TechNow Ep 85 | Create apps fast with App Engine Studio

[Chuck Tomasi]

Check out one of the hottest new features in the Now Platform®! Join product manager Valerie Myers Christensen as she explains and demonstrates the features in App Engine Studio (AES). You'll learn how low-coders and experienced developers can create apps faster than ever before with a beautiful user interface.

Originally aired: March 23, 2021 8:00 AM PT

• 00:00 Introductions
• 04:17 Break Point podcast
• 05:40 Poll question #1
• 06:20 Introduction to App Engine Studio (slides)
• 16:30 Poll question #2 w/Q&A
• 19:19 AES Demo - Overview
• 21:35 Creating app - data
• 26:10 Experiences & UI Builder
• 28:59 Automation
• 29:54 Creating an app from an app template
• 33:52 Governance
• 35:07 Mobile
• 37:10 Poll question #3
• 37:22 Q&A
• 40:05 Takeaways
• 40:49 Outro & events

Links Mentioned

• Docs: App Engine Studio (Quebec)

Featured Experts

Valerie Myers Christensen (Val) is a Product Manager with the DevX team at ServiceNow focused specifically on the Citizen Developer experience on our platform. She’s been at ServiceNow for 3 years and prior to that worked in fintech and had her own companies. She spends most of her free time chasing after her 1 and 3 year old, and cannot wait to explore the world with them.

Chuck Tomasi is a Sr. Developer Advocate 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".

Kreg Steppe is a Sr Staff Enterprise-wide Apps/Sys Developer within ServiceNow Training and Certification 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.

Jeremy Duncan is a Platform Architect on the Workflow Design Studio team at ServiceNow. Jeremy is an Enterprise Architect with over 16 years of IT and Service Management experience. His experience and certifications span across retail and manufacturing with focuses on hardware, software, and information security specialties and is a ServiceNow Certified Master Architect. He has done many implementations in both the Enterprise Federal and Commercial spaces since 2011 and brings a breadth of platform knowledge that aids him in sound architectural decisions. He achieved his B.B.A. at MTSU and majored in Information Systems. He spends his free time fighting crime as a volunteer certified police officer in North Nashville since 2012 and enjoys family time, camping, with his wife and kids!

LIST ALL EPISODES

Questions and Answers

What if the Citizen developer does a bad job and IT wants to fix the app or have them fix the app after submissions? A table should or should not have been extended and now we need to do that for instance?

-- Lillith Avalon

Hey Lillith, you can manage the application via DEV Studio or AES to help resolve the issues that arise during build.

-- Jeremy Duncan

Any pitfalls you can share?

-- prashanthi kuchikulla

Can you elaborate on your question in the comments below?

-- Chuck Tomasi

what's the name of the module in personal developer instance? You said it's in Quebec?

-- Rita Audi

App Engine Studio

-- Chris Haas

Who owns the IP for a developed app when using your platform?

-- Todd Ingersoll

Customers own their own IP.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Makes you appreciate when presentations go smoothly ;)

-- Mike Cook

Absolutely Mike!

-- Jeremy Duncan

Can you split a spreadsheet into multiple tables, turning string data into reference tables?

-- Howard Baker

You can upload a spreadsheet with multiple worksheets which will enable you to create multiple tables. Once the upload/creation process is complete, you can use Table Builder to set the references.

-- Chris Haas

My personal DEV environment went offline for about a week. do you typically issue notifications before doing maintenance on these personal DEV instances?

-- Seifallah Ayachi

I'm not 100% positive, but I thought we did. If you checked your spam/junk folder and didn't see anything, I'd say that's pretty conclusive. If you would like to see that added, send an email to developerevents@servicenow.com so we can get it on our backl

-- Chuck Tomasi

Also, can you limit the types of tables users can created in AES, such as limiting users from extending task tables, or other tables that require user licenses?

-- Jon Serious

Not at this time. You'll be able to catch this in the review process and in the next release, write your own validation logic to alert you when an app meets this criteria

-- Chris Haas

How do we install the app engine for our PDIs?

-- Prince Evans-Kwakye

Hi Prince Evans-Kwayke, check out https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/quebec-application-development/page/build/app-engine-studio/concept/aes-overview.html to get started.

-- Jeremy Duncan

Are the Apps VM's only? Can you develop containers to run on Kubernates platforms?

-- john zupet

The apps are run on our platform so they take advantage of a common toolset. Your instance is a VM, but its a dedicated instance to each customer, not shared. Hope that answers the question. In short, as an app developer, you don't really need to care abo

-- Chuck Tomasi

How do you avoid chaos? How much SN admin (team) effort is needed to keep things manageable? How to seize that effort?

-- jp dull

Hey JP, much like building in DEV Studio, there are things to consider when enabling your citizen developers, but the management of this shouldn't require an increase beyond what you may be currently experiencing with building in Studio (pre-Quebec). Whil

-- Jeremy Duncan

will a pro SN developer run into limitations using AES or can we dig down through the "helper" stuff in order to access the full power of the platform? and can we open an app started in AES in Studio?

-- Eric Riemer

There are some deeper things in AES (like UI Builder) that you can use. In some cases in the current (March 21) release, you'll still need to either go to Dev Studio or the UI16 interface to access some of the deeper features. Ex: Business rules are not i

-- Chuck Tomasi

How can we change the ServiceNow logo on the portal experience to a companies logo ?

-- kalyan Vallamsetla

If you're building a portal using the Portal Configuration builder "as you have in the past" you would configure the same way. Regarding doing this from the context of UIB: Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q49eFE_xL4s

-- Jeremy Duncan

Is there a way to “convert” an existing application to a “AES” app ? Why are my existing app not in AES?

-- Christopher Crefcoeur

Answered live, thank you!

-- Jeremy Duncan

can we disable options in app engine studio, i.e. stop them creating a table which has license/cost implications

-- leon reynolds

You can use delegated development permissions to limit what users can create (Flows, Mobile Apps, Tables, etc.).

-- Chris Haas

Do you have a white paper on governance?

-- Ralph Pisaturo

We will be publishing content like this in the customer success center. https://servicenow.com/success

-- Chuck Tomasi

Will Knowledge 2021 be virtual like last year?

-- Dawn Corban

yes

-- Valerie Christensen

Does the out-of-box AES pipeline create deployment approval requests on the dev instance (where the app is being developed)?

-- Nia McCash

The deployment request records will be created on the Production environment as defined in your pipeline

-- Chris Haas

what should a citizen developer know before given access to build apps? What should be included or considered for onboarding a citizen developer?

-- prashanthi kuchikulla

There is a learning path out on NowLearning that i'd suggest: https://nowlearning.service-now.com/lxp?id=overview&sys_id=5efaec91db4ed81073f4bc04b9961985&type=path

-- Jeremy Duncan

How would translation be handled?

-- Robroy Fawcett

Translation is handled in the same way as the rest of the platform. Four tables for field labels, buttons, informational messages, etc.

-- Chuck Tomasi

How is the ability to build apps secured / granted? How do we ensure that the citizen builder secures / grants rights appropriately?

-- Lillith Avalon

You can enable users to access AES with the new aes user role. This gives them access into AES but nothing else. Once they create an app, they are automatically made a delegated developer on that app and can only build within the bounds of their scope.

-- Chris Haas

can you use an actual database as the data source, or does it convert the spreadsheet to a database?

-- Leon Levy

The spreadsheet was brought in to a temp table and then mapped to the target table. You CAN use a data source by connecting via IntegrationHub in Flow Designer.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can you limit which users are allowed to create tables in AES?

-- Jon Serious

Hey Jon, yes, that's a part of the configuration. I'd encourage you to walk through the Guided Setup which will explain all the access around creating apps.

-- Jeremy Duncan

Is this feature available in the free developer instance from Service now?

-- Sabina Verghese

Yes, you can experiment with AES on your personal developer instance (free from https://developer.servicenow.com)

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can we add our OWN Templates to AES?

-- Dirk Redeker

Answered live, thank you!

-- Jeremy Duncan

How about data from a Data Warehouse, perhaps something that would also be used within a Business Intelligence, another Citizen Developer type context?

-- Jeremy Schinzel

You can leverage Flow Designer and IntegrationHub to get data from a third party source. You need to create the target table first.

-- Chuck Tomasi

are object templates available outside AES?

-- Eric Riemer

Not at this time. In a future release, each builder, like UI Builder or Flow Designer, will enable you to create experiences or flows using object templates. But for now, they are only available through AES.

-- Chris Haas

I understand app eng requires a separate subscription. But is UI Builder a platform feature?

-- Jerry Huang

Indeed it is!

-- Chris Haas

Do we expect a citizen developer build a new application directly into the production or she should follow a SDLC path or pipeline?

-- Jerry Huang

They would follow the SDLC pipeline. In fact, you can help automate the checking/testing (i.e. ATF) with the promotion cycle.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Is there a wizard we can use to convert Business Rules, Schedules, workflows into templates ?

-- Rodrigo Donnangelo

Not at this point, the legacy technologies like classic workflow are completely different architectures and as hard as we tried, there just wasn't a good migration path.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Are the forms dynamic for pc and mobile interfaces

-- Stephen Thompson

Workspace is designed for desktop only at this point. For mobile, we recommend creating the mobile experience

-- Chuck Tomasi

Any features that would allow permissions control between developers? Meaning one group of developers cannot see another group's apps...

-- Dmitry Bogorodovsky

Absolutely! All existing platform functionality via delegated development. This is what "fences off" developers and their applications.

-- Chris Haas

Are there any plans for training info for users that may not be SN Sys Admin?

-- Bill Largin

Yes, there are learning modules on developer.servicenow.com focused on the Citizen Developer on App Engine Studio.

-- Valerie Christensen

Quebec comes with Catalog Builder. The Catalog item experience in the App Eng studio looks similar although it does not seem to need a template required in the Catalog Builder.

-- Jerry Huang

That aligns with my findings also. There are subtle differences, but generally they are the same. Catalog builder is meant for people who generally only want to build catalog items (ideally from templates). AES is more of a "full app" development which includes catalog items. To limit AES to just templates would be a bit limiting.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Do you have any prepared apps we can "play with" that were prepared with the latest App Engine?

-- Todd Ingersoll

No installed apps but you can just fire up an app using one of the 5 app templates and play around

-- Chris Haas

Can we re-watch this

-- Betina Echols

yes - https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=4d6eaeaddbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961964

-- Jeremy Duncan

is there a cost involved with app engine?

-- Rita Audi

Yes. App Engine licenses are separate (similar to ITSM, CSM, etc.) Work with your account team to understand the impact.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Is App engine part of the regular platform or a separate license

-- Kulasekhar Subramaniam,

Hopefully the live answer helped with this one!

-- Jeremy Duncan

For context, is AES/Now Platform somewhat similar to SalesForce's proprietary app dev stack?

-- Todd Ingersoll

AES is meant to be a guided, click/configure (scriptless) environment to enable anyone to get an app built quickly. Our differentiator from Salesforce is that we're all one platform so you can go from low-code to pro-code all on the same environment. Citi

-- Chuck Tomasi

I have to goto a different with ServiceNow groups. Is this session being recorded?

-- Richard Cruz

Yes, this session is being recorded. I'll have it posted to the ServiceNow Community Channel on YouTube in a few days.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Apps created using App Engine Studio are considered as scoped Apps ?

-- Pinakapani Nedunuri

Yes

-- Chuck Tomasi

Are there any upgrade considerations if there are App Eng applications on an instance?

-- Ralph Pisaturo

No additional upgrade considerations than what you're used to today. AES simply enables you to build scoped apps, nothing special about them compared to the apps you create today with Guided App Creator or Dev Studio.

-- Chris Haas

Do startups or independent consultants have access to this tool?

-- Carlos Roman

you can grab an instance at developer.servicenow.com to get your own Personal Developer Instance which will give you access to all of these tools to try out. To get info about becoming a customer or tech partner, please reach out to us here: https://www.s

-- Jeremy Duncan

does creating a new app create new tables in ServiceNow? Is this covered in licensing or is this an additional charge?

-- Julio Chacon

App Engine Studio is licensed with App Engine licenses. If you have questions about licensing, please work with your account team to understand cost impacts and licensing. Thanks.

-- Chuck Tomasi

What should we expect from a 'support to citizen developers' point of view (how much effort)?

-- jp dull

We recommend you look at setting up a Center of Excellence (COE). This would be the governance to the pipeline of requests to determine cost/value. Some customers have found that an "open office hours" is also useful". Admins would obviously be required t

-- Chuck Tomasi

Did you mention Now Learning will have learning modules on App Engine?

-- Jason Alstead

There are learning modules on developer.servicenow.com on AppEngine Studio!

-- Valerie Christensen

Can App Eng applications be integrated with other applications outside of ServiceNow?

-- Ralph Pisaturo

Yes, the common way would be with IntegrationHub spokes/actions exposed through Flow Designer

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can the application have an Admin section accessible to users with a specific role?

-- Valerie Harris

You can create different workspaces for different roles/personas. Same security/roles as the rest of the platform.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can you show how you would call an API to pull data into your table?

-- Greg Halper

3rd party integrations and data imports can be done through IntegrationHub, not currently integrated into AES. In the next couple releases, this will be integrated into the table creation step(s).

-- Chris Haas

how can we create a choice value for a column. Also should we switch to advance view for further configuration on the dictionary like reference qualifiers and attributes

-- Muthu Ramachandran

If you select Choice as the column type, you can then expand and define the choices themselves. For more advanced settings, you'll need to jump into the advanced view. We'll be beefing up the functionality offered in Table Builder over the next couple rel

-- Chris Haas

Can you show us how to create a mobile app experience?

-- Roberto Melo

Answered live, also, once created you'd head over to Mobile Studio (DEV Studio) to modify and adjust applets/launchers accordingly.

-- Jeremy Duncan

do you need to activate plugin for app engine on developer instance?

-- Rita Audi

Answered live, thank you.

-- Jeremy Duncan

You can still install and play with plugins in DEV correct?

-- Russell Park

Hi Russell, yes, you can install in sub-prod. I always recommend, if possible, either a sandbox instance within your DEV stack or a PDI for trying out new things.

-- Jeremy Duncan

What about securing / limiting access to applications developed on this tool? What if we only want people inside our organization or people to access it or only people in a specific department?

-- Lillith Avalon

You can do all that! All standard security principles apply here. You can create specific roles and groups for your apps and provision users with those roles and/or groups.

-- Chris Haas

Is every app a scoped app or will it impact global fields?

-- prashanthi kuchikulla

Yes, the applications are scoped. However, you will still be able to extend as you would have before.

-- Jeremy Duncan

I forget the setting, but how can we allow other applications to read data in the application's table?

-- Valerie Harris

It's called Application Access on each table.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Documentation and console tools to administrate App Engine Studio?

-- Douglas Hanna

You can find the docs on our docs site. https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/quebec-application-development/page/build/app-engine-studio/concept/aes-overview.html

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can the application portal be accessible to public Users?

-- Valerie Harris

Sure can, just like classic Service Portal

-- Chris Haas

Will "Guided App Creator" disappear from ServiceNow in the long run? Or will both "AES" AND "Guided App Creator" will be supported in the future?

-- Dirk Redeker

Guided app creator will be available as a part of "DEV" Studio, but you will start to see less "experiences" you can build from it. Workspace is dropped from the Guided App Creator, and has been converted to "Workspace" experience via AES.

-- Jeremy Duncan

what does the spreadsheet look like?

-- Leon Levy

I asked her to show the original spreadsheet, but she opted to show the data once it was in ServiceNow. It's pretty much the same.

-- Chuck Tomasi