ServiceNow: Platform and Navigation Hints, Tips, Tricks and Shortcuts

[Michael Jones -]

The ServiceNow interface is straight-forward and somewhat intuitive to use; after a few days of navigating around you know enough to get things done, and that's where most people stay at least for a while. Over time you pickup tricks and shortcuts, typically long after you've gotten used to doing things the hard way. While some of these are certainly documented they tend to scattered across various sources and are hard to find. After sharing some of these at various times I thought it might be beneficial for others if I consolidated them. 

Keyboard Shortcuts

I'll start off with a couple of keyboard shortcuts that occasionally come in handy. These are written with windows in mind, so for Mac users replace "alt" with "options". 

• Ctrl+Alt+F : Places the cursor in the Filter Navigator. If nav menu is collapsed, expands it.
• Ctrl+Alt+C : Collapse / Expand the nav menu (gives you just a little more screen real-estate).
• Ctrl+Alt+G : Places the cursor in Global Search.
• Ctrl+Alt+I : Opens the Impersonate Dialogue (provided you have that role).

• Ctrl+Shift+J : This one is a little different and is perhaps one that I use more often than any other. You need to be on a form (for example on Incident or in a Catalog Item). When you trigger this shortcut the Javascript Executor will open in which you can run any client side code you choose. This is an excellent way to test and debug client code in real time.

Filter Navigator Shortcuts 

Place these strings in the Filter Navigator and hit enter.

• Table_name.list : will open the table in the list view, inside of the frame (current tab)
• Table_name.LIST : will open the table in the list view, but in a new tab (outside of the frame)
• Table_name.CONFIG : will open a list of all configurations on a table, in a new tab. This is the same view you get when you right-click on the header and select configure > All. Useful for seeing what Business Rules, Client Scripts, Notifications, ACLs, etc. are configured on a table.
• Table_name.do / .form : will open the "new" form for the table in the frame. 
• Table_name.FORM : will open the "new" form for the table in a new tab, for example sys_user.FORM will let you create a new user.

URL Navigation Tricks

Load more results in a list view

Have you ever wanted to display more than the "usual" amount of records in the list view so that you can more easily perform some action against bulk records, such as an update or delete? Well, you can. Open your list view in a new tab and then append a parameter like this to the end of the URL and hit enter. Replace 500 with whatever number you need to see.

&sysparm_force_row_count=500

Do use some caution with this one as excessively large numbers will potentially cause your browser to hang and can cause performance issues with list actions, but for a few thousand records I've had no issues. Useful when you need an easier way to take action on more records than you can usually view at once, but enough to warrant writing a script to address. 

Long table load times

Ever go to load a table and...it...takes...for...ever? A good example of this would be the syslog table which can easily take 5 minutes to load in a highly utilized instance. You can solve this by right-clicking on the application in question, copy the link address, paste it into a new tab, remove everything after the ? and replace it with:

sysparm_filter_only=true

This will load the table with the filter list available but will load no records, giving you the opportunity to enter a filter and reduce the number of records returned.  

Download list results via a URL

Have you ever needed to download the contents of a list via URL? Well, you can! This can be useful when you need a quick way to automate data extraction. Create a filter to display the records you want then right-click on the query and open in a new window to get the URL, then directly after the ? add one of the following (depending on which type of file you want to export to) followed by an &, but leave the rest of the URL intact!

EXCEL, CSV, PDF, XML

For example: https://<instance>.service-now.com/sys_user_list.do?CSV&sysparm_query=nameSTARTSWITHsystem%20admin

Pre-populating Field Values (without a script)

Ever wished you could direct a user to a form via a link that would pre-populate some fields without using a client script? Well, you can, with a properly formatted URL.  

The basic format is: 

https://<baseURL>/nav_to.do?uri=<table name>.do?sys_id=-1%26sysparm_query=<field=value>

For example this URL would open a new incident with a priority of 2

https://<instance name>.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=incident.do?sys_id=-1%26sysparm_query=priority=2

This works for most field types with the biggest caveat being that if field you want to set is a reference field, the value you would pass is the sys_id. Interestingly you can use GlideSystem methods in a URL call. For example, this URL would set the priority as 2 and the caller_id to be the logged in user.

https://<instance name>.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=incident.do?sys_id=-1%26sysparm_query=priority=1^incident_state=3^caller_id=javascript:gs.getUserID()

Returning an "Open in a new tab" to a frame

I use "open in a new tab" or Ctrl + Click all the time, and I always end up with a bunch of open tabs where I'm "stuck" with the Filter Navigator. Yes, I know, just delete the URL back to the base but, sometimes you just want to get the page back in the frame (for instance when you want to save a shortcut to a filter you just spent 20 minutes figuring out. For those situations I have a bookmark saved on the bookmark bar with the following as the URL

var url = window.location.toString();url = url.replace("service-now.com/", "service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=");window.location = url;

When you click this bookmark with a list open in a tab, it will reload the page but inside the frame. 

Chrome Extensions

SN Utils - Tools for ServiceNow

If you haven't looked into some of the useful  Chrome Extensions that are out there, I recommend taking a look but, of course, be careful what you install. You can find information about this particular one on the Developer Site (if you know the super secrete URL, which, now you do) The link to the actual extension is here, or you can find it on the Developer link under "setting up the extension".

SwissNow - ServiceNow Toolbox 

I also recommend looking into SwissNow - ServiceNow Toolbox. This one was created by a former co-worker of mine and it incorporates some advanced, and useful, features. Here is a link to a community post from the creator @Lukasz_Krzaczkowski . Some of the useful items are utilities to push records to an update set and a utility that creates a "shell" of a GlideRecord script against the current table along with some neat admin shortcuts like a button for stats.do and cache.do. Worth checking out! 

While this isn't exactly platform or navigation related, you can find some pretty interesting stuff to review in the same location as the info about SN Utils. If you drop the URL back to knowledge19 there are a ton of interesting workshops that are certainly worth taking a look at!

https://developer.servicenow.com/app.do#!/event/knowledge19 

That's about all I can think of for the moment. Feel free to leave other tips and tricks in the comments!

If you found this article helpful or useful, please be kind and click appropriately. If you found it really useful, you could always use the 3-dot menu to bookmark it for later! 

Michael Jones - Proud member of GlideFast Consulting!

[Snehal2]

Wow, this is really great post..!Thanks for this.

[David333]

Nice! Especialliy like the Javascript immediate utility. I'll be using that!

[Nia McCash]

For Filter Navigator Shortcuts, there is also

• Table_name.filter - which will open a blank list with the filter available. Useful get to large tables in order to run a query, without first loading the entire list. (Available in Orlando versions and later)

Credit and thanks to Cory Seering for pointing this out on in the SNDevs Slack.

[Annay Das]

Wow it's a great post. Thanks for sharing! 🙂

[Sontel]

Does anyone know if there is any way to pre-populate the Catalog form with URL like how it is described for Incident here?

[craigsilver]

When toggling the Filter Navigation (Ctrl+Alt+F), is there a way to specifically target the All tab? For me, Ctrl+Alt+F seems to want to favour the Favourites tab.

[Eoghan Sinnott]

Hi Craig,

Ctrl Alt + A will bring you to the All tab.

[pawan k singh]

🚀 Top 10 Application Navigator Shortcuts in ServiceNow🚀

Here are some useful Application Navigator shortcuts that can make your daily tasks in ServiceNow more efficient! Whether you're new to ServiceNow or a seasoned user, these tips will save you time and effort. ⏳

1️⃣ <table>.config: Populate all the Application files (BR, Client Script, ACL, etc.) for the given table. (.CONFIG opens in a new window)
2️⃣ <table>.filter: Displays an empty list view of table records. Add & Run filters to retrieve desired data. (Helpful for large, slow-loading tables. .FILTER opens in a new window)
3️⃣ <table>.form: Opens a single record in the ServiceNow content frame.
4️⃣ <table>.FORM: Opens a single record in a new browser tab.
5️⃣ <table>.list: Opens the list of records in the ServiceNow content frame.
6️⃣ <table>.LIST: Opens the list of records in a new browser tab.
7️⃣ stats.do: Retrieve current instance version, node information, memory stats, and more.
8️⃣ sys_app.list: Lists all custom applications in ServiceNow. (.LIST opens in a new browser tab)
9️⃣ sys_scope.LIST: Lists all applications and their scopes in ServiceNow. (.LIST opens in a new browser tab)
🔟 sys_store_app.list: Lists all Store applications in ServiceNow. (.LIST opens in a new browser tab)

💡Please mark this helpful for more tips and tricks from me in the coming days! 🌟

Regards

Pawan K Singh

[geusa]

@craigsilver for me ctrl+alt+A also opens up the Favorites. But I noticed ctrl+alt+Q opens up the All menu. I'm on an AZERTY keyboard, I think that's the reason...