Exercise: Navigating the UI
Objective: Practice basic ServiceNow usage including:
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Navigating ServiceNow
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Viewing records in lists and forms
Now that we have a Personal Developer Instance, let’s learn how to get around and handle the basics of using ServiceNow. These techniques will set the foundation for everything else you can do with ServiceNow.
Exercise
Follow the below instructions to complete the exercise:
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Log in to your Personal Developer Instance
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Using the Filter navigator, filter the Application menus and Modules to those containing the word Incident (Learn more about the Application Navigator)
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Identify the search box in the top left titled Filter Navigator
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Type Incident into the Filter Navigator field
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Observe that the list of Application Menus and Modules has filtered
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Navigate to Incident > Open to display a list of all open Incident records (Learn more about the List View)
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Find the Incident Application menu
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Under the Incident Application menu, find the Open Module
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Click the Open module
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Open the first Incident record in the list to the Form View (Learn more about the Form View)
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Click the underlined text in the first column of the record, which in this case should be the Incident’s Number
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Using the Filter navigator, navigate to Incident > Overview (Learn more about other Page Types)
Review
Application Navigator
The primary method of navigation in ServiceNow is the Application Navigator. It is composed of the Filter navigator, Application menus, and Modules.
Application Menus
Application menus, sometimes referred to as Applications, are the major categories that make up the navigation. All modules will appear under an Application menu. Generally each Global Application and Scoped Application will have at least one Application Menu, though some have multiple.
Modules
Modules are the actual navigational links in the Application Navigator. Most Modules will link you to a predefined list view of records but there are many other types of pages to explore in ServiceNow.
Filter navigator
Application menus and Modules can pile up quickly in ServiceNow, especially for Administrators. The Filter navigator helps you to quickly find the modules you are hunting for. It will find any module that contains the search text somewhere within the module name.
This is really powerful since it means we can type Portal to find the Service Portal modules as one example. Or you could type bug to find a list of debug modules.
List View
The list view is a page that displays zero or more records from the same data table. In this exercise, we viewed a list of records on the Incident table. Each row in the list represents a single record and each column represents a field on the record.
There are many actions that can be performed from the list view which we will cover in another exercise.
Nearly all data in ServiceNow is stored on a data table in the database. Also, every table in ServiceNow has a list view although not all list views are exposed with a Module. Keep this in mind as you continue your ServiceNow journey as this is one of the most important concepts in ServiceNow.
Form View
The form view is a page that displays the fields and values for a single record on a data table. Forms are divided up into sections and can also use both one and two column layouts.
There are many actions that can be performed from the form view which we will cover in another exercise.
All records on a list view have a form view.
Other Page Types
ServiceNow also has many other unique page types. Some are more universal such as the homepage view displayed above. Some are specialized like Knowledge Base, Service Catalog, and Service Portal pages. Still others are entirely custom, purpose built UI’s such as Project Management Gantt Charts.
It can be helpful to navigate around ServiceNow and explore the different UI types to get a feel for what is available.
