Is it possible to test an application in ServiceNow Developer Instance?

[GuruprasadB]

Hi All,
We have an application that provides integration between ServiceNow and our software. Our ServiceNow application has these,

• Inbound web services: exposed endpoints to create and update Change requests and Incidents
• Uses tables
• Access control roles defined

It's been quite a while since the app has been developed, now I am trying to make some changes. The deployment testing instruction that I received are from years ago, and it appears those options are not found in the Dev Instances I am having.

So far,

• I have created a Developer Instance with Washington version
• I am able to import the app in Studio IDE, I am able to open various forms and items
• When I click Publish, it errors with "Internal and Store Uploading has been disabled. Please contact your instance administrator."
• I have also tried to use the App Engine Studio, setup all the environment and pipelines for all the Guided Setup found in App Engine Studio modules. When I click submit it takes the application, but it never deploys that anywhere. The submit button grayes out, and hovering over the button shows "There was an error while retrieving your application deployment information."

What to I want to achieve?

• I would like to deploy the app, and trigger incident and change requests and see them getting created in a ServiceNow instance.
• I will later make changes to our ServiceNow application and again deploy it in the dev instance to test it.

What is the help I am asking?

• I am quite new to the ServiceNow custom application development, I have been following the documentation, a few YouTubers, ServiceNow youtube channel etc. Although I would like to go through the ServiceNow developer courses and dig pretty deep into the app development; for the time being I would be grateful if I can see our app in action by deploying into a Dev Instance.
• I have tried to search in the online, and there are mixed replies, like you cannot even test custom apps in a Dev Instance, but can preview. I don't think the Preview would work for me, because I am not trying to test the visual appears for the forms and content. But actually hit the Inbound web urls, see if the app roles are working like that.
• I have also reached out to the ServiceNow support, but since my support requests are of "question" type they become priority 4, which gets replies once in 2-3 days. So it is not helpful to make progress on my testing. Therefore asking here. Also what is the best way to unstuck when stuck in ServiceNow application development. I am all for going through the docs, videos and everything, but sometimes it just doesn't work. (for the moment I have been struggling to get the app deployed in Dev instance from the last 2 days at least).

[Mark Manders]

What do you mean by 'I created a Developer instance'? Do you mean a PDI? Store apps can't be imported to a PDI, so that won't work. You should test it on the DEV instance of your company.

And when you are stuck, try to find the answer online (docs/community) or ask it. And yes, that means going through the docs. There are no shortcuts in getting knowledge.

[GuruprasadB]

Hi, Yes, I have created a PDI. So the application cannot be installed in the PDI is it?

[Mark Manders · Accepted solution]

The only way to install an application on a PDI is if you have it as update set (on the source instance you can use 'publish to update set' on the application. 

[GuruprasadB]

You are lifelifesaver 🙏 I used a Vendor instance now, and there it works.

• I was able to Publish the app to "My Application Repository" from the Studio
• in the instance able to install from "My Company Applications". This installed the application in the current instance.

Later tried to also check if possible to install in PDI by,

• From the vendor instance, go the application record from "My company applications", click on the application.
• Click on "Publish to Update Set"
• Export Update set to XML
• Import the xml into the PDI via "Retrieved UpdateSet". It works.

I am already able to test the application and create Change Request from hitting the endpoints.

Thank you so much for such quick help.