Scoped App for Configuration/Customization?

[William Busby]

I'm looking for a clear definitive answer from The ServiceNow development team and experienced developers. Should scoped apps be used for customization of OOB applications (i.e., Incident/Problem/Change/etc.)? I realize there are times we have no choice (i.e., needing a 'before query' BR or setting system properties) but if you had the chance to start from scratch what path would you take?

I have been told by various ServiceNow support/development staff that customers should avoid development in the global space and adopt scoped app development for everything from customization of OOB apps to full-blown custom applications. But others on my team have been told by ServiceNow developers to use update sets for customization and scoped apps for, well, apps.

Having struggled with update set coordination between multiple developers I can clearly see the advantages of scoped apps but ServiceNow has done a poor job of communicating 'best practices' in this regard. Actually, one of the fairly consistent short-comings by ServiceNow when releasing new functionality has been to explain why a new paradigm is introduced.

So, no more beating around the bush - if a new client is standing up Incident and needs to define their company specific forms, workflows, SI sets, etc. Do you prefer they to use a scoped app or update set? Please don't equivocate with 'well, it depends...'. Pick one and provide justification.

[William Busby]

ServiceNow support referred me to the following article which makes is clear - global development and updates sets are legacy and should be avoided unless some limitation drives you there.

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=801e6e2ddbd0dbc01dcaf3231f9619d8&view_source=searchResult