Traditionally the terms “Out of Box” (OoB) or “Off the Shelf” when used by the Software Development team means a feature or functionality of a product that works as is, without any special installation or custom modifications required.

I hear that a popular answer to OoB questions at service is “We don’t sell a box…”

Fair enough as they do not.

Of course, in the real world executives & managers alike are commonly being tasked with the requirement of either using ServiceNow OoB or bringing back modules or entire instances to OoB.

So, for an Application Platform-as-a-Service (aPaaS) like ServiceNow; What does OoB mean?

My best guesses are below;

OoB includes Creating/Modifying:

• Users / Groups / Roles
• Knowledge bases / Articles
• Branding & Theming
• Catalog items including Record Producers
  
  • Catalog Client Scripts & Business Rules if copies are OoB with modifications to scripts or values.
• Client Scripts & Business Rules if copies are OoB with modifications to values or scripts.
• OoB Risk level for change calculator (Change Management)
• Mobile Apps - ServiceNow has some inbuilt applications (Example Field Service Management), and additional applications can be built according to company requirements.
• Email should be carefully configured ensuring consistent message aligning with your branding.
• Reports – PDF Header / Footers
• Service Portal Designer – Pages, OoB Cloned Widgets with customizations
• UI Actions
• Ui Builder:
  
  • Build pages for CSM Configurable Workspace
    
  • App Engine Studio-generated workspaces and portals
• Ui Policies - if new policies are copies of OoB Ui Policies with modifications to values or scripts.

And does not include App engine builder, Studio, or creating custom tables or fields not included by ServiceNow...

What are your thoughts?