TechNow Ep 57 | Build Your First App with ServiceNow

[Chuck Tomasi]

In this session we start you out with the basics and explore some of the no-code capabiliites of the Now Platform to help transform legacy spreadsheet processes in to valuable applications. The great part for experienced admins and developers is that you can delegate this work to your line of business process owners and other "builders".

Quick tip: What you can learn by hovering over links

Originally aired: October 23, 2018 8:00 AM PT

Featured Experts

Stacey Bailey is a Principal Curriculum Developer for ServiceNow with over 20 years of IT experience in various roles. Since 2009 she has been working with the ServiceNow platform customer, partner, and employee. She has earned numerous awards in her career including: ITSM MVP 2017, InfoWorld Top 100 Award, DCI Portal Excellence Award, Financial Times Award for Excellence in E-Learning. Stacey proudly refers to herself a s a "gadget girl". In her spare time she likes trying new gadgets, learning new forms of art, playing in the makerspace, collecting new / unique skills, listening to audio-books, trying new life experiences, and hosting parties to build communities.

Kreg Steppe is a Senior Curriculum Developer within ServiceNow developing and supporting cloud training infrastructure. He specializes in developing integration solutions, automating repeatable processes and Cloud Management in ITOM. Kreg's prior experience includes operating his own ISP, developing web applications in PHP, network integration, managing network support, Application Development on cloud based networks, DNS and email server maintenance. He is a Linux enthusiast and enjoys Photography.

Chuck Tomasi is a Sr. TPMM for ServiceNow. He is a computer science major with over 35 years of IT experience. As a former ServiceNow customer, Chuck won the first Innovation of the Year Award at Knowledge 10. Since joining ServiceNow in 2010 as a Technical Consultant, he has done many large scale ITSM implementations and custom applications, acted as an adjunct instructor for Education Services, created and lead the Technical Best Practices program, makes appearances on Live Coding Happy Hour, created dozens of fit for purpose custom applications, and co-hosts the ServiceNow series "TechNow".

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LIST ALL EPISODES

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Live Q&A Questions during the webinar:

Is there a way to get the tools in advance before the presentation ? -- Hector Laguna
You can get a free personal developer instance any time at developer.servicenow.com. The entire safety app build process is available as three lab guides there as well. -- Chuck Tomasi

I kept getting called away to put out "fires" and missed most of the presentation. Will copies be sent to attendees? -- Martino Henderson
It will be in the Community afterwards. Here are a list of all the TechNow Episodes. Today will be up later this week. https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=4d6eaeaddbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961964&view_source=searchResult -- Kreg Steppe

will she have access to edit the form? any roles needed :)? -- rey castillo
We will answer this. 🙂 -- Kreg Steppe

How to add app/form to Service Portal? -- Steven Gille
My recommendation is to create a record producer to allow users to easily submit new safety issues and add that in Service Portal. All this is covered in part 3 of the lab guide. -- Chuck Tomasi

is the shift key work for mac -- MOHAMMED KEMAL
Yes -- Kreg Steppe

can we import the data from Stacey's spreadsheet -- Ed Gabiana
Doing it now. -- Kreg Steppe

In every "build your own app" conversation. yes it's part of the platform, but what is not said is that each person that uses this application requires an application runtime license which costs $35 per month per user if done inside of a production instance. -- Steven Young
Licensing discussions should be handled with your account team. There are other options to the price you mentioned. We are always looking at ways of improving this. -- Chuck Tomasi

i know this might be too early for this question, but I would like reference materials for this presentation going forward for practice and reference . Will that be provided and if so, how can I access? thank you -- John Luzio
https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=4d6eaeaddbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961964&view_source=searchResult lists all of the past episodes of TechNow for ongoing reference. -- Stacey Bailey

we need to purchase a specific module to create the applications? I would like to stay in compliance -- Alejandro Delgado
Creating applications requires no additional licensing or modules. -- Chuck Tomasi

Thank You for the Review of the Basics in studio 🙂 -- rey castillo
You are welcome -- Chuck Tomasi

Where can I get that chart? -- Michael White
In a few days, this recording and the associated slides will be posted in the community at https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=4d6eaeaddbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961964&view_source=searchResult -- Stacey Bailey

Can SN import existing BPMN? -- Samuel Judd
Not OOB at this time. There may be third party integrations available, but I am not aware of them right now. -- Chuck Tomasi

Great presentation, can't wait to show it to management! WTB: Stacey's Question Set Up Service... -- Keith Gagne
Thank you -- Chuck Tomasi

I do not have ServiceNow Studio -- Hector Laguna
It's available beginning in Geneva release and comes with the platform. Look under the application menu "System Applications". -- Chuck Tomasi

Is Flow Designer also called "Workflow"? -- Jason Kron
No, they are two separate applications. Flow Designer is the successor of WorkFlow, but workflow isn't going away. -- Kreg Steppe

there is something like this to create something in service portal?, widgets, buttons, interactions, etc., to interact with this applications? -- Alejandro Delgado
Service Portal uses the service portal designer to display data and other elements from the platform. You can easily add a widget to bring up the Safety Issue record producer, for example. -- Chuck Tomasi

What kind of licensing model for custom apps -- Arulprasanth Subramaniyan
You can make custom apps all you want, it is part of the platform. -- Kreg Steppe

How does creating an app afect licensing in teh system? -- Dirk Tromp
It does not affect licensing. -- Kreg Steppe

I'm not sure where 'community' is to obtain a recording of this training. Can you email the recording to us? -- Theresa Gillingham
It is all here. https://community.servicenow.com -- Stacey Bailey

My agency is on Jakarta. Where can we do this on that platform? -- Enas Qutob
You can do most of this on the platform in Jakarta, but Flow Designer was released in Kingston. You will need to upgrade to Kingston or London to be able to take advantage of all the elements Chuck shared. Check docs.servicenow.com to see which elements are available on Jakarta and request your own personal developer instance using London on developer.servicenow.com. -- Stacey Bailey

we can create new roles for the applications without new licensing costs? -- Alejandro Delgado
You can create roles. The cost of using the application in production should be discussed with your account team as anything published here could easily be taken out of context and may not be applicable to future releases and license agreements. -- Chuck Tomasi

Is application building an additional (at cost) module or is it available to all ServiceNow subscription levels? -- Brian Varian
There is no additional cost to develop applications. Getting applications in to product may involve a cost depending on what is being developed. I recommend having a discussion with your account team to understand the costs involved. -- Chuck Tomasi

On the import, how did the system know what fields to insert the fields into when we uploaded the excel file -- Angela Ross
When you start to do the import, there is a button for create excel template and it will have the column names. You just put your date in the right columns and use that new spreadsheet to import. Instructions are in the downloaded template. -- Kreg Steppe

Are there any pitfalls when upgrading to a newer instance? -- Gregory Frahn
Generally no unless you do a lot of customization (scripting). Even then, if you observe technical best practices (published on the developer portal) you can ace your upgrades. -- Chuck Tomasi

Is Flow Designer available as part of the base platform or is there a Cost to add it? -- Patricia Nichols
Flow Designer is included as part of the platform. You can further expand Flow Desginer with IntegrationHub and that is a separate subscription. -- Kreg Steppe

Can the approval be from a non-ITIL user? -- Eric Miller
Yes -- Chuck Tomasi

What are some of the key differences between creating an application and creating a service catalog item? It seems like sometimes either one can be used to implement some process or functionality. How do you know which approach (application or service catalog item) would be best? -- James Mindrup
Excellent question and there is overlap between them. A catalog item uses the "cart" philosophy of 1 or more items in the request (cart) and can be managed as part of that. If your process is a bit more complex and requires bespoke process flow with distinct security requirements, then I recommend creating an application. -- Chuck Tomasi

How do you address "non-IT" developed apps remaining compatible with future ServiceNow releases? -- Steve Watson
IT still maintains governance over what is released in to production. I strongly recommend they review all development before deployment. Most non-IT employees will not be writing scripts which carries the biggest risk of upgrade issues, so the risk is mitigated among non-IT. -- Chuck Tomasi

Can we create trend historical data reports based on this custom table? Example a manager wants to see how many tickets were placed on hold last month. -- Ricardo Rivera
Yes. Performance Analytics is available to use on custom applications. -- Chuck Tomasi

What module is controls the developer permissions? -- Chris Towles
It's part of Studio under File> Manage Developers. The feature is called Delegated Development. -- Chuck Tomasi

Can you relate the Location field to a Location table? -- Steven Roberts
It is already set up that way out of the box. -- Kreg Steppe

We would like to thank you for not playing Safety Dance. 😄 -- Shawn Horley
You're welcome, although I suspect some people may have it in their head just from the mention. -- Chuck Tomasi

Remember not everyone can use a mouse. Info and actions need to be accessible for pure keyboard users. -- Cathy Archambeault
Absolutely. Thanks for mentioning this, Cathy. Here is a link to information that outlines ServiceNow's accessibility and compliance capabilities. https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/london-release-notes/page/administer/accessibility-508-compliance/reference/r_Accessibility508Compliance.html -- Stacey Bailey

can you show that Shift key trick again -- Denise Page
Sorry, I moved along. Just hold the shift key down when you click on the Info Icon -- Kreg Steppe

How does the upgrade process (say from Kingston to London), handle the new custom field "category" on the task table? -- Matthew Fleming
It's not an issue. The system was built with things like this in mind. The upgrade is completely OK upgrading with custom apps on top of it. -- Chuck Tomasi

Where does the user find the application after we create it? -- Brian Varian
It depends on what you called it. The modules would show in the Navigation Bar. -- Kreg Steppe

is there any way to setup an application to call graph api? -- Di Wu
I would have to know more about what you are trying to do. We do offer in-platform reporting and analytics. -- Chuck Tomasi

How did you get the color code on the priority column? -- Eric Miller
That is a field style that's defined for the priority column in the base instance configuration. To take a look at it, right-click on a column header and select Configure > All. -- Stacey Bailey

Is there additional cost to creating a custom application in Production? Do the participating users require an ITIL license ($$). Any additional costs? -- Keith Gagne
Developing the app requires no additional cost. Deploying it to product may incur a cost - please discuss with your account team to understand what that might involve. -- Chuck Tomasi

studio is awesome 🙂 -- rey castillo
Agreed! -- Kreg Steppe

is a platform runtime lic required for the safety app example? OR if Stacey already has access as itil is she ok? -- Marc Clasby
Developing the app requires no additional cost. Deploying it to product may incur a cost - please discuss with your account team to understand what that might involve. -- Chuck Tomasi

How the delegation affects licensing? -- Alberto Bigio
Delegated development (and any development for that matter) does not currently require additional licensing. -- Chuck Tomasi

If an application was built and NOT extended from the TASK table, is there an effective way to make that happen without rebuilding the App? -- Kevin Thury
You cannot make a table extened from another after the it is created. -- Kreg Steppe

what kind of licenses or subscriptions do we need to have for development of these custom applications? -- Sridhar Rao Patibandla
None. Part of the platform -- Kreg Steppe