I know, I'm not the first one who presents such a list of tips and tricks for working with ServiceNow, but for me it is the only way to have everything on one page. I have posted most of the items below on my LinkedIn profile, but there it takes several minutes to load all my posts and thus is really frustrating just for checking a fact I cannot remember any more.

I recommend bookmarking this article so that you are automatically notified by email when changes are made by me.

Administration | Implementation

Did you know that you can modify OOTB dictionary records in ServiceNow without changing them, thus preventing skipped records? I found out that dictionary overrides (table sys_dictionary_override) are always respected, and you do not even need a child table! This is super helpful, for instance, if you want to extend the condition builder for famous artifacts like Business Rules with related list conditions as described in one of my earlier articles

Implementation | Integrations

Recently, on an instance with "Upload MIME type restriction" enabled (https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?topicname=upload-mime-type-restriction.html&version=latest), I ran into a problem when pulling a text file from an external system to attach to an existing record. The file was classified as "text/plain" MIME type even though it was an XML file, resulting in a blocked attachment attempt in ServiceNow. Fortunately, a system property exists (glide.security.mime_type.aliasset) that allows MIME types to be mapped. Now attaching the file works like a charm.

Finally, I found a way to automatically pull updates from a Git repository into hashtag#ServiceNow instance using a simple script. It comes from the OOTB Script Include "SourceControlAjax", which has more examples for other operations like changing the branch. It launches a Progress Worker that performs all the necessary operations in the background. All you need is a valid Git connection for your application in the "sys_repo_config" table. Now completely new automation use cases are possible!

sn_vcs.AppSourceControl
 .applyIncomingChanges()
 .setSysApp('<SYS ID from table sys_app>')
 .setStashMessage('')
 .setExecuteEvenIfHasNoIncomingChanges(true)
 .setExecuteEvenIfHasOutgoingChanges(true)
 .setDiskDiff(true)
 .start();​

Implementation | Documentation

In a basic ServiceNow installation, for some unknown reason, the "Description" field is not included in the Business Rules form view. But it is so important to document your most important artifacts like Business Rules or Script Includes. And instead of long description texts, which developers usually struggle with, I expect at least the ticket number of the story or bug from which the artifacts are derived. Believe me, after several years on a large project with constantly changing team members, you will be grateful for these kinds of "knowledge links".

Development | Unknown APIs

On my recent excursions through the endless expanses of undocumented ServiceNow APIs, I came across SNC.RoleManagementAPI, which provides some interesting functions. One of them is findAllContainedRolesForRole(), which retrieves the complete set of roles (and their children) for a given role from the often highly nested hierarchy. This can be useful, for example, if you want to check whether a custom role contains certain (licensable) OOTB roles. Get the script at Github

Administration | Instance Setup

With the recent forced loss and reclaim of PDIs, I took the opportunity to review my script for automatically installing plugins and applications, as it would take me hours to perform these installations manually. And to my surprise, the approach I had been using for years via the GlideMultiPluginManagerWorker() API no longer worked. So I took a look at how ServiceNow installs plugins and applications behind the scenes and copied the code. You can find a ready-to-use script at Github

Administration | Activity Stream

There was a requirement to disable image previews in ServiceNow's activity stream of a record and replace it with a linked filename. The only solution I could find was setting system property com.glide.attachment.max_get_size to "1". I have not observed any broken functionality or misbehavior so far.

The following code line elevates the currently logged-in user to the given role. Useful for script-based setting up an instance or user provisioning:

GlideSecurityManager.get().enableElevatedRole('security_admin');

Implementation | Flow Designer

If you want to determine which Flows are triggered for a certain table you can perform the following script:

var grActionInstance = new GlideAggregate('sys_hub_action_instance');
var strTableName = 'wm_task'; //replace with your table name

grActionInstance
    .addJoinQuery('sys_variable_value', 'sys_id', 'document_key')
    .addCondition('value', strTableName);
grActionInstance.addAggregate('GROUP_CONCAT_DISTINCT', 'flow'); 
grActionInstance.groupBy('flow');
grActionInstance.addQuery('flow.sys_class_name', 'sys_hub_flow')
grActionInstance.query();

while(grActionInstance.next()) {
    gs.info(
        '[{0}]\t{1}', 
        grActionInstance.flow.active ? 'active' : 'inactive', 
        grActionInstance.flow.name
    );
}

Have you ever been annoyed by the fact that the two relationships "Updates" & "Versions" are missing in the form view, even though they are essential for development? For this reason, I created another helpful Business Rule which adds these two relationships automatically whenever a record from a child table of sys_metadata is modified.

Implementation | Flow Designer

Sometimes it is required to retrieve the Flow's context id (record at table sys_flow_context) for a certain implementation. Fortunately there is a API for that purpose:

var _strContextID = FlowScriptAPI.getContextID();

See the semaphore concept of ServiceNow in action: The application repository is nothing else than a ServiceNow instance. If too many customer instances in this world want to install an application at the same time, it might be blocked due to missing empty slots in the app repo's semaphore queue. As a result, the application installation will fail and your only chance is to try the whole process again at a later time.

Recently I came across an interesting finding by chance. If you call the module "Logged in users" (opens virtual table v_user_session) you might see who is currently being impersonated by whom. Of course, this only applies to the current node on which you are logged in.

If you want to enhance your script performance via caching "expensive" data structures within the session object, you should keep in mind that impersonating does not create a new session. The impersonated user therefore has full access to the data previously stored by the other user in the session! If this is not desired, simply work with unique prefixes for the keys:

Recently I was asked on LinkedIn how to search for "DOES NOT START WITH" in the list view. Unfortunately, I could not find a way so far, but that scenario is definitely possible with a GlideRecord query by combining "NOT LIKE" operation and "%" within the search term. See the following example, which demonstrates how to query all UI Actions not starting with "Open in":

You might know that in the list view, there is no operator "is not one of" for string-based fields in the query builder. So, how to exclude for example a longer list of Sys IDs from a result list? Fortunately, there is a workaround to achieve that scenario:

1. Search for "is one of" as usual. Then replace within the URL the operator "IN" with "NOT IN" and perform the search again. In the query builder you now can find the option "NOT IN".
2. Fill in the list of comma-separated values you want to exclude. With Sys IDs the resulting URL might become too long. In that case, it is shortened automatically by ServiceNow.

Administration | Audit Logs

The sys_audit_delete and sys_audit_relation tables are used to store information about deleted records and their relationships to other records, and thus facilitating an "Undelete" capability. Unchecked, these tables can grow very large and cause wider performance issues. Unfortunately, in a baseline instance, there is no feature active to maintain the these tables automatically. However, ServiceNow provides a KB article and a script you can perform to do that job.

Administration | Audit Logs

If you have many users in your ServiceNow instance who often use a mobile app (e.g. FSM agents) or you generally work a lot with OAuth-based authentication, you should set the attribute "no_audit_delete=true" for the oauth_credential table. Otherwise, the sys_audit_delete and sys_audit_relation tables will grow quickly, as OAuth tokens are permanently deleted by ServiceNow when they expire. However, restoring them does not add any value and you can dispense with deletion auditing for this data.

Implementation | Unknown Tables

If the Mobile Card Builder or a Workspace (e.g. the FSM Dispatcher Workspace) is getting stuck while initial loading, it might be that the server requests executed in the background took too long and ServiceNow cancelled the transactions. You can check this in the Transaction Cancellation Log (syslog_cancellation). If you find such cancellations there, adjust the corresponding Transaction Quota Rules.

Development | Unknown APIs

For validating IPv4 or IPv6 addresses in ServiceNow, you can use the undocumented factories SncIPAddressV4 and SncIPAddressV6:

ServiceNow Ecosystem | NowLearning

The search experience in the NowLearning portal is rather badly. For example there is no way any more to browse freely through all courses as you always have to specify a search term. But what should you enter if you cannot name what to search for? Fortunately there is a workaround. To get a list of all courses just enter three stars ("***"). Then add filters like "On-Demand" and/or "Free" to narrow down the result list to relevant entries:

Implementation | UI Actions

If you want to disable an OOTB UI Action without touching it (yes, also without setting "active" to "false"!) you can add the "nobody" role. That role assignment can be captured in your own application. And instead of ACLs you can remove it again without any problems.

Development | Skipped Records

After going into the wrong direction for some time (but thanks to Jochen Geist I learned something new: KB0794114 ) it turned out that my issues regarding missing deletions on higher instances was related to skipped records. Therefore, always look out for the following entries in the sys_plugin_log table after an app installation. Then go to table sys_upgrade_history_log and process the skipped records..

Implementation | Customization

Before every ServiceNow family release, you're served the ever-unpopular list of skipped records, and as you try several hundred times to make the right decision, you wonder once again why you haven't paid more attention to making sure your developers don't customize OOTB artifacts. To raise awareness of this thorny issue and increase visibility, I've added one more to my best-of list of useful business rules, which displays an appropriate warning when you open a modified OOTB artifact. That warning message also provides a link to the most recent OOTB version, where you will find a UI Action for reverting to that version.

Administration | Maintenance

When you have a ServiceNow instance that is pumped with many file attachments, it is advisable to check the total size of all attachments from time to time. This is because file attachments are not stored in the file system, but in the database, which - depending on the contract - has a limited size (usually 2 TB). I know that the final consumed database space is even larger, but I just wanted to have a quick overview.

Implementation | Customization

I recently accidentally clicked the "Debug Upgrade" module in ServiceNow and was very surprised at the result. After the next page reload, if you scroll to the bottom, you will see a list of all the changed OOTB artifacts that were involved in the corresponding client transaction. This way the development lead or architect has an easy way to find out what his developers have (unintentionally) changed and thus would be listed as a skipped record in the next upgrade.

Implementation | Unknown Tables

You probably already know these progress bars which represent long-running background processes. And of course they are back-boned by a table - in that case by sys_execution_tracker. If you are fast enough, you can open the related record & watch the progress. The real-time updates of new values in the form is one of my favorite capabilities in ServiceNow..

Administration | Monitoring

You probably already know the page /xmlstats.do, which provides an unbelievable number of technical metrics - but only for the application node you are currently logged in to. The returned values are separated by topics which are listed at the "includes" attribute of the XML root element and it seems that this page lists nearly everything which is available. If you want to get these values for all nodes of your instance, you can use the following small script. It iterates over the records of the table sys_cluster_state which represent one node each and then reads the statistics. A JavaScript object is then created via the XmlHelper API, which simplifies access to the underlying values enormously. The topics contained in the XML obtained in this way are controlled by the glide.cluster.xmlstats system property. That way you can add more topics here, for example "plugins", to get a list of all installed plugins/apps on a node. Based on this data, you can now develop a kind of monitoring app that visualizes the health status of all nodes and sends warnings if certain values reach a critical range (for example, the available memory falls below a certain threshold).

Administration | Maintenance

Everyone is always talking about instance upgrades, but there is little information about the fact that the installed plugins and apps must also be permanently checked and evaluated for new versions. But how do you find out that there are new versions available? You could open the plugin application (/$allappsmgmt.do) and drill-down with the "Updates" filter. However, this is a manual activity without any chance for automated notifications. So is there an alternative? If you are logged in as admin user, you can find a score "Ready to update" on the admin center home page (/now/nav/ui/home). How is this score calculated? There is a scheduled job "App Status Count" which determines all applications ready for update or initial installation. These two numbers are then written to the table polaris_app_shell_app_counts. With a Business Rule, you could monitor changes to this number and then react accordingly. Unfortunately, this approach does not provide more information like app names or versions. Therefore, I extracted the code to get the detailed list of all apps which are ready for updating.

In case you made the mistake to extend a custom table of a scoped application from the wrong parent table (for example sysauto instead of sysauto_script). Because of the many artifacts I had already created, I didn't want to start from scratch and luckily found the API GlideTableParentChange, which made re-parenting a painless task.

ServiceNow Ecosystem | Application Repository

Did you know, that with a ServiceNow Support/Store account, you also can log in to the Application Repository as well? It is just another ServiceNow instance at https://apprepo.service-now.com/. Basically, you cannot do much there, but it is interesting to see which applications are managed under the umbrella of your company. I don't want to imagine what happens if that instance is broken . And also don't forget to whitelist that domain in case you have activated IP address access restrictions in your instances.

In ServiceNow it is OOTB not possible to group a GlideList field in the list view. But after adding a dictionary attribute "can_group=true" to the GlideList field, it is nevertheless possible. You can find more interesting facts about GlideList fields in the following knowledge article.

Development | Client-side

Yes, I know: It's not recommended to do DOM manipulations in #ServiceNow client-side scripts. However, sometimes it can't be avoided, for example when you want to control the click behavior of buttons in modals. But for scoped applications it is not enough to set the "Isolate script" field to "false" (e.g. in a UI Action). Additionally, you need to create in your app scope a system property glide.script.block.client.globals with the value "false". See the following Support article for the complete instructions

Administration | Searching

I guess you know that situation. In any of the many artifact types (e.g. "Condition" field of a UI Action) a non-existing method of an existing Script Include is referenced. It seems that this method has fallen victim to an overzealous cleanup, but you need its code to validate whether the invocation is still required or not. Basically, the needed method still exists somewhere in the several hundred entries long version list of the respective Script Include (table sys_update_version). But how to find it? A "CONTAINS" search on the "Payload" field is not possible, because it is of type "Compressed", which apparently does not support such searches. However, there is a second search technology, that of text indexes. Unfortunately the table sys_update_version is not indexed OOTB. After activation and generation of a text index, which can take quite a few hours depending on the number of records, a new entry "for text" is available in the field selection at the top of the list view. Now, finally, the search for the method name brings the corresponding versions in the light.

Next Experience UI | Theme Builder

If you define a new logo in the Next Experience Theme Builder you also have to set the system property glide.ui.polaris.theme_builder.override_logo to "true". Otherwise the logo is ignored.

Administration | Maintenance & Performance

By default, there are 4 "Service Mapping Recomputation" jobs per node, on a ServiceNow instance.

When these jobs run for longer time they might impact memory consumption and performance. But if you are not using Service Mapping or Application Services in your CMDB you can disable them. The following knowledge articles explain the reasons and what to do.

> KB0869419

> KB0824377

> KB1001151

Development | Client-side

Your browser provides you with a complete development environment for client-side scripts in ServiceNow. Make sure you opened the page without the frameset (use /pop command from SNUtils if required), then open the Developer Tools (F12), go to "Source" -> "Snippets" and create a new one. The really cool thing is the code completion which reveals ALL methods and properties of an API like g_form. Also, code debugging with breakpoints and variable watching is possible.

There is a API GlideEmailOutbound which allows creating emails directly without utilization of notifications. After invocation of the save() method a record is created at table sys_email. But unfortunately that API does not provides a method for attaching files.

var mail = new GlideEmailOutbound();mail.addAddress('cc', '[email protected]');mail.addRecipient("[email protected]");mail.setSubject("Test Email");

mail.save();

If you need a way to identify the name of the family release your instance is running with, you can use the following method. Another method returns the file name of the latest upgrade version:

gs.info(new sn_appclient.GlideUpgradeUtil().getCurrentBuildName());
gs.info(new sn_appclient.GlideUpgradeUtil().getCurrentBuild());

There is an undocumented API which can convert the value from GlideDateTime object into a human readable format, like "3 months from now" or "2 weeks ago":

gs.info(new GlideTimeAgo().format(new GlideDateTime('2023-01-08 07:13:22'));

Administration | Importing Data

By default, when ServiceNow creates a new staging table, it measures the length of the first 20 records to determine how long the fields should be. If the data values to be imported exceed the length of the fields in the staging tables, they will be truncated and not imported properly.

To prevent truncating you can set the system property com.glide.loader.verify_target_field_size to "true".

That way ServiceNow will automatically expand the staging table values based on incoming data, even after the first 20 records have been imported.

Administration | Update Sets

Have you ever noticed the related link "Show all preview records" on the form for previewing an Update Set? This will lead you to a much better comparison of differences between local artifacts and those from an update set to be committed in ServiceNow

If you are in a customer-facing role for a ServiceNow project, you have to be prepared to many questions about ServiceNow as a PaaS / SaaS provider. Questions like "Has ServiceNow access to my sensitive data?" or "Does ServiceNow comply to the European GDPR?". Such questions are basically answered in the Knowledge Base "Trust, Privacy & Compliance" at the support portal. And while the more than 160 articles contained therein are public, the knowledge base itself can only be accessed after logging into the support portal. This makes it very difficult for most users to get an overview and search/consume the contents in a focused way. For this reason, I decided to extract all articles and combine them into one document. While doing this I learned a lot and I highly recommend reading that document.

Administration | Audit Logs

If a regulation or your security department requires you to enable audit log of the sys_user table in ServiceNow, be careful! After ticking the "Audit" checkbox in the dictionary, your audit log will be flooded with a lot of information that might not be required (for example last login times). Instead, use the whitelist approach and enable auditing only for those fields which are of interest. For more information, see https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb%5Farticle%5Fview&sysparm%5Farticle=KB0869832

Administration | Unknown Pages

As I mistyped in a hurry today, I accidentally came across the webpage "statsx.do", which left me amazed. First, this page is publicly available. Secondly, it is delivered superfast and I wonder how it was technically implemented. And third, it contains a lot of valuable information (e.g. number of available semaphores) that could be monitored automatically with an appropriate tool like Nagios. But I couldn't find any documentation on this.

Development | Phone Numbers

For the field type "E.164 Phone Number" there is also an undocoumented API GlideElementPhoneNumber which is used by the Script Include "PhoneNumberFormatter". This API can be used, for example, to determine the country associated with a phone number:

var objPhoneNumber     = new GlideElementPhoneNumber();
var isValidPhoneNumber = objPhoneNumber.setPhoneNumber( '+49 170 123456789', true);

gs.info(isValidPhoneNumber);
gs.info(objPhoneNumber.getTerritory());

Administration | Unknown Tables

ServiceNow has a field type "E.164 Phone Number" which makes sure that all entered phone numbers follow the predefined local formats. Furthermore ServiceNow is able to preselect the related country automatically after a user has entered a phone number. To make this possible, there is a table sys_phone_territory in ServiceNow which contains the international area codes of all countries. And in the table sys_phone_validate all formattings of all phone numbers from all countries are stored.

> E.164 phone number field configuration

Subscription & License Management | Roles

In ServiceNow a leading practice is to let users inherit their roles from the groups they are member of instead of direct roles assignments. This gets especially important when it comes to subscription management, as you have to assign all user groups to your user-based subscription, which holds users with licensable roles. For this reason, I have extended an older article to include an instance scan check that scans for users who have direct assignments with licensable roles:

> Prevent direct assignment of licensable roles to users

You have impersonated a different user, but now you are trapped in any of the Service Portals? Open page /impersonate_dialog.do to impersonate back to your account.

Administration | Maintenance & Performance

As an experienced administrator or developer, you probably take a look at the so-called node logs from time to time to identify the root cause of exotic problems. But be careful: Using the standard modules "Node Log File Browser" and "Node Log File Download" you will only get the logs of the node you are currently logged in to. But the problem could have occurred on another node. To get the logs from all nodes at once instead, you can go to the sys_cluster_state table and call "Download Logs from selected Nodes" in the list actions menu for the selected records.

Administration | Maintenance & Performance

I know 3 different ways to determine the size of the used space for the database in a ServiceNow instance, but they all have a flavor of a workaround. A better approach is using the table ua_instance_state, which hosts one record that reflects the value on a daily basis.

Administration | Maintenance & Performance

With the help of an additional and free plugin you can limit the number of concurrent interactive sessions for a specific user or role in ServiceNow! This means that if you limit all users to one concurrent session, and a user tries to log in using two different browsers (such as Chrome and IE or Chrome and Chrome incognito), they will be logged out of their previous session.

> Limit concurrent sessions

ServiceNow Ecosystem | Customer Success Center

Recently, I came across an amazing collection of so-called reference architectures in ServiceNow's Customer Success Center. Instead of always thinking in silos, these documents illustrate which products and packages can be leveraged to gain maximum value based on business capabilities/stories. Very helpful for conversations with customers on that level.

> Reference Architectures

Nowadays, all companies introducing ServiceNow wants to integrate at least the PROD instance with the existing corporate identity provider. For this reason, it is important for a ServiceNow admin or consultant to know how to set up and configure the SSO feature. Fortunately, you can practice this topic in your PDIs using the free SSOCirlce service. And on top of that, ServiceNow has provided a comprehensive guide that you just have to follow.

> Setup Multi-SSO with SAML using SSOCircle

ServiceNow Ecosystem | Now Learning Portal

In the Now Learning Portal, there is a treasure of insightful videos for each family release given by the ServiceNow product teams - the so-called "transfer of information" (TOI). Use the following link:

When developing ACL scripts it would be helpful to impersonate on script level instead of wasting time with impersonating for and back manually. And this is the code for it:

ServiceNow Ecosystem | Search

Did you know that by using the seach at ServiceNow's main website www.servicenow.com you can kick off a one-search over the most important portals in the ServiceNow ecosystem? In the search results page you then can filter by search sources. And you even are provided here with search results to restricted content, so at least you know some content is there, but you need to login for accessing it.x.

You know this: Clicking on the (i) icon right beside a reference field and then on "Open record" with pressed Ctrl key loads the referenced record in a new tab, but without the header/navigation bar. Uncool! But you can force loading the navigation bar with setting a "Display" preference:

Far too often I see questions like "how to prevent duplicate CIs." And when I look at all the examples from ServiceNow where CIs are loaded into the CMDB using Excel files via normal Import Sets & Transform Maps, it's not surprising. Instead use an application that is prepared for a CMDB import, such as "Integration Hub ETL". And if that is not possible, you should at least call the IRE directly in the Transform Map. See the example from the following documentation page.

> Apply CI Identification and Reconciliation to Import Sets

Administration | Auditing

If you want to know what data has been exported fromServiceNow's list view, you have to go to the table sys_poll. But these data is cleared with the end of the user session. So if you want to report on this over a longer time period, you can deactivate a script action. For more information, read the following Knowledge Article.

> Track the users who have exported the records fom list view

I'm sure many of you already know that feature, but I just came across it and was happy not to have to download hundreds of megabytes of node log files all the time. So if you want to stream the node logs to your browser, use the URL /channel.do?sysparm_channel=logtail

OOTB the code search in your ServiceNow instance covers 31 tables only. If you want to search all available tables and script-related fields, you can execute in a "Scripts - Background" console my script available at GitHub. You can leverage the code search in Studio, with the UI Page "CodeSearchExampleUse" or via the browser extension "SN Utils"

If you don't like the illustration on the login page of your ServiceNow instance, you can disable them via system property glide.ui.polaris.login.show_illustrations.

Administration | User Management

If you need transparency on any user's role changes in ServiceNow (e.g. for any audit purposes) you can create a system property glide.role_management.v2.audit_roles with value "true". After that all changes are populated at table sys_audit_role.

One of my first ServiceNow tips on LinkedIn was about how to sort group counters with the help of a URL parameter. Now ServiceNow surprises us in the Tokyo release with a built-in UI option in the list view to achieve the same with two clicks::

If you want to stay informed about the latest courses and their updates, you should regularly check the following page in the Now Learning portal: Content Releases

There is a undocumented but interesting table sys_status with lots of interesting information like the used Java version. The number of records with the same name corresponds to the number of the underlying application nodes.

Next Experience UI | Workspaces

If you don't want to offer all the Workspaces ServiceNow is providing or restrict the visibility of Workspaces to dedicated user groups, then you can create special ACLs explained in the following linked support KB article. The required ACLs for the Service Operation Workspace (id: sow) would be:

now.sow.*

now.sow.home

Next Experience UI | Global Text Search

If you have recently switched to the Next Experience design, you should definitely check the global text search, because its configuration is different and not automatically taken over from the previous U16 configuration.

> Configuring search in Next Experience

ServiceNow Ecosystem | Corporate Website

Do you also sometimes find it difficult to locate something on the ServiceNow website? Then you might find the following (hidden) sitemap useful:

You have a nice & valuable dashboard you want to present on a wall mounted display in your office? Get the dashboard URL and add the parameter &sysparm_header=hidden

Then install a browser extension for automatic reloading the dashboard page and activate the full screen mode.

Sometimes crucial ServiceNow records (e.g. Users, Groups) have to be deleted (e.g. due to any regulations) or were deleted accidentally, although other tables are referencing them (e.g. field "Assignment Group" of task table). This results in so-called "broken" references. With the help of a special filter condition, you can filter them:

is not empty AND is empty

Basics | XML Export/Import

Moving foundation data from one instance to another can be rather time-consuming, as many XML files (one for each table) have to be imported in the target instance manually. But you can save time by merging all XML files into a single one. Just copy all branches (tag name = table name) of the 2nd level below the root tag .

Basics | UI Actions | Unknown Tables

Each main product in like ITSM, CSM or FSM is shipped with a bunch of UI Actions and not all of them are always required. But instead of deactivating them or changing their conditions (and thus risking a skipped record in the next upgrade), you can use the embedded list "Requires roles" (table sys_ui_action_role). This way you don't change anything in the original record, and also can limit the visibility elegantly.

I accidentally stumbled upon an interesting ServiceNow feature that is very useful if you deal a lot with JSON-based payloads. With the help of the field-related dictionary attribute json_view=true you can enable a JSON viewer which outputs the payload in a readable way.

Basics | Navigation | Unknown Tables

Have you ever wondered why when you open a record from the sys_hub_flow table, the Flow Designer is started? The reason is a corresponding navigation handler (table sys_navigator). You can also define your own navigation handler here, for example to ensure that a workspace for your custom table is always opened instead of the standard form view.

Implementation | Flow Designer

The number of your Flows is growing rapidly and you no longer know exactly which business logic was implemented where? While a search via my favourite table sys_metadata does not help here, you may find what you are looking for in the "Payload" field from the sys_update_xml table. Reason: For transferring Flows to another instances they are serialized completely to a readable version.

Development | Email Notifications | Unknown APIs

If you want to extract the watermark of an email you can use the following API method

GlideEmailWatermark().parseMessageNumber();

Development | Unknown APIs

There is a global API ChoiceList() (unfortunately not invokeable from scoped apps) for dealing with choice list values. With its help you can translate choice labels to values and vice versa.

If you want to debug your ACLs and only see ACL log statements which are related to refusing access to user, you can invoke from "Scripts - Background":

GlideSessionDebug.enable("security_refuse");

The same you can do if you want to see only ACL log statements which are related to granting access to user:

GlideSessionDebug.enable("security_grant");

if transactions are running in background, you can print ACL logs to node log file by:

GlideSessionDebug.enable("security_refuse, true");

GlideSessionDebug.enable("security_grant, true");

Due to a JavaScript error in a global UI Script I created, I could no longer log into my instance. After my heart started beating again, I feverishly searched for a solution. Deactivating the UI Script via table API fails because of the configured MFA. Fortunately, the browser plugin "Adblock Plus" offers the option to block the loading of individual files.

Customer Service Managemenr | Security

I know that not all customers are happy with the fact that additional records (e.g. Incidents or Catalog Requests) are created from a CSM case, but are not visible to the requester. For this reason, ServiceNow has published a document describing how to grant read access to these records to external users by modifying the ACLs. You can download it from the Now Create portal.

> ITSM Entities: Giving External View Permission in CSM

Development | Unknown APIs

GlideTransaction.get().getRequest().getRequestURL()

you can retrieve the current ServiceNow URL in a server-side script. That way you have a chance to identify in which experience (backoffice, workspace, service portal, etc.) the user is. Useful for example in UI Actions.

Security | Activity Stream | Unknown Tables

What I love about ServiceNow is that every time I think I know everything about a topic, I come across an unknown fact. For example, I didn't realize that the visibility of emails in the activity stream is also controlled by the email_access_restriction table.

> Control visibility to email records generated by notifications

Imploementation | Flow Designer | Inbound Email Trigger

I was suprised to see that OOTB you can only have one inbound email Flow in ServiceNow. However, if you need more than one (for example, for different tables), you need to set the system property glide.hub.flow.inbound_email_trigger.show_advanced to "true".

> Allow multiple triggers to process an inbound email

During the CTA training, we talked a lot about ServiceNow's capability map, and I was already asked where to get a PPT version for usage in the own presentations. Those who do not have access to the Partner Portal can download it from the Now Create Portal: ServiceNow Capability Map

Implementation | Flow Designer

If you want to be able to select sys_* tables at Flow Designer, I want to provide the right answer: You have to extend the System Property glide.ui.permitted_tables by the respective table names.

> KB0852462

Administration | Database

If you want to add a new column to a table within CMDB which already has many millions of CIs, you should do this via the Form Designer. The difference to approaches like Class Manager or Dictionary is that the Form Designer performs the changes in the background, and you can observe the progress. In addition, your session is not blocked, which allows you to continue working in parallel.

Development | Unknown APIs

In high performance scenarios where the load is distributed across multiple application nodes, it might be important to know on which node exactly the log output was written. For this, you can use the following function which will return the node ID:

GlideServlet.getSystemID();

Administration | View Rules

View Rules are driving me crazy. Articles KB0686741 and KB0719228 explain, why they not really work. But fortunately there is a system property glide.ui.remember_view you have to set to "false". After that, they work like a charm.

If you need the user's IP address - for example for any kind of validations - you can leverage the following server-side API invocation (also see KB0861180)

GlideTransaction.get().getRemoteAddr()

Nice gimmick: By using the URL parameter sysparm_use_polaris=false you can combine the header bar of the "Next Experience" (Polaris) with UI16 content.

For the delicate topic "Customization vs. Configuration" there is a public Support Article (KB0553407). However, by chance I came across another protected Support Article that discusses this topic in more detail. As this article is only reachable after login at the support portal, I have attached it here

> Customization vs. Configuration

Administration | Maintenance & Monitoring | Unknown Tables

If you want to monitor the health of your ServiceNow instance, you should regularly check the table diagnostic_event and configure an email notification for inserted records with "Severity" = "Error".

Development | Data Security

Sometimes it is necessary to generate masses of artificial data that make no sense but are necessary for testing. Here the following API method can help, which expects the length of the string to be generated as the only parameter.

Customer Service Managment

There was an interesting Community question on how to get all cases for all accounts of the same hierarchy (for example "Boxeo" & all of it's subsidiaries). The solution is using the "Account Path" field of the "Account" table. As it is a String field, you can look up there with a "starts with" operator and the "Account Path" of the parent Account:

Integration Hub | Unknown Tables

You want to know how many transactions via the Integration Hub have been performed?

Go to Dashboard "IntegrationHub usage" or open table ua_ih_usage.

Development | Unknown APIs

You want to verify whether a table exists with just a one-liner?

Use one of these two methods:

new GlideRecord('incident').isValid();

gs.tableExists("incident");

I find it exciting that I can discover something new in the ServiceNow universe every day. Recently I came across the snc_read_only role which, along with other roles (e.g. admin or itil, provides some interesting cases to address.

A simple and undocumented timezone converter in server-side scripts:

var strConvertedDateTime =

  new GlideScheduleDateTime("2022-03-03 06:30:00").convertTimeZone("CET", "IST");

var gdtConvertedDateTime = new GlideDateTime(strConvertedDateTime);

gs.info(gdtConvertedDateTime);

The following support article helped me to really understand the difference between "table per hierarchy" and "table per class" model. And also interesting to me is the automatic model switch when task table has more than 1 million record.

> Understanding Storage Aliasing for Task

Development | Unknown APIs

If you want to check in a condition field whether a table field exists, you can use the isValidField() function of the GlideRecord API:

new GlideRecord('incident').isValidField('number')

Maybe you already know this, but you can reduce a Script Include to just one method. And if the method name is the same as the Script Include, you can call it without the new operator:

getValue();

new ScriptIncludeName().getValue();

Dashboards | Interactive Filters

You want to know in which Dashboards your Interactive Filters are used?Open Interactive Filter record, "Launch Dependency Assessment" and then select "Show used by" option for the respective tile on the Assessment Board:

Did you notice all the new indicators when impersonating a user in San Diego's New Experience?

• Red bar at the top
• Red circle around the avatar image
• Eye icon in the upper right corner of the avatar image
• Hint "Impersonating User"

Development | Unknown APIs

You want to annoy your colleagues? Then execute the following code line in a background script console from time to time:

GlideSessions.lockOutSessionsInAllNodes('')

Subscription & License Management | Custom Tables

As I come across questions regarding custom tables from time to time, I want to provide an extracted Knowledge Article from the Support Portal. This article is quite detailed and should answer all questions.

> KB0997373

If you ever wanted to know where your ServiceNow favorites are stored, go to table sys_ui_bookmark. And be careful: as this table is not audited OOTB, a deleted favorite is gone forever!

Would you like to have a kind of "Save as Draft" button without the need to fill out mandatory fields?Enter "sysverb_cancel" at UI Action field "Action name". And the following screenshot reveals another trick:

current.update();

can also create new records!

Would you like to know by which record producer your record (e.g. Incident) has been created?

Go to table sc_item_produced_record.

Do you also find it annoying that in email notifications, all recipients are listed in the TO field and thus are visible to each other?

Set the system property glide.email.smtp.max_recipients to "1" and for each recipient an individual email will be created.

But keep in mind, that this is a system-wide setting which applies to all notifications!

You are entering a ServiceNow project, and you'd to know when the customer instance that has been running for years was originally provisioned?

Check creation data of system property instance_name.

Subscription & License Management | Unknown Tables

For your ServiceNow license optimization, you want to know which user has accessed which application?

Go to table ua_app_usage and start building reports. Interesting columns: "Access Count" & "Fulfillment Count":

Subscription & License Management | Unknown Tables

You want to know whether a ServiceNow role is licensed or not?

Go to table license_role and check column "Role Type". Pretty much everything except "Requester" consumes any kind of license.

Development | Unknown APIs

Do you already know the undocumented ServiceNow API GlideStopWatch? With it, you can easily measure the execution time of code running on the server side.

If you need some inspiration about what's possible in ServiceNow, you should check out that Innovations Portal:

> ServiceNow Innovations

Looking for a way to search fully and truly across all configuration data in ServiceNow?

Run a keyword search in the sys_metadata table and additional consider using wildcards (also see KB0692729)

You want to know which users are logged in to your ServiceNow instance?Don't go to the "Logged in users" module, as this displays users for your current node only.

Instead, search at table sys_user_session for "name != null AND invalidated=NULL".

You would like to know how much space the database in your ServiceNow instance has? Enter the following command in the Scripts console:

gs.info(  SNC.UsageAnalyticsScriptUtils.getCount(    'Primary DB size (MB)',     'Primary DB size of this instance (in MB)'  )

);

Opening a table with several million entries takes too long?

Add URL parameter "sysparm_filter_only=true" to stop initial load. Define now your filter to narrow down the results. The same can be achieved by entering a table name, a dot and "filter" into the application navigator, for example incident.filter

Development | Unknown APIs

In the Community users often ask how to remove the tags from HTML content. And that's the (undocumented) answer:

new GlideSPScriptable().stripHTML(yourHtmlStr);

You want to offer your Service Portal to end users (not logged-in!) in a different language (let's say German) than your system language (hopefully English) is?

Then set the field preferred_language of the guest user to that language.

Fun fact: The Sys ID of the "Default view" record at ServiceNow table sys_ui_view is not the well-known 32-characters long text but "Default view":

Did you know that it is possible to sort a grouped list view by the number of rows per group in your ServiceNow instance? Just append one of the two parameters to the URL:

&sysparm_group_sort=COUNT

&sysparm_group_sort=COUNTDESC

Have you ever been annoyed by being redirected to the mobile web UI when accessing your ServiceNow instance with a mobile device? If this is the case, you should clear the following three properties, and you will be offered the desktop version on your mobile browser:

glide.ui.m_agents

glide.ui.mobile_agents

glide.ui.tablet_agents

After answering the same question several times in the Community now, I would like to point out that since 13.08.21 basic authentication (username + password) is no longer supported in GitHub. Instead, a personal access token has to be created and used. Currently, the use of basic authentication unfortunately leads to the situation that the users who want to fork a GitHub repository in the Developer Portal for the exercises, get "strange" error messages in the ServiceNow Studio.

> Token authentication requirements for Git operations