Over the course of this guide, we have covered some basic knowledge and foundational skills for getting started on ServiceNow. At this point you should be able to:

  1. Obtain a Personal Developer Instance

  2. Navigate the baseline UI

  3. Navigate records using the form and list views

  4. Create and edit records using the form and list views

With practice and persistence, you can grow these skills to learn the many capabilities that ServiceNow has to offer. Your next steps can vary depending on the career path you choose:

Explore ServiceNow’s Applications

There are a wide variety of reasons to use ServiceNow. Whether you are an HR Coordinator, a Product Manager, a SCRUM Master, a Technician, or filling almost any other role in your organization there is likely an application for you on ServiceNow.

Now that you have a better understanding of what ServiceNow is and how to use it, you can begin exploring some of these applications.

Additional Reading:

  1. ServiceNow’s Product Site (Learn more about ServiceNow’s Products)

  2. ServiceNow’s Documentation (Search the docs)

Consider a Career Path

If you are reading this guide, odds are you are interested in becoming a ServiceNow Administrator or Developer. Getting started can be overwhelming since ServiceNow has so much to learn. There are a few primary learning paths which can help narrow your focus and get you to your goal faster.

ServiceNow Administrator

Most ServiceNow careers begin as an Administrator. There is a fair amount of overlap between the skills of ServiceNow Developers and ServiceNow Administrators. For this reason, if you aren’t sure, start your journey here. To be an effective ServiceNow administrator, you will want to learn the following skills:

  1. User, Role, and Group Management

  2. Configuring the form and list views

  • Layout and Fields

  • UI Policies

  • Data Policies

  • Business Rules

  • Client Scripts (awareness)

  • UI Actions (awareness)

  1. Sending email notifications

  2. Managing the Service Catalog and it’s Workflows

  3. Importing data via Import Sets

Also, continue learning more about the UI. We only covered the basics in this guide, so keep exploring the different personalization and configuration options in the UI.

ServiceNow Developer

The generalist ServiceNow Developer in many ways is like a really powerful administrator. While the no-code and low-code configuration capabilities of ServiceNow are extremely powerful, you will often require scripts to accomplish your goals. This is where the ServiceNow Developer’s skills build on the ServiceNow Administrator’s by diving deeper into scripts and APIs.

Types of Scripts to learn:

  1. Advanced Business Rules - using the Script field

  2. Client Scripts

  3. UI Actions

  4. Scheduled Jobs

  5. Advanced Workflows and the Run Script Activity

  6. Transform Map Scripts

  7. System Events and Script Actions

APIs to learn:

  1. GlideRecord + GlideElement

  2. GlideSystem (gs)

  3. GlideAggregate

  4. GlideForm (g_form)

  5. GlideDate + GlideDateTime

Some ServiceNow Developers specialize into specific advanced skill sets like the following:

ServiceNow Service Portal Developer

Service Portal developers specialize in using ServiceNow’s Service Portal application to create self service websites, intranet sites, and other user experiences in the web browser. Unlike most other ServiceNow developers, good Service Portal developers will have some understanding of front end web design and development.

Skills to learn:

  1. HTML

  2. CSS / SCSS

  3. Bootstrap

  4. AngularJS (the original version, not Angular)

  5. UI / UX Design

  6. Service Portal Components

  • Widgets

  • Portals and Themes

  • Pages

  • Angular Providers

APIs to learn:

  1. GlideRecord

  2. GlideSPScriptable ($sp)

  3. GlideAggregate

  4. data, c.data, and c.server

ServiceNow Integration Developer

ServiceNow Integration Developers specialize in migrating and sharing data between different applications and the ServiceNow instance. Integration Developers often have a broad understanding of different server concepts and communication protocols and leverage that knowledge to get systems talking.

Skills to learn:

  1. SeviceNow’s Integration Points

  • REST APIs

  • Scripted REST APIs

  • SOAP Web Services

  • Import Sets and Transform Maps

  1. Integration Communication (REST, SOAP, FTP, JDBC)

  2. Integration Methods

  • Bidirectional vs One Way

  • Synchronous vs Asynchronous

  • Event Based vs Periodic Sync

  1. Message Formats (JSON, XML, CSV, etc)

  2. MID Servers

ServiceNow Custom Application Developer

ServiceNow Custom Application Developers build new Scoped Applications to meet business needs. This can often encompass numerous other skill sets such as Service Portal, UI, Integrations, and general ServiceNow developer skills. Custom Application developers will usually end up using these same skills in unique ways, though, to accomplish their goals of introducing new functionality to ServiceNow.

Skills to learn:

  1. ServiceNow Applications (Scoped and Global)

  2. Service Portal

  3. UI Pages

  4. Processors

  5. Scripted REST APIs

  6. Programming Patterns and Paradigms

  7. Build tools and build pipelines

  8. Git Repositories

ServiceNow Implementation Specialist

Implementation Specialists unlike Developers and Admins tend to focus more on specific ServiceNow applications and processes. This role is often a cross-functional one as many developers and administrators are often implementation specialists as well. But there are many Business Analysts and other non-developer roles who specialize in understanding the best ways to implement and leverage a specific ServiceNow application within given processes.

Skills to learn:

  1. Your selected application (ITSM, CSM, ITBM, ITOM, HR, SecOps, etc)

  2. Industry standards, regulations, and best practices around your specialized process

  3. Requirements gathering

  4. Presentation delivery

Conclusion

Regardless of your chosen path, hopefully this guide has given you a first step towards your goal of learning ServiceNow. There are many resources and opportunities to increase your knowledge and understanding of the platform. Here are some great places to start:

And of course feel free to contact me and leverage the resources here at codecreative.io