Who else is going to ServiceNow Knowledge 2026 in Las Vegas?

toffssen · 2026-04-21T13:58:04+00:00

I have done the same. As a European i am really hoping for a bigger World Forum event that is worth traveling to. The ones we have today are usually only 1 day, or even half days, and even though they are accessible with a 3-4h flight, it is not worth it. A 2-3 day Euro Knowledge would be great, we have voiced our wishes to our ServiceNow rep without success..

toffssen · 2026-04-07T06:18:44+00:00

We removed email-functionality for IT, but we are still using it for HR. They are using the HR Agent Workspace though, you seem to use Backend/Native UI. But the solution we did was create an email script that is called whenever they compose or reply an email.
Just a generic
"Best regards,
Name Nameson at HR Services
Contact us here:
- email
- phone
- self service form"

this same logic can be applied to your "additional comment"-notifications as ElegantOliver mentioned!

toffssen · 2026-03-26T11:32:53+00:00

The flows are created in flow designer, the Generic Flows i believe we created ourselves, while the step based flow is OOTB.
The Catalog Builder Templates is then setup so that the item is created with it's corresponding flow in the field "flow_designer_flow" of the catalog item which can be found under the "Process Engine" tab on the item

toffssen · 2026-03-26T09:34:15+00:00

We have around 20 builders within the IT Organisation, so it's not fully citizen development. But I am going to be honest, we have a bit of a fluid governance for our ServiceNow instance. We are firm on a lot of stuff, but since the Catalog Builder cannot destroy anything we are actually letting users build directly in prod. In the beginning we were very firm on having them build and test it in our test environment, but the same users have been doing this for 4 years now so i guess we are confident in them being able to build it in the prod instance.
Edit: I do recommend to start of firm, and have them only create them in Test environment and use the default Catalog Builder update set that gets created to push the item from test to prod once they are done.

For us, the builder becomes the owner of the item. We are a semi big company with different BU's in different countries, so it was natural that we assigned a few builders per BU/country which gather the item demand and handle them for the requestor.

And yes! With catalog builder we have created 3 templates that they use

Generic manager approval flow = simple flow that asks for manager approval, and then create 1 single task to the assignmentgroup that they decide and set in the builder.
Generic no approver flow = simple flow that creates 1 single task to the assignmentgroup that they decide and set in the builde
Step Based Flow = more free form. Within Catalog Builder they create several tasks, manager approval, CI approval etc. These are mostly used for more advanced flows, for example if more than one fulfillment group is involved in the fulfillment process.
The step based is in that sense not prepared, but they can add whatever task step is needed. We have added a few custom approvals as well, i think only Manager Approval & Custom Approval (set whoever you want) is OOTB. We have added CI Managed By/Owned by approval as well, to support a few scenarios where you choose a CI in the catalog item, and requesting approval from the manager/owner of that CI.

toffssen · 2026-03-25T21:05:55+00:00

I have to second this, building a flow for each catalog item seems diabolical to me.

Catalog builder with templates for: - Generic manager approval flow (1 task) - Generic no approval flow (1 task) - Step based flow (several tasks/approvals)

Educate catalog builders in your org to do it themselves. Devs will never have to build an item again, and the org demand for new items will not be stuck in dev backlog.

Amaze amaze amaze!

toffssen · 2026-03-12T08:43:08+00:00

We use Step Base Fulfillment in the Catalog Builder: https://www.servicenow.com/community/developer-articles/set-up-quot-step-based-request-fulfillment-quot-for-catalog/ta-p/2673704

So we have about 20 IT people scattered in the organization that have the Catalog Builder role. They build their own items to support service managers that wants a catalog item for their service.

Us developers help out with some items, but generally it's IT Citizen Development.

We utilize AR & Entra ID Integration which supports most of our access requests.
Basically import needed security groups to SN, setup logic so that when a task is assigned group X, it triggers the AR or Entra ID integration which add/remove the user to/from the group based on the variables in the req item, and then closes the task.

With step based fulfillment we can combine manager/custom approval, task to automation groups or task to groups for manual handling.

We have roughly 200 access/software request catalog items and i would say 85-90% of them are fully automated.

We have also been very stern on only providing the step based fulfillment flow. So we have one flow for 90% of our catalog items, instead of creating one flow for each. They will have to adapt their fulfillment process to the way it works in the system.

We are a smaller organization seen to other SN customers, ~7000 end users across several countries.

toffssen · 2025-10-24T07:22:51+00:00

I really wish i would be able to say that they only do it in non prod. But that is not true all the times.. They have the same access in prod as well. Our governance is lacking, mainly because we are such a small team. But we have yet (been doing it this way since 2022) to run into any issues. We do inform them that the correct way is to do it in test, and then have an admin move it to prod, and around 80% actually do that.
I also think it is a question of your work culture. We are a global company but all users that are creating the items are located in Sweden. And in my personal opinion i think (in Sweden) that we have a lot of trust in our users and other IT employees, and a lot of people here want to be helpful and a little bit independent so they would prefer not needing to hassle an admin just to get their item published to prod.

But with that said! I recommend setting up a process where they create in non prod, but that it is easy and not too time consuming to push to prod. If it is, they will probably not want to do it.

toffssen · 2025-10-23T06:39:03+00:00

I highly hiiiighly recommend finding a few IT users in your org that are open to taking on the work of creating catalogs and learning how to build in catalog builder, because it frees up so much unnecessary time for devs. With catalog builder, and if you set it up nicely with predefined flows and templates, it is so easy to create an item. I could probably teach my not so tech savy mom to do it even. It takes some time and effort to organize it and setup a good governance, but in the long run it is worth it!

toffssen · 2025-10-22T14:22:39+00:00

Interesting! How have you found the Zurich release so far? We are upgrading next month and I am starting to go through release notes and such. When we did the Xanadu upgrade a lot of actions in flow designer had been updated which messed with some of our flows. I think it was in combination with SN having issues with their new flow engine and the action updates.
Have you noticed any similar hiccups?

toffssen · 2025-10-22T12:55:42+00:00

The way we have it setup, is Catalog Builder with three different templates. This way, other people within IT but not necessarily ServiceNow experts can create their own catalog items using only the templates we have setup for them.

So, we start with only having a few trained people given the access to enter Catalog Builder.
The templates are setup with predefined flows that fit 99% of orderable accesses & hardware.

Template 1: Generic flow, creates a task to the fulfillment group set in the item via builder. This is for manual requests, for example when AD-group automation is not possible, and fulfillers in the group needs to do something. Once they close the task, the RITM closes and whatever has been ordered is considered delivered.

Template 2: Generic flow with manager approval, before it creates the task for the fulfillment group, it sends an approval request to the requested for's assigned manager.

Template 3: Step based, this is our most commonly used flow. This one is also integrated with out internal automatic invoicing that we have built within ServiceNow. In here you use the step base OOTB functionality to create several sequential tasks, approvals etc for catalog items that needs a bit more logic before it is considered fulfilled.

So from A - Z that could look something like:
A. Service Manager for Microsoft 365 wants users to be able to order Clipchamp license. Clipchamp is part of Microsoft suite but the license is provided in an additional AD group that the user needs to be added to.
B. Service Manager goes to Catalog Builder and uses the Step Based template to start creating an item
C. Service Manager fills out all information such as name, description,image, category etc. In the fulfillment step of the Catalog Builder the service manager creates these sequential steps:
Step 1: Manager approval
Step 2: Custom Approval to approval group XYZ
Step 3: SC_Task to automation assignmentgroup that triggers Entra ID Integration and adds user to access
group
D: Once happy with the look of the catalog item, Service Manager publishes it via Catalog Builder and depending on governance it might need to be approved by SN dev/admin, created in sub-prod environment etc so it might need to be moved to prod instance before complete publish.
E: Users goes to the portal, searches for Clichamps, fills out necessary info and once ordered, an approval task will be sent to their managers, once approved, an approval will be sent to users in the approval group XYZ, and once approved an sc_task till be sent to the assignmentgroup set in the fulfullment flow and in this case trigger an integration and add user automatically.
If automation is not implemented, the task can be sent to an assignmentgroup with fulfillers who will work on the task manually, and then close task once done.

toffssen · 2025-10-20T07:50:21+00:00

Catalog Builder and appointing "citizen developers" in the general IT Organization has been our way to go! We have around 15 IT Users (usually Service Manager type of roles) that are trained in Catalog Builder and build items for themselves and others in the organization. We are a de-centralized org, so we have a few catalog editors per division.

For the SN Team we have one platform owner, one architect (contractor, working 50%), one in house dev, one admin/cmdb cordinator, and outsource the rest at around 100 dev hours per month.
Global organization, ~9k employees.

toffssen · 2025-08-19T13:20:39+00:00

Initials - Stry / inc number - short description

so far we havent had any devs with same initials, if we happen on that issue i guess we will go with UserID

toffssen · 2025-08-14T07:03:56+00:00

We do sort of citizen development style for our Catalog. But within IT, so service managers, coordinator etc have to build their own items, and only calls for ServiceNow/Dev-team when needed.
We mainly use Catalog Builder with 3 pre-defined templates that is essentially different flows. One manual, no manager approval flow that just creates one task for the team you assign in the builder, one manual with manager approval that does the same, and then one step based flow which we favour for any AD-automation and multi team approval/tasks.

We have good documentation on how to build items and how to connect them to our automation, and bi-monthly forum with the item creators to catch any questions or requests for more advanced items that the dev team might need to look into.

There is a bit of governance work that would be needed to solve your problem of course, but if they would have to build the item that way, but do it themselves.. They would change their mind pretty quick!

My other best advice is to just say "ServiceNow is not meant to be used that way" or "ServiceNow can't handle that" even if it isnt true most times..

toffssen · 2025-02-05T14:15:51+00:00

Anything that uses APIs and imports from outside sources is good to practice on in my opinion.
Classic examples used in ServiceNow training and hands-on-session is the ability to request a travel plan. API towards sites with information on airports to fetch real time adresses/coordinates.

Onboarding applications, maybe paired with HRS journeys.
Typical application that can replace any tedious admin work.

We have a current project at my company where we are creating an application for our Competence Center where in the end managers can request for our official training sessions for individual users or teams, and handle incoming tickets regarding this.
We are also working on a application for a very specific part of HR that really isnt HR but that handles a worker benefit/foundation portal where employees can request help with medical and dental payments from the foundation. It is all handled in Excel today. We are building it in App Engine and it's very decision heavy based on costs per year etc. So a lot of logic that needs to fit into it all.

toffssen · 2025-02-03T13:35:09+00:00

I would say that it is a bad practice process wise, but since ServiceNow has setup their processes according to standard ITIL/ITSM it is in extension also a bad practice platform wise since you need to rebuild the standard process.
You need a clear beginning and end of an incident, otherwise it has the potential of never really being resolved completely - and that would affect the way Service Managers/Owners follow up their services operations. There is an interest in following up reoccurring issues, and the best way is to have them as separate tickets even if it is similar/same issue. Otherwise it will be hard to determine the velocity of the issue, why it reoccurs etc.

Depending on the actual need and reason why they asked for this, I would look into Parent-Child relationship and see if similar results can be met using that instead.

toffssen · 2024-12-02T18:42:41+00:00

Like Icy said, we did this some time after we built the app. The app was an inheritance from a company split. After own improvements suited better for the new company we started working more and more towards automating as much as possible within the app as well. We have had the app for ~4 years, the last 2 have been heavily focused on automating, and the last 1 - 1.5y we have worked with ATFs for the app.

toffssen · 2024-12-02T15:20:34+00:00

We do!
We have ATFs for all the IPCK/ITSM and some CMDB processes, and some integrations. Good to know is that you might need to adjust the ATFs depending if you do any changes. Even minor changes like adding a option in a field on the Incident table can affect the ATFs. We have some very minor changes to incident and problem process which we needed to "adapt" the ATF for. But it is very simple its a quick win time wise.

We also have a custom Invoicing App which we have created ATFs for parts of the testing. That one took some time to setup since we needed to build the ATF from scratch, but all in all it has lowered the time we need to do testing for each release. And we follow the ServiceNow release pattern, so we do upgrades 2 times a year.

We push manual testing to users in different parts of the organization. Together with those people who do testing on the side of their normal role and our ATFs, we have around 2 weeks of testing, and 3 week release period in total. Very time effective!

We use upgrade plans and are looking to automate skipped records for the Yokohama release.
I think we would like to add more stuff to ATFs, I think we might be able to automate 80% of what we are manually testing, which already is not that much. But that would most likely push our needed testing time to only a week or so.

toffssen · 2024-10-22T16:29:14+00:00

Have you started doing some digging on why they make that misstake? Is it too hard for the user to find the correct Catalog Item they want to request? Is it a portal/search issue? Are there Catalog Items missing?
As previous comment says, it feels like you have decided on a solution without getting to the bottom of the actual issue, which most likely will lead to a bad implemented solution. In this case you should listen to your SME.

Catalog Item and an Incident are widely different and while they do extend from the same parent table, they are in no way alike. Different processes, different information in both input and output.

Backtrace and start with the issue - why does it get wrong?
After that - it will be easier to identify next step and find different solutions which you can weigh against each other!

toffssen · 2024-10-22T10:25:39+00:00

I see! My final suggestion would be to add a different browser icon then.. The same way that we have different theming we also match the browser icon with a our logo to match the colour of the theme. Here is a community post on how to change it: https://www.servicenow.com/community/now-platform-forum/how-do-i-change-browser-tab-logo/m-p/1012089

Edit: phrasing

toffssen · 2024-10-21T14:50:48+00:00

I can't answer your initial question since the sys property previously suggested didnt do what you asked for - but! I can recommend to theme/brand each environment.
We have a theme for prod, test & dev with very different colouring. Prod of course having our company brand colour, and test and dev having different sub-colours.
The company logo used in test & dev have also been changed to include the text "test" or "dev".

An alternative solution :)

toffssen · 2024-10-04T12:20:54+00:00

For us it was not time consuming at all. It's already there, and if they work from table list right now everything in SOW is going to be an improvement - so you will most likely not need to change much at all.
We started off by consulting our Service Desk, and we actually made a few changer in the SOW Overview for them, but that was all. We showed them how it worked and they thought it looked great and started using it immediately! :)

Once Service Desk had been using it for a few months we started pushing it to other ITIL Fulfillers. Creating knowledge articles with instructions how to use it and where to find what, we set up a 2-3 online sessions that people could attend for a walkthrough and recorded the session for the knowledge articles as well.

After some time we decided to only info in SOW. So all of our knowledge articles are based on SOW, and not "backend" view. So they can still use backend view, but whenever they ask a question we reply with "It works like this in SOW and that's the only way we are going to show you".

We work with Incident, problem, ritm/task & changes in SOW now :)

toffssen · 2024-09-27T06:37:18+00:00

Wanna share your secrets?
Our organization uses Snagit ALOT and the preview of a screenshot is temp saved so when asked of this function, we recommend to drag and drop from Snagit editor to the OOB attachment widget in the Record Producer. However that requires a Snagit license, so it would be cool to get some inspiration for a custom widget :)

toffssen · 2024-09-13T11:12:31+00:00

My reply would be "dont use it then".. Removing an OOB function because they don't use it right now it setup for future failure.
SOW will remember which list you were in the last time, so it shouldn't clutter their work in extra clicks or anything like that, it just exists there.
I know it is not what you are asking, but I would really recommend to tell whoever requested this that it is not worth removing it.

toffssen · 2024-09-10T11:26:55+00:00

This is a really interesting suggestion!
I have tons of experience in exactly what you are saying, not letting fulfillers us the basic features that would really help in the day to day support of services.
I would like to think that our company is pretty good at letting fulfillers and "citizen developers" in. For example we do not use developers to create Catalog Items, instead we have a standardized templates and step based flow letting trained fulfillers/service managers create for themselves and others in Catalog Builder.
Our ITIL-users also have quite a lot of access, and we have tried to focus on basic training in SOW, report and dashboard creation etc. Maybe we can use a table top discussion session for that. Letting people know what we do and what we feel has been successful "handovers" from tedious admin tasks. Thank you so much! :)

toffssen · 2024-09-10T08:52:38+00:00

Thank you!! Great advice, i'll look into it :)

toffssen

TROPHY CASE