletes a record.

What is Client Script?

Client scripts are shipped to the client (the browser) and run there instead of on the server. Users who know JavaScript can define scripts to run in the client browser. Several types of scripts are supported. onLoad(): Runs when a form is loaded. onChange(): Runs when a particular widget changes value. submit(): Runs when a form is submitted. Note: Best practice for performance reasons is to limit the amount of code sent to the client. You should always be aware of the impact on the client when adding client scripts. onCellEdit(): Runs when a cell on a list changes value.

Client Script Types

) onLoad() Scripts An onLoad() script runs when a form is first drawn and before control is given to the user to begin typing. Typically, you use an onLoad() script to perform some client-side manipulation of the document on screen. An onLoad() script must contain a function named onLoad(). Otherwise, it is entirely up to you what your script does after it gets to the client. For example, here is a trivial onLoad() script that displays a message box that says "Loading ..." while the page loads. function onLoad() { alert('Loading ...'); }

Client Script Types Continue?

2) onSubmit() Scripts An onSubmit() script runs when a form is submitted. Typically, you use an onSubmit() script to validate things on the form and ensure that the submission makes sense. As such, onSubmit() scripts can potentially cancel a submission by returning false. An onSubmit() script must contain a function named onSubmit(). For example, here is an onSubmit() script that prompts the user to confirm that a priority one ticket should really be submitted. If the user clicks Cancel in the confirmation dialog box, the submission is canceled. function onSubmit() { var priority = g_form.getValue('priority'); if (priority == 1) return confirm('Are you sure you want to submit a priority one ticket? The CIO will be notified!');} }

Client Script Types-onChange

3) onChange() Scripts Unlike onLoad() and onSubmit() scripts, onChange() scripts apply to a particular widget on a form rather than to the form itself. They are fired when a particular value changes on-screen. An onChange() script must contain a function named onChange(). For example, here is an onChange() script that notifies the user whenever the short description field on a form changes. 4) onCellEdit() Scripts Scripts can be defined as onCellEdit to run on the client side when the list editor interacts with a cell. This option is available starting with the Aspen release. An onCellEdit() script must contain a function named onCellEdit(). function onChange(control, oldValue, newValue, isLoading) { alert('you changed short description from ' + oldValue + ' to ' + newValue); } To prevent an onChange() script from running when the form loads, add the following to the top of the script. if (isLoading) { return; }

Script Includes?

Store JavaScript for execution on the server Each script include defines either an object class or a function Must be called to run Reusable (Write Once Use Many) Only loaded on Request Can be Client callable Note: Global Business Rules also allow the creation of reusable JavaScript. They can impact performance because they are loaded on every interaction between a user and the platform. Script Includes load only on demand and does not impact performance. To access script includes, navigate to System Definitions > Script Includes. Script includes have a name, description, and script. They also specify whether they are active or not and whether they can be called from a Client Script.

UI Policies

UI policies offer an alternative to client scripts for dynamically changing information on a form. Administrators and users with the Personalize Rules [personalize_rules] or the UI policy administrator [ui_policy_admin] role can use UI policies to define custom process flows for tasks. UI Policy Actions: Below 3 actions can be defined with the help of UI Policy which runs on a specific set of conditions: Mandatory ReadOnly Visible

What is Access Control Lists?

Security Rules are defined and set at the Row Level (access to the record) and at the Column Level (access to the field) and is executed when attempting to access any ServiceNow table to perform CRUD (create, read, update and delete) operations. Admins are exempt from the Access Controls when the Admin overrides checkbox is checked. Note: By default, the system provides ACL rules to restrict access to all database and configuration operations. ACL rules can be defined in three ways: Conditional Expressions Scripts Roles After finding a matching ACL rule, the system evaluates if the user has the permissions required to access the object and operation. If a user meets the ACL rule permissions, the instance grants the user access to the listed operation on the object. If a user does not meet the ACL rule permissions of the first matching rule, the system evaluates the next matching ACL rule. If the user fails to meet the ACL rule permissions of any matching ACL rule, the system denies the user access to the operation on the object.

Review: Tables Rows and Fields

‘Table. None’ applies to the whole table including records. (Green Color) ‘table. the field’ applies to only one field on a record. (Red Color) ‘table.*’ applies to every field on a record without a table.field rule (Purple Color)

Search Order for a Field Level Rule?

Explicit rule on self (i.e. incident. number) Explicit rule on the field in the parent (i.e. task. number) … until parent doesn’t contain a field (i.e. *.number) Wildcard on self (i.e. incident.*) Wildcard rule on the field in the parent (i.e. *.task) … until parent doesn’t contain a field (i.e. *.*)

Some Examples Tips

If you define a READ ACL with Table.None for Admin & ITIL Result: Both Admin and ITIL will be able to view all records because they have access to all records with no field restrictions. If you define a READ ACL with Table.None for Admin & ITIL & Table.* for Admin Result: Only Admin will have read access because Table.* is an explicit rule at the field level that grants only Admin read access to all fields. If you define a READ ACL with Table.None for Admin & Table.* for ITIL Result: ITIL will not be able to view any records because they only have access at the field level and not at the Record/Row level

Case Study for * vs. None

To grant read access to fields 1-10 for Admin and only Fields 1-9 for ITIL: Table.None read Access Control granted to Admin and ITIL Table.Field10 read Access Control granted to only Admin To grant read access to fields 1-10 for Admin and only Fields 9-10 for ITIL: Table.None read Access Control granted to Admin and ITIL Table.* read Access Control granted to only Admin Table.Field9 read Access Control granted to only ITIL Table.Field10 read Access Control granted to only ITIL

What is a Service Request Management (SRM)?

Service Request Management provides an intuitive interface with pre-defined workflows for IT requests to be reliably submitted, routed, approved, monitored, and delivered with minimum human interference. Benefits of SRM Implementation Provides a catalog of services to all IT users. User-friendly interface for requesting and tracking requests. Capability to pre-configure system-driven approvals. Automated routing of requests to the support teams and elimination of wrong prioritization and categorization by support teams. Reduction in cycle time for SR completion.

Types of Service Requests?

Simple Service Request Request that has a simple workflow. Usually have one task to a single team associated. May or may not require approval workflow. Example: Request for increase in mailbox size.

Complex Service Requests Have multiple independent workflows, one of which will get triggered based on the input selections. Can have multiple tasks, usually to different teams. They usually have built-in approvals. Example: Sales laptops and executive laptops may have different approval workflows which will depend on selections made.

Composite Service Request The logical combination of multiple simple or complex SRs. Usually works like a container, without independent approval and fulfillment workflow. Completion is dependent on the completion of each individual child SR. Example: New Hire request. This will generate requests for account creation, mailbox creation, laptop assignation, visiting card printing, etc.

Three Separate Records of service request?

Service Request: Shopping Cart of one or more items ordered by Requester.
Request Item: An individual deliverable entity in your Shopping Cart. A requester can request multiple items under one request
Request Task: Action(s) needed to fulfill the Requested Item.

What is an incident?

Incident: Incident is an unplanned interruption. When the operational status of any activity turns from working to failed and causes the system to behave in an unplanned manner.

RESOLUTIONS: Incident Repository: We can have Incident Repository defines in the database that contains all the important and relevant data about all incidents occurring in the system.
This information was subsequently used to create the incident report. It contains fields such as data, expected results, actual results, date and time, the status of the incident, etc.
Severity: The potential impact of the incident will decide its severity. This can be Major, Minor, Fatal, or Critical for immediate resolution.
Priority: Set according to severity and influence on the working status of the system. Values can be High, Medium, Low, Very High, or Urgent/Immediate.
Incident Status: The current state where handling the incident is. This can be New, In Progress, Resolved, and Closed.

What is Incident Management?

Incident management is a process for logging, recording, and resolving incidents as quickly as possible to restore business processes or services back to normal.

Recommended Incident Management Tools: Software incident tracking and management as such SaleForce, serviceNow, Jira, Sit etc
#1) Incident Identification and Logging: Incident Identification is either done via testing (using tools or otherwise), user feedback, infrastructure monitoring, etc.
Exact/Appropriate date and time of occurrence. Incident title along with the type and a brief description. Name of the person who logged the incident and a more detailed description. with an error code when applicable. Details of the person assigned to the incident for follow-up. Current Status of the incident Attachments include technical discussions, decisions, and approvals.
#2) Classification and Prioritization: Classification of incidents helps us partition them based on their type (software, hardware, service request, etc.) so it makes for easier reporting and analysis. Prioritisation helps to identify the order/priority of incidents to be handled. It depends on the impact, severity, and most importantly the Risk Factor.
#3) Investigation and Analysis: This step is to better understand the problem so we not only fix it right now but gather information to prevent it from re-occurrence.
#4) Resolution and Recovery: Steps are taken to remove the incident and bring the system back to its previous working condition.
#5) Incident Closure: The resolution is retested and in case the system is working as intended, the incident is closed.

How do you prevent Incident from not happening again?

1) Before the incident:Monitoring trackling, alerting on call, use of servicedesk support, 2) During the Incident: Push Notification for feedback, apply business rules, Team communications, customer communication, post-motem, use of software 3) After the incident: monitoring and trackling

How do you fix bugs in Production?

1) understand the situation 2) In form the stakeholder, project team. 3) Investigate for root cause through, feedback, testcases to find the risk and impact of the situation. Assign to developers base on business rule of excarations it base on Priority, Severity, low, High, Patch(scheduled to fix to avoid downtime, HotFix (immedate fix 0 or minimal downtime), coldFix( live fix and end user would be inform planned downtime to fix the problem.

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