[Music] hello and welcome to the service Ducks podcast I home co-host James Downes and I'm Rush here and we're here to chat about all things servicenow everyday life as a servicenow consultant new features implementation successes and perhaps more entertaining when it doesn't go quite so well hello and welcome back to another episode of The Sims Ducks podcast so in today's episode it's gonna be a bit different in a couple of um different ways if that makes any sense at all but we've gone we've gone for video we're going to try this we're going to give it a shot we've tried a few different um applications this is one we're settling on there's a bit of a test run um so we're giving it a shot so bear with us on that one the other um elephant in the room and perhaps that's Bala should really say that but you're a very nice um James uh other co-host is not with us today and that's purely because it you know what it's like in the service now industry we've got projects on the go left right and Center he's just a bit swamped at the at the minute and couldn't make out regular recording schedule but fear not we have a worthy replacement that's not fair actually and can't reply James to be fair sorry mate um we've got I don't know what to call you a guest or a guest host what do you want I'll I'll be a guest host for the day we'll forget so so yeah we're going forward so we've got a guest house in the form of Harry Campbell so just a brief so Harry is a um technical consultant senior technical consultant at a well-known UK um partner in fact come on let's name it Fly form that's a pound in the square yard just just to keep you up to speed there Harry so every time we mention the part though we built pain and swear y'all it's #just for fun right please don't write in and start mailing other people um so anyway Haley's joining us senior technical Don he's gonna talk to us just about how he got where he is um perhaps give us some insights into if you're just joining the industry um there might be some little Snippets you can take from Harry on how he got to where he got to and what Journey he's made um and then towards the end we're going to do he does know this it's not a surprise the alphabet challenge um which if you haven't heard that or know what it is it's we did it on a Christmas episode me and James failed completely miserably so this is Harry's opportunity to get to the top of the leaderboard and he does have the advantage that I used him as a guinea pig to try this act for Christmas so he does know what it's all about um he's played it a couple of times but not on the record so if he fails now or gets over seven minutes then the the mocking will ensue right it's fair game uh yeah I'll give you that it's fair game but I'm not gonna do it it's definitely not so um enough waffle from me uh let's do it let's talk about you right what are you currently working on give us so you've got no name customers what are you currently doing okay that's fine uh I have just actually finished a project um that's been going on for the last couple of months for field service management which has been lovely to get into so yeah I knew something something fun to work with um [Music] sorry mate did you do Dynamic routine Dynamic scheduling I did I did it it works very nice it was it was only a simple um implementation of dynamic scheduling um but it was nice to see it all working it was one of those that we didn't actually really know whether it was going to work until it got put into live and you had you know 100 different users in the mix using it um but it did yeah it worked really well yeah that's good is that based on location or skills or bro you have to help me out here yeah it was based on location it can be on skills as well um I think for the customer it was for I think the skills will come a bit further down the line but as an initial initial you know trial period I guess it was just location and I actually I had to spend quite a bit of time driving around leads to make sure geolocation was working um it was uh yeah it was a lot of fun definitely something different to get my teeth into yeah that's that's absolutely your age one thing I like as well field service is there rather than one thing I always like to know right is there something that if if you add like an open phone with service now they said come on Harry tell us about field service what did you think what would you change is there anything that really annoyed you that you just go I wanted to do that um do you know that it's not necessarily something to do with field service management itself but one thing I did come across and this is more to do with learning about field service management the um the field service management learning courses are great and it tells you how to configure it and things like that um that's on now learning right that yes that's now an idiot yeah so service now put in a lot of Errors for various different scenarios you know if there's something wrong with the config or if when you're assigning if if it can't find the right people it fires errors are here but they have they have a catch or a catch-all error which is something went wrong please rerun and then you end up digging into thousands and thousands of lines of code nested scripts includes all over the place and you you have no idea what's going on and I feel like they maybe should have touched a bit more on how it's all put together in their learning courses but other than that I think it's great I think it works brilliant that's always the way they're in it in now learning it's like look at the house path how everything works and that to be fair like you know there is usually a couple of slides isn't there's like troubleshooting um yeah but it does sound it'd be nice if there was a better error than just something's gone wrong it's my favorite school so I was gonna say it's one of those um it's one of those things where it was something went wrong but they have an option when you're when you're configuring Dynamic scheduling to check the config to check that it's all okay and it says it's all absolutely fine there's nothing wrong there's nothing wrong with it so I spent a good couple of days doing that and debugging it and I ended up admitting defeat raising a servicenow support case and within 30 seconds of me raising the support case I managed to find the issue and fix it which is awesome that way well I know what you're gonna say I am that's why I'm here and so that's what you're working with in a minute um so let's let's take you back on a journey um that God wrote with you before right so I it's not like I I found you on LinkedIn and went oh hang on do you fancy stepping in for James um I worked with you before a couple of times right I I work with you from a customer point of view um where we had an interesting project over a week um and then I've worked with you um in a technical capacity isn't it oh am I um so I've known you um for quite a bit but just just take us back to where we're opening up that's what that means Okay so yeah very helpful so we'll go back to 2013. um I was at the time I will give you right at next I will give you minus 10 seconds which is a good thing on the Alphabet game eight of you can tell me what instance of service now was out in 2013. Dublin I I don't know by the way um I'm guessing it was I I think it was Dublin if it wasn't Dublin then they moved to Dublin early 2014. well we'll we'll take a word for it I I will check at some point but we'll we'll go with that and uh okay I want to write in take the time out there precious busy scheduled to email us in to tell us um please do so and they'll save me yeah looking up anyway we're back in 2013 you can see yeah we're back in 2013 I was a school caretaker it was my job to clean up after messy children and put a school back together um for our American listeners that is a School Janitor like the jealous yeah oh well no more of a groundskeeper let's call me groundskeeper Willie yeah grounds and I had always wanted to move into I'd always wanted to move into I.T um yeah all I wanted was a job on a service desk and I must have applied for a hundred different service desk jobs and got turned turned away from all of them because I didn't have 10 years experience which if you're looking for us if you're looking for a service desk job um and you've got 10 years experience then there's something wrong if you ask me but uh yes so I started on a service desk at spend on the End customer um and I happen to get out of that next to that that's where a lot of people you know on the service death yeah yeah um that's where I started and I happened to get sat next to the service now developer for that company they only had one um somebody that we both know actually Mr James Booth yeah I kind of took an interest in what he was doing um you know it looked kind of fun I had a bit of experience building websites fun websites for Leeds United when I was when I was a kid and and he was kind of showing me showing me the Rope showing me the kind of things he was doing but then a month later he decided to leave and our head of Service delivery that I've said oh you look like you're interested Harry hey service now you look after that for us um and then here I am seven nearly eight years later and I spent a lot of time working for customers but how did you find you'll have to do um I think what we'll have to do like again I I will just reiterate this is that first time using the video I think right but I think what we'll have to do is that's different and maybe it's just me if you pause after each sentence then I can ask you a question because it's quite a lag I think I don't know what it'll be like on the end it will seems like but we'll go with that okay so after that uh short hip intermood ironic that I already just say how much there was a lag and um I don't know whether you'll notice is this in the edit because I'll do my bets but Harry just completely dropped out so let's just rewind I think I just asked you um to yeah no this is where we were how did you find the transition from service desk and user facing yes let me help you reboot your PC kind of thing until you get involved with servicenow potentially because we didn't have um back then in 2013 we didn't have the um the low code options right so it was a lot of potential scripted so how did you find this transition uh so it was it wasn't much of a transition from one to the other because our Gallop did a dual rule for two or three years uh yeah but the servicenow community helped me a lot I and Google as well stack overflow yeah coming into the industry that's what we call chat GPT [Music] I did find it difficult at first but once I got my head around the scripting um and glide record and knew what that could do that's when all the nuts and bolts died fitting together for me and it really took off and I kind of realized servicenow can do anything that I wanted to do um but yeah I was pretty much self-taught over all that time I didn't do my first certification until I was until it was 2018 I think um yeah but yeah it was it was difficult but it did soon take off once I'd realized what it was doing one of the one of the key things I'm hearing right is we've already mentioned today or you've mentioned um in terms of you use narrow learning field service but one of the issues that you found was it didn't really explain much around the detail configuration in terms of the troubleshooting right um and then we've also mentioned around the scripting once I get my ad Ryan scripting and I remember when I was doing courses like development and um fundamentals and all the other stuff that they charge you and all they're like well no let's add in the night as we always say speak to your camera if you'd like to know what um but they don't really go too much into the scripture right so he's there's a lot of it that's like community-led slash self tool and I think the key and I'm getting there I ramble you'll learn to know this the key is go and do stuff you can learn as much as you like on there and everything watching YouTube videos there are some great YouTube channels out there by the way just hinting hint we um well unless you can get yourself put some isn't it unless you get yourself Hands-On doing stuff that's that's where you could really learn it right um yes absolutely and I like that I had a similar experience with you and I think another key takeaway is you're going to if you're working for a customer or you say you run a customer at the time but if you're working for an England customer you've got that opportunity to play the moccas right do you think that's different yeah do you think you would have had a different path if you didn't do the server status bit first and didn't work for the customer birth you came in straight as a partner you know what I mean if you came straight out of beauty or um B and Q I don't know um and decided I'm going to do service now do you think it would be a different experience do you think it'd be trickier what do you think yeah it would have been it would have been a lot different and I think it would have been trickier because I did I did I did get to spend a lot of time I guess looking under the hood and tinkering with things playing with things where you probably won't you don't get that opportunity if you're going straight to a partner because you have to do things the right way um yeah you don't want you don't want to be tinkering with with customer instances you need to be doing things that the proper way uh yeah definitely helped what's the old saying I'm gonna not do a self-assurancy what's the old saying that Edison maybe he didn't didn't find out a thousand ways he found a thousand ways how not to make a light bulb lady one way to make it work right um and Europe you like that didn't it I've got loads of those three if Jane was here he would have researched it all and he just sits there on his computer reading oh yeah the point being I guess the point is is you're breaking stuff to see what works and that's how a lot of people look so yeah yeah so that's how I learn and I think a lot of people are saying there are some people who can just sit and look through look through documents and take it all in but it it makes me switch off yeah yeah there's different learning styles isn't it there's like four different learning styles but I'm I'm absolutely with you um in terms of getting my let's just get my hands on there and have a look um so that takes you up to your um experience with well-known brand as a customer so then what led you to down to the doctor what what made you move over towards um I was gonna say partnership but that's probably wrong in it well for consultancy so one thing working on the customer side is great because you get to have this technical ownership and as we said he gets Tinker around a lot but you do find it goes quite stale because the the customer that you're working for they will probably at some point everything that they want to do they've done in series now and then you'll find yourself just keeping the lights on and that happened to me two or two or three times so I thought right next step in my career is to look at the consultancy room then you know I've been working on different projects all the time and it'll be all happy and I'm glad to say it is um yeah I was approached by approached by a recruitment agent in uh 2020. you could you can say you can say I was Headhunter we could say that I was out I was head hunted um well you'll know anybody who has the word service now in their in their LinkedIn profile will get a phone call from a recruitment agent every other day um and to be honest I batted them off for a long time but I thought no let's let's listen to this one um and then I think I applied for three jobs at the time I got offered all three at three different partners and then uh I picked the best one for me which was fly Farm wait so when you were um head Hunted anyone was listening it's not really right um we're just having a laugh a sorry Gary that's all right that's all right when you were like um approached by recruit maidens and offered um three different roles do you think you offered the different roles because of the experience that you've got literal mold so I think I already know the answer more so to do with the attitude that you're approaching and it doesn't matter uh to realize I think it's it's a it's a mix of both I think he's probably weighted more towards the attitude because you see it partly you get people of varying skill levels coming there's juniors seniors um and whatnot um it's probably in most part because of the amount of work that all the partners have got on at the moment they need to get bodies through the doll and you know their service now in the last couple of years I think I think since Bill McDermott Has Come On To be honest uh I think it's just exploded and um the amount of work was just you're welcome to the rise up program isn't there where they're looking to get and being in um people into the industry in the next uh well it was next 12 months but it's by 2024. uh and that's a lot of people and I I think I I think and the reason I have started is because that's a lot of people to to get trained up but then when you're being approached by if you're one of those people being approached by a recruitment agent or even being interviewed uh for a role you can't base it on servicenow experience because you know the ones that you know we know will um in the world you won't have any but you will have previous experience um of other Industries and perhaps the attitude to learn and progress and the hunger to want to do things better and bigger and and serve the customer uh which I guess is why I asked if you're what I mean um because I do I you know I sit here and I think how is the industry going to look at the end of the year um you know and what opportunities are going to be there yeah so and yeah the stuff might rise up there's the next gen program as well which I've added a talk to a group of University students uh two weeks ago um about what like what life is like as a technical consultant and how I got here very much the same as what we're talking about now and yeah but they're gonna be the same they don't have much service style experience but they're all going to be looking to be joining Partners that's um how did that talk go was that was that kind of um hey how do you rethink your grade come and talk to um some people that want to go to the industry um well it wasn't a hey however we think you're great it's just you know being down this route you've you've you you you're you're you're at a partner you're working for a partner can you give some people some insight on what it's like and how and how you got here what your journey was like um and it it was good to talk to him it was really nice to talk to him all and I think we've got a few people that came out of that enlightened and looking forward to joining the ecore system did you have a few that just didn't turn up again to the next day I don't think so why would that they will obviously want to come back so we've gone they got it just before um because I'm conscious of time now we've got to get the Alphabet game because that's um realistically what everyone's tuning me for right they want to see you fail miserably at the out sorry but what insights did you give them there what what tips did you give them anyone on the next gen program that's coming into the industry doesn't have to be next gen it could be anyone that's just seen service now on a signpost and build a fancy a bit of that what tips did you give them I think you've already alluded to a couple um it would be interesting so the the one tip that I gave people was to get themselves involved in the community and um it's you know back when back when we started there wasn't much of a community out there apart from the servicenow community website but now there are YouTube channels forums there are there's a Reddit page and Discord channels there's there's a multitude of things out there for you to get involved in um as a service now developer yeah YouTube channels and podcasts um but yeah get yourself involved in the community and it's uh it's a good group of people and you'll learn a lot um something James and I mentioned um the other week is that yeah I think you're right Community back in 2013 or even going back as pre-pre-code Community was really book service that community but nag community means a wider scope of things right uh LinkedIn Twitter um why what's up LinkedIn Twitter Youtube podcasts even though it's tick tock sometimes right yeah um encompasses all the meetups that's another one that's happening this week on Thursday in London um but it comes to a lot of things and what so what does get involved make what does it get involved does it be read does it means actively participate does it mean yeah I know a few drinks what is it well all of the above all of the above um you know well today I have been on the the SN Dev slack I've answered a couple of questions that people have had it's and it's not always or I know the answer I will give them the answer it's just maybe helping people pointing them in the right direction giving them your Insight just chatting to people and getting to know people it's not going to be not only going to be good for your learning it'll be good for your career as well because you're going to make these connections across the ecosystem uh yeah so yeah get out there and talk to people yeah and I think I think that's a really valuable point and I think that's one um that we'll leave with a thing I think we'll we'll end with that point um because I think it's really important so let's play a game it's been a pleasure having you on this is the part no no we go through the game and you cease to become a friend because he's going to get competitive right okay okay share the screen we are using new bit of software uh so it might be laggy I'm gonna set the timer on my phone actually I'm gonna overlay it with some um some cool feature of some description Go music with some dramatic music yeah so Hangouts let's yeah we'll be some dramatic music showing and I'll do that we'll happen if I do that hey now you know we're advancing into the future right so let me explain the concept of the game the concept of the gay is we've got every lecture of the alphabet on the screen so we're gonna start to a obviously zoomed in on your face and it was dramatic but for every left of the alphabet you have to name a phrase or a term or a word that is related to service now I am the judge of the jury right so there is no cheating the game it's whatever I say goes it's my game if you you can pass on any letter if you pass on a letter I'm going to add add 10 seconds to your overall time and let me let me just explain is how quickly you go to the outfit right if you perhaps on a letter I had 10 seconds at the time if you say something that I think's wrong or I just don't like because I'm not in the mood for it again you get 10 seconds out into your time if I carry you have to work very very hard to get a good time um and the other one is you're not allowed to use servicenow versions okay speaking of Legends for 10 seconds from from other from my version earlier 2013 Calgary maybe Dublin uh yeah okay we'll leave that at the end we'll do that again okay well remember but okay there is there is there is a I'm gonna call it a double points letter right if you can get something for the letter Y yeah I'll remove 10 seconds from your overall time and the trick is not to start thinking about it now because all the other letters before that will get trickier because you'll just be thinking about that why constantly and it won't leave me Brian possibly think of anything else okay so just don't do that whatever you do don't think about the letter Y 'all ready you're not thinking about it are you yeah yeah nothing about why [Laughter] are You Ready set go I'm ready I'm ready we're going okay okay [Music] um it works best thing business rule see catalog item deep uh oh [Music] um I will Replay Music data pill s you can have it come on okay uh right okay yeah um isn't it funny when you got small kid do you just say everything in bollocks eh eccq yeah go on good one don't think about the letter Y by the way eh stop stop floor designer go uh Glide record yep economic H but Harry um [Music] Hardware Asset Management yeah yeah you can have it all right okay [Music] um integration hub good one Jay easy one Nick don't think about why oh whatever you do jelly jelly okay we're at one minute 36. okay come where you lost time last time and you started passing pass oh um list control yes you're pleased with yourself on that one I'll notice and I am yeah yeah mid-server mid server and next experience well done did you say floor by the way floor designer that's a really bad accent sorry [Music] but no stop taking up my time all the guide hey you've only passed on one so far I should make it like um he wants to be really nice then you could have different lives you could phone a friend EDI personal developer instance I'm still waiting for my PDI seven days later it's painful Q Quick tip for you if you want one get a lab instance my quick tip doesn't work um uh pass what was the quick tip by the way oh get get a lab instance instead of a PDI if you can't oh yeah I did put that on my LinkedIn post just for fun oh rest API Explorer ants yeah well service nerdy uh yeah it's just gonna be they've got to be some uh service portal T um TTT uh transform map you uh UI action the they they virtual agent virtual agent w getting on some difficult woman that workflow work floor X you're nearly at five minutes oh x x um XML XML double pointer here it is oh I bet this this sets the cat amongst the pigeons as they say okay there's a phrase you know here often you can pass or you can't deny a bit of time by just hanging around here or thinking about those double points pass he's gonna pass Zed Zed boot all right we'll stop the clock or zeboot be American listeners no so there was a path in there where I have to edit out so let's take out 10 seconds for that so that gives you 5 23. what they've got 10 seconds from getting the 2013 version let's just pretend you got that right I've got no idea but I'll give you the benefit of that so at 5 13. okay by 13 plus three passes 23 33 43 you end with the time of 5 43. I'm taking that well that puts you firmly in top spot oh you need um you need like a Top Gear star in a reasonable price reasonably priced car listing put my name on it on the top no yeah 543 you are the top spot if you think you can not carry off the top spot with that just for fun game please it's not too serious don't email it's in um but do email the same if you want to play the game and uh get your name and not Harry off the top spot anyway so if there's anything um that you want us to discuss or if you want to appear as a guest on the next episode of the service Ducks podcast then drop a set an email to talk to the duck at serviceviperducks.com but until then Harry had been an absolute pleasure um we'll both certainly have you on again but until next time I've been rocks I've been Harry and this service dog that's all for today's podcast thank you for listening and if you want to get your question answered by the service Ducks get in touch through talk to the doc at service hyphandux.com or just use one of the links below [Music] thank you [Music]