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ServiceNow Overview

1. ServiceNow Basics

Before understanding the ServiceNow platform, first of all, we need to understand why exactly ServiceNow is being used. So that's what I call the basics of ServiceNow. For this, let's take an example—a real-time example. We'll be talking about a situation wherein there is a company that is providing certain services called networking services, like phone network services, and there is a customer who is facing some issue related to his company, like related to the service provided by the company. Now, in this particular case, what would the company do? If a customer is facing an issue with the service, how would the company resolve the issue at a high level? What are the basic things that will be going on? So let's say there is a company called A that is providing network services. The customer of this particular company is facing some issue. It could be related to the network, or it could be related to some billing, or some other thing. Now, what the customer does is he will reach out to the Service Desk Person or the executive and he will inform the issue to this particular Service Desk Person. This service desk person acts as a bridge for the company between the company members and the customer. He will discuss the customer issue with the company members, who will actually resolve the issue. Whenever the customer comes in and informs the service desk person about the issue, What the Service Desk Person does is he will create a ticket number, basically a reference number, through which they can track back to this particular issue, so customers can come back again and he canask his issue status by giving his reference number, this particular issue's reference number. What the service desk person does is inform the team members of his company about how to resolve the issue. The team members will pick up the issue and they will try to resolve it. If they are not able to resolve it, they will report the same issue to the appropriate team again, and they will try to make sure this goes on. Now, the major thing is, how are the Service Desk people contacting the company team members? Usually, if there is any problem with a tool, the service desk person will contact the team members via email. So he will draft an email regarding the whole issue that this customer is facing, and he will send the email to the appropriate team. Depending upon the issue, he will send the email to appropriate team. So this particular team, what they do is they will try to resolve that particular issue. If they are able to resolve it, it's fine; if not, they will inform another team that is actually appropriate to resolve that particular issue. Meanwhile, they require any to resolve that particular issue. They will again contact the approval team to get the approvals. This is also done via an email. So as you can see, the whole process of resolving a particular issue for one particular customer is going through this email trend. Okay, now for the major setback of this particular email process. Before talking about the setbacks of the email process, what are the other ways the service person can inform the executive, call the team members, or directly walk into the team member's desk and inform it? So, the first thing is that, as the world is growing, there are many MNC companies now. If a person is facing issue in India, the Service does person cannot reach a US executor to resolve a person from US to resolve the issue. So there is a geographical gap for that. So contacting the people directly is ruled out. The second thing is via phone. The major problem with this is that there won't be any tracking. As a result, we are unable to document each and every issue. So that is also ruled out. The only thing is that for now we can say email, but due to the setbacks of this email process, access to these tickets or these issues is very limited. As you can see, the emails are sent to only a certain number of people. It is not being sent to each and everyone, right? So there might be many cases where the emails are not being properly sent to the correct people. So in that case, what happens is that the team who should actually resolve the issue is not getting any information regarding this particular issue. So the user's access to these particular tickets is very limited. The second thing is that this is one of the major things. Reporting on these issues is not at all possible because right now I'm just talking about a single user. If we are talking about a big company, there will be hundreds of issues within a week or, in some companies, within a day. There might be cases wherein they'll receive more than 100 issues, right? So in that case, reporting on emails is not at all possible thing. And now, that's where the ServiceNow tool has come in. What ServiceNow does is simple: it is a ticketing tool. ServiceNow is used to record all these things, like these issues, so that they can be accessed by anyone in the world. Basically, Service Now is a cloud-based tool, which means it is hosted on the cloud. Anyone who has access to the internet, and if they have the right authorization for the particular instance, can access the Service Now instance and see all the tickets. That is the first thing. Now in Service Now, everything is in the form of tables and records. So each and every record is actually reportable. Okay, the major setbacks in this particular email trend are resolved by Service Now. So now, what exactly is Service Now? It is an It S M tool which automates all the business processes. once a ticket is raised. As I previously stated, the service desk representative must manually redirect the issue based on the category, but this time in Service Now. When a ticket is raised in a specific category, it can be automatically routed to the appropriate Team Now. It is a domain-independent tool. It is a purely SaaS platform, meaning software as a service. As I said, it is purely software. You can just access it if you have a Web browser and a connection to the Internet. It is a cloud-based platform. The upgrade process in Service Now is very easy. There is nothing that we need to do as an admins. We just need to contact the ServiceNow Team, and they'll be taking care of the upgrade. The UI, or the user interface, of Service Now is very friendly. People who don't even know how to code can configure the platform. And then the major thing is reporting. It has lots of flexible reporting features because of which the business processes will actually be automated and also reported properly. Now, as we have seen, what exactly Service Now can do and what exactly Service Now is, Let's see how the service now looks.

2. Useful Links

There are a few important links that we need to remember when we are working on the Service Now Platform. These links will actually help us gain more knowledge of the Service Now Platform. The first is the Wiki Service Now, also known as the Docs Service Now. Wiki Service Now is the older version, and Doc Service Now is for the newer version instances. Well, this actually has information regarding the configurations inside the Service Now system. You can also search for the definitions of particular components that are used in Service Now. It's basically like documentation for the Service Now Platform. The second one is the community servicenowcom. This is similar to a forum where anyone with questions about the service can ask them in this forum. Basically, they are just like threads. If anyone knows the answer, then they'll just reply to that question. Even if you have any questions, you can ask them over at Community Service Now. The last one is the developer, servicenow.com. This website allows us to create our own service now instance; it is primarily for their development purposes. You can use it for testing or maybe experimenting inside the service. Now, these links are just websites. If you have access to the internet, you'll be able to access all these, and you can also explore them. But for now, in this video we'll be going briefly to these websites. This is the first one, which is Wiki ServiceNow.com. You can see that there is a note on this page that says that this version, this WikiService.com, is only for the version still in Fuji. If you are working on a Fuji instance or earlier, you can go to the Wiki Service.com, but if you are working on a newer version such as Geneva, Helsinki, Istanbul, or Jakarta, you must go to the Docs Service Now.com. So let's go to the Docs service.com. So you can see this is the website, servicenow.com, and it is asking me which version I am using. like Jakarta, Istanbul, Helsinki, or Geneva. Let's say I'm going to Geneva. I can see all the categories that are available in the Jakarta version, like security operations, IT service management, and many more. Another thing we can do is search for a particular component. Let's say, for example, if you want to know about business rules, I have to type and search for it. You'll get all the search results for that particular search query. If we go to the first link, it has all the details or all the information regarding the business rules. Business Rule is a server-side script that contains all the information regarding a particular object. Whatever it is you want to know, you can search for that particular element over here. If you're working on an older version of an instance, such as Fuji, or before you do the same thing in the Vicki service.com, The next one is the community. This is the community servicenowcom. Here you'll be able to access all the community threads. Many people have asked many questions over here. So, let's say, these are the questions. These are all just threads. If you want, we can go to one of the threads and take a look at it. This is the question that has some issues with the scripting related to UI action, I guess. And someone has essentially had a large number of people apply for this particular thread. In this way, you can ask any question in the community, or you can actually get into any of the threads and understand them. Before creating any question, you can search for that particular thread or questions so that you'll know if there is an existing one for your question. Finally, the most important thing is the developer, ServiceNow.com. Basically, Service Now is a tool in which you can excel only if you have hands-on experience with it. At developer.dot-service-now.com, you can actually get your own instance for free. You can also use it for testing or experimenting purpose. You can click on the register button and create a profile for yourself. and then you can get your own instance. The name will be something like the URL of the instance will be something like dev 12345 servicenow.com. These are the important links, which I wanted to discuss before we get into the real service. No platform.

3. Tables and Records

In Service Now, everything is in the form of tables and records. Let's say in our earlier example we had issues. Say, for example, if there is a company and a user is facing any issue with that particular service, he will be coming to the company and raising an issue request ticket. So that is actually called an incident. So this is called the incident process. All the issues are stored, or else what I would say is all the incidents are stored in a table called Incident. Likewise, all the change requests are stored in a different table called the Change Request Table. Let's take a look at the incident table first. If we just type "incident" on the left navigation panel, we'll be able to see it, how to go to these particular pages, and all we will be discussing in the further sessions. This is the incident record list. So you can see that there are 53 records right now. which means there are 53 incidents in the current system. Incident is a table, and there are 53 incident records. If you are seeing all the records at once, it is called the list layout. If you are opening any one particular incident, then we'll be getting more details of this particular incident in this form layout. So this is called the form. In the next session, we'll be discussing how exactly the form layout is different from this layout. But you must understand the main concept of service now. Everything in service now is in the form of tables and records. This is an incident record. And if I want to go to the problem table, this is another process. Now again, I'm able to see all the problem records over here. The problem is a table, and these are all the records in that particular table. So these are all called problem tickets, incident tickets, or change requests. Tickets Okay, so anything in the service now is stored in tables and records.

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Basics of UI

1. Basic UI

Hi, welcome back. In this video we are going to discuss the basic user interface of ServiceNow. how exactly we can navigate through different locations. In the ServiceNow instance, this is the home page of ServiceNow. And in this way, basically the whole page can be divided into three different sections. The first section is the left navigation panel. This is the area where we navigate wherever we are, basically, in service. Now everything is in the form of tables and records. How can we navigate to different tables through this left navigation pane? And then the second place is, or the second section is, the content area. This is the place where the majority of our work will involve going to whichever location we want to go to or whichever table we want to open. Everything will be open in this particular content area. Through the left navigation pane, I will be trying to get into your particular table. And that table record or that table list is going to be displayed over the content area, which is the second section. This is the major area. And finally we have the banner area. In this banner area we have the branding of the particular organization. And on the right side, we can see certain controls for the current user. We are going to discuss everything in detail. In the next video, we are actually going to discuss all about the left navigation panel. In this video, we are going to discuss the remaining parts. I have logged into the ServiceNow system, and as we can see on the left side, we have the lift navigation pane. the Lift navigation pane. There are two elements. The first thing is the application menus. These are different application menus. Like incidents, problems change. If I click on any of the application like Incident I will see certain modules. These are nothing but links. If I click on any of these things, it will open that particular related link. Right now, create a new record of service for the incident. Because of that, I am able to open the new incident record in an incident. I will be able to submit a new incident via this link. If I want to see all the incidents, I can click on this particular module. So we have application menus, and underneath them we have all the modules. as we discussed. This is the content area. Whatever we click in the left navigation panel, everything will be displayed over the center part, which is the content area. The whole thing in service now is in the form of tables and records. As you can see, this is an incident. This is instant stable basically and this incident stable. We are seeing all of the records, or incidents, in one sitting. This is nothing but the list layout. If we open any of the particular records, if we click on the number, if we click on the first column, it will open the new form. So this is a form layout. In the form layout, you will be able to see individual records. If you see all of the records at once, or if you see this specific list format, This is the list format. If you are seeing any of the records in this list format, it is nothing but the list layout. If you are opening one particular record, it is called a form layout. Now let us discuss the banner area. Banner area we have the logo, we can have any depending upon the organization’s logo, we can have it over there. We can have text messages for that particular company or organization. We'll be discussing how we can change these two things in a few moments. On the right side, we have certain controls. Let's discuss all the controls. Now we can see the logged-in user's name, as well as his image or photo, displayed over here. If I click on this, then I will have some extra links. The first is the profile. If I click on the link, the profile, it will open the current user's profile details, like his first name, his last name, business name, phone number, email, and all these other details. Let's say if I click on "log out," the current user session will be locked up. There are two more things: impersonate users and elevate rules. Elevate rules is basically to elevate the rules; this will be available only if the high-security plugin is activated. As an admin, we can do many things, but there are certain things that can be done only by a security admin. The administrator's security is slightly higher than the administrator's. So to elevate our roles—to elevate admin roles—to the security admin role, we must click on the elevate rules, and then we'll be able to see this security admin. We need to click on this and then click okay, so this is something that will be discussed over the ACL part of the course in the further classes. The impersonation impersonating user. I have a video only for this particular option. So we'll be discussing that part over there. And then we have this search bar. This is nothing but a global search. If you click on it, the search will be displayed, and I can search for any of the incidents. Let's say if I want to search for this incident number, I can type in this incident number and search for it. In the same way, I can search for any of the records like the problem tickets, change requests, service requests, or knowledge articles. Even if I search for the text over here, I will be able to get a record. This is called the global search. This is available only for people who have ITL roles. But if we get in depth, there is a role called text underscore search underscore admin. Because of that role we'll be able to see it. Users in that role will be able to see it; if they don't have this role, then they won't be able to see the global search. Then we have conversations. Basically, we can start any conversation over here. We can add users to this conversation, and then we can have a chat regarding the tickets or whatever it is. It is basically just social connectivity. And then we have help. We can search for articles or documentation related to the service. Now over here and finally we have the settings. The gear icon over here, if you click on it, will have lots of tabs. Over here, there are six tabs. The developer tab is only for us, which means no other person will be able to save a first general. In general, we have certain options. So some of the things which we need to understand is compact the user interface. Just have a look at the user form right now. Let me compact the user interface. You can see all the fields are compacted. That is what this particular option does. And then compact list and date list date time. Let's open up a list layout. We'll be able to recognize that we have open time here, which is 2017, 2006, and fall back. All the dates are the same. If I go and enable this compact date and time, you will see the date and time are just showing the month, day, and hour and minutes. Seconds are hidden, as is the year. So this is the exact date and time. Once we log in, should we get redirected to the home page or the dashboards that are mentioned over here? And then we have a date and time. Should we show the calendar or should we show how much time has passed? Five minutes ago, ten minutes ago, and so on. So these are the basic things. There are two more things which is first one is time zone. We can select any of the time zones over here. Depending upon that, the time displayed over any of the records will be changed. Then finally, we have a printer-friendly version. Whatever we see, everything will be in form, which will be actually very easy to get printed. And now we have themes. There are nine themes right now. We can even create new themes. If you try and look at different themes, you can see the change in the background. And now we have lists. Just have a look at the particular JavaScript hiring page of the corporate website. Just have a look at this particular incident. It is incident number 40. I'm checking this If we see that it is wrapped, if I scroll down right now, you can see that the short description is of this length. If I scroll down, then you can see the change over here. If I wrap it, all the fields will be minimized. This is the wrapping. Then we have forms for this. Let me open a form. This is the form layout. as we discussed earlier. If we say tabular forms, what happens is that we can see these three sections over here. Notes, Related Records, Unclosed Information—those are different tabs, or we should actually call them sections. And at the bottom, we have something called the Related List. There are five related lists right now. All of these are in the form of tapped away; if I uncheck this now, all of the section-related records become sections. Closer information is also a section, and again, at the top, we have the notes section. So I can reduce all of these. Okay, all these sections are shown one after the other. If I'm enabling the tab forms, then I'll be able to see all the tabs on the right side, even the related list. It's the same, that is, the tab forms. Now we just talked about related lists, which are at the bottom. When should those related lists be loaded? Whenever the form is loaded, after the form loads, or on demand So if I check on demand and if I open any record, the related list will not be loaded; I have to click on a button. So that is what this on-demand service does. Okay, so that's it. These are the basic things related to the list and forms. Over here, we have one more thing called notifications. ServiceNow also has the ability to send notifications like emails and SMS. If we want to add any device, like a phone number device, mobile device, or email, we can add it over here. And we can manage what notifications are triggered for us. Like, if I open this, it's only for me, the current user. These are all different tables, and if I want, I can remove or inactivate certain email notifications so that I won't receive those notifications. Finally, we have a developer tab. This is purely for us, which means admins. We have applications, and then we have updates. It updates. It is a place where all things are captured. Whatever changes we make related to the configurations, like creating business rules or modifying them, or creating tables, records, sorry, tables, and columns, all those are captured in update sets. So we can select which updates should capture the current configuration. And if we want, we can just have a look at the banner. Right now, we don't have any options over here. But if I want, I can bring this update picture over. You can see it over here. Now in the same way, you can also bring the application over here. So this application is actually one that we use when we are creating some scoped applications. Global is an application wherein all the basic ITSM modules like incident, problem, change, and all are captured. If you want to have our own application, we can create a new application and do all our configurations over there. And finally, we have an option called JavaScript Log. Basically, what this does is enable a new window. At the bottom here, we can check if there are any issues with the current page with the JavaScript log. And also, we can check basically all the things related to particular fields, like are there any ACLs impacting the particular field? Whether or not business rules have an impact. So all these things can be seen over this field. Keep in mind that this is a basic user interface, and it is only now that we have gone into detail on this specific banner area. In the next few sessions we'll be discussing more about the left navigation panel.

2. Left Navigation Pane

In the earlier sessions, we have seen the basic user interface of the service. Now, let's get a bit deeper into the left navigation pane first. So the left navigation panel is the place through which we will be able to navigate it through the Service Now system. We have different processes in service now—like incident changes, problems, and service requests. How do we navigate to those particular records or tables? It is through the left navigation panel. In this left navigation panel, there are, I would say, two things. One is the pallet over here, the three taps over here, and then on the top we can see the filter. So first of all, let's discuss these three taps. The first tab actually has all the links to different tables. First of all, if we seeself service is the application menu. It is just like a heading. If you click on it, it will expand the list. As you can see, many links have come in. So again, if I click it will be collapsed. Let's say in the same way. Incidentally, if I click on this application menu, it will expand and I'll be able to see all the links. Or these are actually called modules. If I click on any of the links, depending on the configuration, it will redirect me to a particular page. If I click on Create New, I'll be redirected to a form layout wherein I'll be able to create a new incident. So, these are all called modules, and these modules are stored under application menus. So there's an incident, a problem, a change, and a configuration. So all these are called application menus. If you click on it, it will show the modules underneath it. Then the second tab is the favorite tab. Here we'll be able to add a direct links whatever. If we let's say for example, if I want to go to incidents, click on Open. So this is the list layout. So, in this list layout, let's say certain filters are over here; let's say State is new. Again, let's choose "category inquiry" or "Help." We will be discussing how we can set these filters in the next session. This is just to show how favorites work exactly. Now in here, I can see the favorites. What I can do is just drag this particular filter to my favorites. So automatically, a link will be created. If I click on it, it will be redirecting me to this particular list. With the particular filter, you can see the filter is there. The other thing is that you can actually click on this star button on any of the application menus or modules. Let's say all, or inside service desk, application knowledge, or whatever we've started will be displayed over this favorite section. This is how we make BOOKMARKS to use in the activity bar. So it actually shows all the places you've been, such as right now, I've been to this particular list. I've been to this list before, and before that, incidents. Before that, I opened a task record. Before that, I opened incidents, so whatever I opened will be displayed over this history tab, both favorites and the history tab or specific to a user; if I see certain favorites, that means those favorites are only available to me, not to anyone else.

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