Hunting down bugs can be a real time killer. Find out how you can develop complex solutions faster using a scripting debugger in this fun, informative webinar.
Quick tip:Description field on business rules (Be sure to change your YouTube Setting to 720HD)
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Chuck Tomasi is a Sr. TPMM for ServiceNow. He is a computer science major with over 35 years of IT experience. As a former ServiceNow customer, Chuck won the first Innovation of the Year Award at Knowledge 10. Since joining ServiceNow in 2010 as a Technical Consultant, he has done many large scale ITSM implementations and custom applications, acted as an adjunct instructor for Education Services, created and lead the Technical Best Practices program, makes appearances on Live Coding Happy Hour, created dozens of fit for purpose custom applications, and co-hosts the ServiceNow series "TechNow".
Kreg Steppe is a Senior Curriculum Developer within ServiceNow developing and supporting cloud training infrastructure. He specializes in developing integration solutions, automating repeatable processes and Cloud Management in ITOM. Kreg's prior experience includes operating his own ISP, developing web applications in PHP, network integration, managing network support, Application Development on cloud based networks, DNS and email server maintenance. He is a Linux enthusiast and enjoys Photography.
Stacey Bailey is a Principal Curriculum Developer for ServiceNow with over 20 years of IT experience in various roles. Since 2009 she has been working with the ServiceNow platform customer, partner, and employee. She has earned numerous awards in her career including: ITSM MVP 2017, InfoWorld Top 100 Award, DCI Portal Excellence Award, Financial Times Award for Excellence in E-Learning. Stacey proudly refers to herself a s a "gadget girl". In her spare time she likes trying new gadgets, learning new forms of art, playing in the makerspace, collecting new / unique skills, listening to audio-books, trying new life experiences, and hosting parties to build communities.
So, after the issue is resolved, you don't have to go back and clear the breakpoints? Leaving them there is ok? -- Virgil Allen This will work on global and scoped applications as long as the code is run server-side as the current, interactive user. -- Stacey Bailey
perfect, thanks a ton -- Sharan Tej Kodumuru You are welcome! -- Kreg Steppe
Are you reviewing which area of he platform you can't use the script debugger? For example, script debugger didn't work with inbound action scripts, scoped apps, etc in the past. -- Jack Zheng Yes, we covered it. Scoped vs. global is not an issue. It's all about interactive, server side scripts. -- Chuck Tomasi
adding an existing field to the Business Rules form gets blown away for a version upgrade? Really? -- David Forbes No. That's not what happens. Once you configure the form, you own it. The upgrades never destroy work you've done, only flag it. -- Chuck Tomasi
Will the script debugger work on inbound action scripts? -- Jeff Thurston Inbound actions execute as the system, so the script debugger will not work on those. -- Stacey Bailey
this is my first technow session, how can I get the latest updates to get registered in to more sessions? Also, where can I get some practical sessions with integrations, Orchestration -- Sharan Tej Kodumuru You can get invites to future sessions by joining the developer community. Just create an account at developer.servicenow.com and you'll stay informed. As for Orchestration, we offer courses on that. Have a look at our training page on servicenow.com -- Chuck Tomasi
How would I learn servicenow as a job qualification? Currently, I don't work at a company that uses servicenow. -- Eva M You can sign up for a free personal developer instance and learning plans at developer.servicenow.com -- Chuck Tomasi
is it possible to use it on calculated field's scripts ? -- Helio Gabrenha Jr Not at this time. They are run in the background, not as part of an interactive session. Great idea though! -- Chuck Tomasi
would this run on display/query Business rules ? -- vyjayanth uttanoor Yes -- Chuck Tomasi
Do you need to install debugger in prod as well as dev and test? -- Steven Bogart It is already there by default in SN. -- Kreg Steppe
Is it planned to extend the debugger to work with workflow scripts? -- Robert Bigelow I do not know if there are plans for that but I can see where they may in the future. I know you can set break points. 🙂 -- Kreg Steppe
I have missed the part, on how the script debugger is used to put break points on a business rule or script include? -- Sharan Tej Kodumuru You just click in the gutter of the script on the left -- Kreg Steppe
Where do I find the resource with the other epsiodes? -- Nathan Carlson http://bit.ly/servicenow-technow -- Chuck Tomasi
Although it seems like you CAN debug REST APIs using the REST API Explorer (which it may be worth noting), is there a good way to debug typically asynchronous operations? -- Timothy Woodruff For async (non-interactive) actions you're going to have to use tried-and-true log statements. -- Chuck Tomasi
Might be useful to mention... "gs.warn()" and "gs.logWarning()" behave differently. gs.warn() accepts up to 6 arguments, but 2-6 are all string-replace arguments. Meanwhile, gs.logWarning() accepts two arguments, and the second one is the "source". The source replaces the "source" field in the log. You cannot replace the source field in the log using "gs.warn()". The exact same applies for gs.error() vs. gs.logError(). -- Timothy Woodruff Thanks for the info Timothy. We didn't have a chance to cover it on this episode as we were mainly focused on the debugger. -- Chuck Tomasi
Are there plans on making this OOB so we don't have to ignore updates on upgrades? -- Ilo Gassoway I'm sorry. I don't know specifically to what you are referring when you say "Are there plans of making this..." What is "this"? -- Chuck Tomasi
Is this only for scoped applications? (I am sorry if I missed this earlier in this techNow session) -- Ritesh Shah This will work on global and scoped applications as long as the code is run server-side as the current, interactive user. -- Stacey Bailey
Sorry, so if the BR calls a script_include, when you step into that objects method, does that file auto load into the Script Debugger? -- Javier Lopez Yes. You can step in to any script include you can see. -- Chuck Tomasi
Can you use the debugger and impersonnating a user at the same time? -- Paul-Eric Paumard Yes -- Chuck Tomasi
When do tickets go on sale for Knowledge 19? -- Christina Muniz Typically around the first of the year. Keep watching the knowledge.servicenow.com website for information -- Chuck Tomasi
If you guys at ServiceNow are recommending adding the Description field to the Business Rules view, why dont you guys just add it so everyone has it already? -- Steven Young Not sure that everyone needs it, but you have a point. -- Kreg Steppe
Is there a debugger for client scripts? Thanks. -- Ed Leung Yes. https://developer.servicenow.com/app.do#!/training/article/app_store_learnv2_scripting_istanbul_client_side_scripting/app_store_learnv2_scripting_istanbul_debugging_client_scripts?v=istanbul -- Kreg Steppe
I am using SNOW only 3 months... RE: look at the context of the WF, how? -- Munhwan Gim This isn't really on topic, but since the answer is fairly simple - navigate to Workflow> Workflow Context. If you have additional questions about ServiceNow, please don't hesitate to post in the community. -- Chuck Tomasi
Do the Debugger work on Fix Scripts ? -- Stewe Lundin No. Fix scripts do not run interactively. They are handled in the background by the system. -- Chuck Tomasi
Can you use "breakpoint;" or some other code/syntactic breakpoint, so you don't have to add your breakpoint in the actual editor? -- Timothy Woodruff Currently breakpoints are set in the editor -- Chuck Tomasi
Can we see a simple demonstration of using these debug tools for something from the Global scope? On my instance I don't have the same options -- Ben Adams Sorry I didn't have time for this in the demo we did. I just checked in Kingston and things look the same whether debugging global or scoped. If you like, post a message in the community and we can have a deeper discussion and let others get involved to see if there is some difference (e.g. ServiceNow version) that might be going on. -- Chuck Tomasi
Are the Break points personal ? -- Stewe Lundin Yes -- Chuck Tomasi
Is there anywhere we can find information on moving an existing instance to a FedRamp instance? -- Jeff Thurston I recommend reaching out to your account team. We have FedRAMP specialists who can help. -- Chuck Tomasi
What about an Orchestration Catalog item that calls a workflow with run scripts that call script includes? -- Mark Denni If the script include was called from a workflow, then it's not interactive and the debugger won't be of much use. Things that run in the background are running in a separate context than the browser stuff. -- Chuck Tomasi
Hello, similar to the last question, a lot of filters for reference selection pop ups have script includes, would those be seen in debugger? -- Sanaz Shaghaghi Should be good there. -- Chuck Tomasi
please talk about scheduled job debugging. -- Jeff Bascou Schedule jobs run in the background so debugging them requires tried and true log statements. -- Chuck Tomasi
Thank you -- Jeff Thurston You are welcome -- Kreg Steppe
In Istanbul, the debuger did not display all the variables in the "local" section, has this been fixed? Also, in the same section, objects are not properly displayed (can't display or drill down), has this been adressed? -- Eric Therrien The demo we did was on Kingston. If you want to compare, you can always get a personal developer instance (for I, J, or K) https://developer.servicenow.com -- Chuck Tomasi
Nice! I just saw someone post a video of something doing that yesterday. -- Steve MacDonald If you can, please post a link in the comments below so others can share. -- Chuck Tomasi
is this only limited to script include and business rule? -- ravish shetty It will work on any script that runs server-side as the current, interactive user. This includes Business Rules, Script Includes, and UI Actions (that are not running client-side). -- Stacey Bailey
Is there any existing Javascript console/REPL that developers can use as part of ServiceNow (or is it something on the roadmap)? It would be super useful to be able to execute and evaluate arbitrary Javascript code using ServiceNow's APIs (e.g., GlideSystem) without having to save and execute a given script. -- Michael Anderson Take a look at XPlore on the share portal from James Neal. It's a vast improvement over Scripts - Background. -- Chuck Tomasi
Chuck, does Stacey know where you live??? 😉 -- Paul-Eric Paumard HA HA! I'm sure she can find out if she doesn't already. -- Chuck Tomasi
You already mentioned that the Script Debugger does not work to debug the Workflow Script... Then, gs logging is only way to debug for WF script? -- Munhwan Gim Yes or you an look at the Context of the Workflow. -- Kreg Steppe
explore section in customer success center still has knowledge 2018 content -- David Brown Thanks. We will be updating it soon. -- Chuck Tomasi
We can always use debugger in Service Portal to Debug -- Anubhav Kapoor I wasn't able to get that working. I'd be interested to hear more about what you did. -- Chuck Tomasi
Hi all, -- Sharan Tej Kodumuru Hello! -- Kreg Steppe
Can the Script Debugger be used for scripts in the Global application? -- John Basso Yes. -- Kreg Steppe
Can you edit the script in the script debugger? -- Eric Riemer Not at this time. Note the lack of icons to save, indent, etc. -- Chuck Tomasi
@Stacey - Gadget geek? Any Raspberry Pi's in your arsenal? 🙂 -- Steve MacDonald I'm working on building an egg-decorating robot using an Arduino at the moment. 🙂 -- Stacey Bailey
Why does it always scroll to the bottom when editing a form design? -- Eric Riemer It doesn't ALWAYS do it. Test with some other forms. I haven't figured out why/when it decides to do that. I suspect there is something that's causing it like a formatter. -- Chuck Tomasi
So on the other side - you can't then add a new breakpoint from there, right? -- Trez Moreland Not sure of the context of this question, sorry. -- Chuck Tomasi
More a comment than a question, but wanted to make you all aware. A good deal of the time, when it has come to a customization and H, they will often come back and tell us to consult the community, rather than them being able to support the issue. That can get very frustrating. -- Carl Murray I'm sorry you run in to this situation. It is part of the way our support is structured right now in that they train to support the out-of-box applications. Customizations are beyond our capability to support at this time. -- Chuck Tomasi
Hi Chuck - another great session and love the Q&A's added to this. To follow up on your previous post on formatting can I add my 5c into the ring...
Love the bold questions
Names at the end of the questions are great, so it keeps other noise to the end of the line
Maybe add a prefix of 'Q' and 'A' to the lines so we can easily see the questions over the answers
You could change the font (or make italic??) the names at the end of the lines to these are slightly different looking
maybe a grey, or in a grey box..?
Hope this help - keep up the good work!
Also - with the ever growing user-base of ServiceNow - it would be awesome to see some Tech sessions LIVE in a 'down under' timezone such as New Zealand!!!!!!
I loved this presentation got alot out of it, thanks for posting it! Quick unrelated question, are you the same Chuck Tomasi that called into the Rock and Roll Geek recent episode and gave a show review of the Jason Bonham Led Zeppelin Experience? If so, sounds like a great show thanks for the review, if not please disregard.
Stay frosty my friend.
-Rob
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