ServiceNow Tutorial

ServiceNow is a cloud based platform, which was mainly developed for workflow and process automation as per the ITIL principles. However, it is highly customisable and also can be used for other purposes. ServiceNow is an American based company and was founded in 2004 by Fred Luddy. It has a unique way for naming its versions. They name the versions based on the major cities of the world. The latest version of ServiceNow is Orlando.

ServiceNow offers many ready to use solutions, workflows and products for an organisation. The organisation can develop the customised applications and modules as per the business requirement using the ServiceNow scripting and existing tools.

Services of ServiceNow

Some of the important offerings and most widely used services of ServiceNow Tutorial are explained below −

IT Service management

ServiceNow is mainly used as a ticketing tool to manage incidents, problems and changes. It has many advanced features, analytics and insights that impacts the speed and delivery of IT.

HR management

ServiceNow can be used for almost all HR delivery services like leave management, timesheet management, employee document management, new onboarding management, performance management, etc.

IT Asset management

With ServiceNow, we can manage our hardware and software assets to optimise cost and increase efficiency. ServiceNow has features such as licence management, warranty management, CI management, advanced reporting and insights, etc.

Finance operation management

ServiceNow manages all the activities related to finance close and automates the financial processes.

Apart from offerings mentioned above, ServiceNow also offers services for IT business management, security operations, virtual chatbots, etc.

ServiceNow is built using Java and Tomcat web server running on Linux. Although to develop new modules and applications in ServiceNow the JavaScript knowledge is sufficient.

ServiceNow Instance

A ServiceNow instance is a set of databases, applications, virtual machines, libraries grouped together to provide the required services to a specific customer. ServiceNow customer instance is built on multi-instance architecture.

The figure given below shows multi-instance architecture −

ServiceNow Instance

The important point to note here is that, each customer has a separate customised application(s) along with separate database(s) running on shared hardware resources. The customer data is encrypted and therefore, is completely secure. The deployment of ServiceNow is very flexible and it can also be implemented in a private cloud.

ServiceNow also offers developer instance, which is a community edition free of cost. ServiceNow developer instance was launched, to promote the use of ServiceNow and to provide the resources, so that the developers/administrators can learn, build, enhance and customise the applications in ServiceNow.

Banner frame

The banner frame has a logo, setting options, user profile, global search bar, and option to toggle between conversation and help in the right side bar.

Application navigator

The Application navigator allows us to browse through all the applications and modules under the applications. We can give the name of application or module in the navigation filter and ServiceNow will automatically show us all the matching applications and modules.

For example, “Incident” is an application in service now and “Create new” is a module under it, using which, we can create a new incident. Similarly, “Open” is another module inside incident application, which will list all the open incidents.

ServiceNow provides an option to add applications or modules as favourite by clicking in the star at the side. This is very helpful in navigating our favourite applications or modules easily.

ServiceNow Management

Sidebar

The sidebar is not provided by default. The user has to activate it from the banner frame. The sidebar can either display the conversations or the help options. Using the conversation feature, we can chat with fellow colleagues and browse through chat history. The Help option allows us, to refer to the support articles which are added by administrators.

ServiceNow Sidebar

Content frame

The content frame is the centre part of ServiceNow portal, which lists the entire content of applications and modules. This also contains the centralised menu of the applications, which are important from the administration point of view. Below, are the samples of content frame displaying centralised menu and displaying content of the open module in incident application.

Content Frame