Custom Applications

Wherefore Architecture?

By Greg Mest June 12, 2024Architecture, Configuration, Custom Applications, Customization, Design, Platform, UpgradesNo Comments

If ServiceNow is built to support Citizen developers, why do we need ServiceNow architects? “Thinking about design is hard, but not thinking about it can be disastrous.” - Ralph Caplan Introduction For almost 14 years in the ServiceNow space, and across a rapid expansion of the exosystem, it has been interesting to observe and analyze various organization’s approaches to developing and maintaining their ServiceNow environment. Specifically, how do organizations manage the inflow of business needs, the distribution and velocity of development, configuration and administrative work, and the ongoing maintenance of the platform? As the footprint of ServiceNow has expanded conjunctionally…

It’s the Platform, Stupid* (Part 2)

By Greg Mest February 20, 2024PlatformNo Comments

* - A play on the famous James Carville quote about the economy, not implying that ServiceNow folks are stupid It’s been a few years since I wrote Part 1 of this article, going through the history and evolution of the ServiceNow platform, and the morphing of the company strategy from platform to product. After working with multiple clients in the meantime, and reading lots of new marketing and going through many platform release upgrades, I thought it time to revisit the subject with new perspective and analysis. A quick recap: In the early 2000s, ServiceNow (nee “Glide”) was envisioned…

The Three Ws of Development

By Greg Mest January 3, 2022Architecture, Configuration, Custom Applications, Customization, Design, PlatformNo Comments

Where, When and Why you should do your development In journalism, there’s the concept of the Five W questions whose answers are fundamental to getting the information needed: Who What When Where Why I want to talk about what I call the “Three Ws of Development” in the ServiceNow realm. These three are: When, Where and Why. We’re going to skip the questions “Who” and “What”. Why? Because “who” is a question for hiring managers, recruiting, and resource vetting. And “what” is (too often) the focus of most if not all training and documentation. Do you need to get the…

A Good Leader Fears the Citizenry

By Greg Mest December 2, 2021Architecture, Custom Applications, Design, Platform, UpgradesNo Comments

“a camel is a horse designed by a committee” - Proverb Over the past few years, there’s been a movement in the business world to espouse the concept of “citizen development”. Gartner defines a citizen developer in this way: A citizen developer is an employee who creates application capabilities for consumption by themselves or others, using tools that are not actively forbidden by IT or business units. A citizen developer is a persona, not a title or targeted role. They report to a business unit or function other than IT. Gartner: Definition of Citizen Developer ServiceNow has espoused this concept…

To Scope or Not to Scope

By Greg Mest October 2, 2021Custom Applications, PlatformNo Comments

ServiceNow introduced the concept of Scoped Applications in the Fuji release. From their documentation: Application scoping protects applications by identifying and restricting access to application files and data. By default, all custom applications have a private scope that uniquely identifies them and their associated artifacts with a namespace identifier. The application scope prevents naming conflicts and allows the contextual development environment to determine what changes, if any, are permitted. Source: Application scope Each ServiceNow application has an application scope that determines which of its resources are available to other parts of the system. Application scoping ensures that one application does…

Breaking the Code – Designing for Configurable Maintenance

By Greg Mest July 7, 2021PlatformNo Comments

ServiceNow is nothing if not flexible. It certainly gives you options for achieving your business and development goals; some of these are obvious and well documented, and some feel like they’re on the “secret menu” for the die-hards only. Regardless, ServiceNow was designed as a flexible platform. Over the years I’ve seen this flexibility used in a myriad of ways, some really clever and some head-scratchers. Most fall somewhere in the middle. It’s also been the impetus for the rise of good and best practices, from tribal hearsay to attempted codification. But one thing I feel strongly about is using…

The Misconceptions of Upgradeability

By Greg Mest June 1, 2021PlatformNo Comments

The Blob is a 1958 American science fiction horror film whose storyline concerns a growing, alien amoeboid entity that comes to Earth from outer space inside a meteorite. It devours and dissolves citizens in small Pennsylvania communities as it grows larger, redder, and more aggressive each time it does so, eventually becoming larger than a building. In recent years in the ServiceNow ecosystem, one of the topics that has taken on a “blob-like” existence is upgradeability: the ability to perform an upgrade to the next ServiceNow release, how long it takes, how much it costs, how much remediation is required,…

It’s the Platform, Stupid*

By Greg Mest April 20, 2021Business Strategy, PlatformNo Comments

This is the one where I most run the risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon. However, I don’t think I’m wrong, and hopefully my explanation bears this out. * - A play on the famous James Carville quote about the economy, not implying that ServiceNow folks are stupid As many know, ServiceNow has been through 4 CEOs: Fred Luddy, Frank Slootman, John Donohoe, Bill McDermott; and as most know, Fred was the founder. Fred at his heart is a developer. (From Broke To Billionaire: How Fred Luddy Built The World’s Most Innovative Company) From Forbes: Luddy hit on a…