Steven Bell

In the first half of this post, I shared what you need to get started, including how to set up your own local MID server and create an ServiceNow Orchestration sub-workflow. I’ll pick up where that article left off, by describing how to create a framework workflow to call the sub-workflow, how to pass information to the sub-workflow and how to retrieve and work with the results. This article is in the format of a lab.

If you’re using ServiceNow Orchestration, I recommend introducing sub-workflows to “build upon” existing functionality and reduce workflow complexity. Of course this recommendation often leads to some questions. In fact, the question I’m asked most frequently in Orchestration classes and beyond is: What is the best practice for calling a sub-workflow from a workflow in ServiceNow? This article is in the format of a lab.

Do you ever develop code snippets to prove a concept? I know I do, but it always leads to the question: How can you test those snippets to see if they function correctly in ServiceNow? There are two methods: Scripts – Background and Fix Scripts. When I set out to write this article, I was a big proponent of Scripts – Background, although reviewing both methods closely opened my eyes to the value of Fix Scripts. Here’s my assessment of each, including pros, cons and demonstrations.

Service mapping seems to be an increasingly popular topic these days, but why do we even want to talk about it? What benefits can it bring to those who adopt it?

I have worked with ServiceNow encoded queries for several years now, using them to express more complex query logic. I usually copy what I need from the list view query builder breadcrumbs, though I’ve also rolled my own from scratch. Despite all this experience, I noticed something odd recently that caught me a bit by surprise.

While working with several clients on various Orchestration projects, it became abundantly clear that there are certain methodologies that should always be included on these type of projects. We were seeing far too many instances with poor workflow structuring techniques, no coding standards, inefficient code and designs, inconsistent workflow planning and a lack of reusability! So, with those in mind, here are some best practices for Orchestration in ServiceNow that can help you avoid common… Show more

While working with several clients on various Orchestration projects, it became abundantly clear that there are certain methodologies that should always be included on these type of projects. We were seeing far too many instances with poor workflow structuring techniques, no coding standards, inefficient code and designs, inconsistent workflow planning and a lack of reusability! So, with those in mind, here are some best practices for Orchestration in ServiceNow that can help you avoid common mistakes and challenges. Show less

It is a simple fact that ServiceNow Discovery will not be able to resolve all devices. There will be several that have credential issues, port issues or just plain will not respond. For those of you who are Discovery administrators, you know that investigating a single Active, Not Classified or Alive, Not Classified device can be a time-consuming effort. But going through the IP “forensics” is necessary given the security concerns around unidentified CIs.

Recently, our Web Service Integration team needed a method for looking up all of the fields belonging to a table and then displaying those fields in a pick list. This needed to be done for ALL of the fields in the table hierarchy. In other words, what was needed was a smart Dictionary Entry of Dictionary Entries for a given table! While the solution turned out to be a little tricky, it wasn’t too bad…honest!

Virus scanners focus on the c:\windows\temp directory. Unfortunately, this is also the directory that the ServiceNow MID Server uses out-of-the-box. As a result, if you are running a lot of Discovery jobs on a particular MID Server and your security admins have installed a virus scanner on that same device, you will probably see a performance hit. Since most virus scanners do not allow the exclusion of this directory, you need to change the directory that the MID Server uses to resolve this… Show more

Virus scanners focus on the c:\windows\temp directory. Unfortunately, this is also the directory that the ServiceNow MID Server uses out-of-the-box. As a result, if you are running a lot of Discovery jobs on a particular MID Server and your security admins have installed a virus scanner on that same device, you will probably see a performance hit. Since most virus scanners do not allow the exclusion of this directory, you need to change the directory that the MID Server uses to resolve this issue. Doing so will allow your security admins to white-list that new directory and, thus, remove the performance hit. Show less

The latest release of ServiceNow, Eureka, introduced a whole new interface: UI14. Among the many updates were a group of visual changes, including how the “background” color is displayed in the List View of all tables. Instead of filling in the background of a cell, there is now a colored dot next to the cell contents. Since that change can take some time to get used to, I’ve fielded a number of questions about how to change this back without losing all the other UI14 visual candy.

In previous Admin 101 posts, I’ve shared how to do a variety of DISTINCT queries using GlideRecord. Now let’s look at how you can do something similar to complete a UNION query.

I teach several different ServiceNow classes, and, invariably, I get a lot of questions about how to do DISTINCT queries. De-duplicating data in a result set is important, and there is no feature in GlideRecord that covers this purpose. So, the big question is: I can do a DISTINCT in SQL, but I can’t do one with GlideRecord? What gives?

At least once a week I am asked: Is there a way to create a single combined report of my Service Catalog Requested Item variables? And, for that matter, where does this information reside inside of ServiceNow?

Well the answer to the first question is yes, and the trick to how to do it is in the answer to the second question!

I detail the process for setting up my own laptop-run MID Server, which worked well for my needs around both Discovery and Orchestration testing. This set-up can be installed on any desktop or laptop machine running either Windows or Linux (the example below was done on Windows).

Part 2: Database Views are useful for filling an important gap in ServiceNow: joining two or more tables together. In a normal report, you can only select a single table, but Database Views allow you to pull together data from two or more tables into a single “table” to report against.

Database Views are useful for filling an important gap in ServiceNow: joining two or more tables together. In a normal report, you can only select a single table, but Database Views allow you to pull together data from two or more tables into a single “table” to report against.

Is it possible to create a link that jumps to the top of the page on a Service Catalog Item in ServiceNow?