Preface
The work of a ServiceNow architect, project leader, or consultant is made meaningful by the impact it has on those who work with us and the users who ultimately benefit from our solutions. In creating this book, we hope to make the work of your teams more fulfilling and ultimately help you deliver on the promise of ServiceNow: to make the world of work, work better for people.
In this book, we share the approaches and perspectives that we’ve assembled over the last decade of our engagement in the ServiceNow ecosystem. We have tried to author the book we wish was available to us when we started our first project in the hope that it will make things easier, more efficient, and more effective for our readers and their teams.
This book will not replace the value of experience, but it will give you a head start and hopefully magnify your own ability to make a difference for those who are relying on your work. Thoughtful application of the tools and principles in this book will be rewarded as you deliver more impactful projects with fewer surprises.
Who this book is for
This book is targeted at architects, consultants, and project leaders looking to drive value by applying ServiceNow effectively and efficiently. Platform administration or development experience is useful but not required to get value from the book – however, some familiarity with the modules and features of ServiceNow is expected.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Understanding the Value of ServiceNow, sets the stage by explaining why it is that we embark on ServiceNow projects in the first place. We will provide you with the necessary tools to frame the value proposition of your own project in consistent terms and make goals concrete enough to steer your actions.
Chapter 2, Recognizing and Avoiding Value Traps, outlines the common pitfalls that can put the value of your project at risk. We will explain why so many projects are affected by these traps and how to avoid them, as well as alternatives that help you stay out of trouble.
Chapter 3, Capturing Value from Your Implementation, will go over the multitude of ways that ServiceNow can add value to your organization, which will help you better identify and link opportunities together into strong business cases and set up the beneficiaries for success.
Chapter 4, Planning an Implementation Program for Success, provides you with a list of considerations and recommendations in case you are considering the implementation of ServiceNow in your organization, which can improve your value realization and the impact of your success.
Chapter 5, Securing Your ServiceNow Instances, is about making sure that your ServiceNow instance is protected from malicious actors. While anyone keeping up with industry news knows that cybersecurity breaches are increasingly impactful, there are steps you can take to make your instances less of a target.
Chapter 6, Managing Multiple ServiceNow Instances, intends to provide someone who is leading their first project with actionable guidelines on how to set up their ServiceNow instances, which will avoid them getting into trouble with releases.
Chapter 7, Designing Effective Processes at Scale, covers the capability of the ServiceNow platform to automate processes and how to connect the pieces to solve your automation problems and encourage configuration reuse.
Chapter 8, Platform Team Processes, Standards, and Techniques, provides an overview of some of the standards and norms a ServiceNow development team should establish in order to deliver value quickly and at a high quality.
Chapter 9, Effectively Operating ServiceNow, provides a lot of value if you are a ServiceNow platform owner. This chapter gives you a look at who you need on your team and which parts of the organization you should engage and provides other recommendations on making that team an effective business value enabler.
Chapter 10, Artificial Intelligence in ServiceNow, intends to provide coverage of one of the most important parts of the ServiceNow platform – the artificial intelligence features that can enable a reality of automation that many aspire to but few can deliver.
Chapter 11, Designing Exceptional Experiences, which is also the final chapter, is all about the ServiceNow user interface, explaining the recent changes to the platform, as well as making sense of the array of options that exist on it.
To get the most out of this book
This book is intended to provide value for practitioners at any stage of their ServiceNow journey but has been specifically written to be accessible for those starting their first ServiceNow project. While those with prior ServiceNow experience might be able to jump right into the chapters that seem most interesting, we recommend starting with Part 1 as you frame your plan and business case for ServiceNow, picking up with Part 2 before kicking off the technical configuration, and turning to Part 3 before go-live or when you feel the topics might apply to you.
Download the color images
We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://packt.link/qD8rj.
Conventions used
There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.
Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: “To facilitate this distinction, it is often useful to name service accounts with a common prefix, such as svc-.”
Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: “The zBoot option can be found on the second page of the Instance Management category, which can be accessed from the left-hand menu in All automations | Service catalog | Instance Management.”
Tips or important notes
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Get in touch
Feedback from our readers is always welcome.
General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book, email us at [email protected] and mention the book title in the subject of your message.
Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in this book, we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please visit www.packtpub.com/support/errata and fill in the form.
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Preface
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