Mastering ServiceNow

Book excerpt: Unleash the full potential of ServiceNow from foundations to advanced functions, with this hands-on expert guide fully revised for the Helsinki version About This Book Give your ServiceNow Helsinki implementation a powerful kick-start by understanding the deep capabilities of the platform, Learn by doing with an extended, comprehensive example, creating a feature-rich, secure and automated application from the ground up Interact with your whole organization by integrating with REST web services and build a custom Service Portal interface Who This Book Is For This book is aimed at advanced ServiceNow System Administrators and developers who would like to gain greater control of ServiceNow and its architecture. The book expects you to be new to ServiceNow, but have a good grounding in internet and computing technologies, like HTML, JSON, REST and database systems. Readers should be especially familiar with JavaScript, and be keen to extend and alter the platform. With this book, they will be able to develop a new application for their company. What You Will Learn Build custom scoped applications that access the full ServiceNow API Build a modern, responsive self-service interface with Service Portal Design feature-rich, responsive, automated workflow systems Design powerful data-driven applications Control information flow and apply business logic with Business Rules Write efficient and effective client-side JavaScript Learn how to authenticate and secure Web Services Integrate and exchange data with people and systems Create and secure your systems with proper access control In Detail ServiceNow is a SaaS application that provides workflow form-based applications. It is an ideal platform for creating enterprise-level applications giving requesters and fulfillers improved visibility and access to a process. ServiceNow-based applications often replace email by providing a better way to get work done. The book steps through the main aspects of the ServiceNow platform, from the ground up. It starts by exploring the core architecture of ServiceNow, including building the right data structure. To add business logic and control data, and interactivity to user interaction, you will be shown how to code on both server and the client. You will then learn more about the power of tasks, events and notifications. The book will then focus on using web services and other mechanisms to integrate ServiceNow with other systems. Furthermore, you will learn how to secure applications and data, and understand how ServiceNow performs logging and error reporting. You will then be shown how to package your applications and changes, so they can be installed elsewhere and ways to maintain them easily. If you wish to create an alternative simple interface, then explore ways to make ServiceNow beautiful using Service Portal. By the end of the book, you will know the fundamentals of the ServiceNow platform, helping you be a better ServiceNow System Administrator or developer. Style and approach Explore how to implement business logic and automated workflows and write effective code by flexible choices for client-side scripting