Today we're featuring Mike Allen, Lead Technical Specialist at a large financial institution, as our next #IAmACreator.
Tell us how you learned about and started developing on ServiceNow?
About 5 years ago, my manager and I were talking about our current toolset and the future of it. I offered to take responsibility of our monitoring tool, but he said he saw me more as a developer of the new ITSM tool, ServiceNow. Two weeks later, I was in Chicago taking a class, and the rest is history.
How has being a ServiceNow developer shaped or helped your career?
Before ServiceNow, I was an engineer, working primarily on Windows servers, with some database work thrown in. I worked at an MSP, so it was never dull, but it was never truly what I wanted to do. Once I started developing in ServiceNow, my career took off. I found something that I love doing, and it turns out I am pretty good at doing it. Where I was unexcited about going to work, now I look forward to the challenges presented on a daily basis. Working at a multi-national company with a huge amount of process users, my job is something that never disappoints, and it is all thanks to ServiceNow and that former manager for setting me on the path.
What projects are you most proud of?
I generally provide enhancements to existing applications to meet stakeholder expectations. In the Incident module, I have created some things that I am very proud of: a UI Page that our incident managers use as a dashboard, giving them current information on their high-priority incidents in an easy and accessible way. This pulls information from multiple sources and provides a colorful screen that allows them to know the status of any incident at a glance in a war room.
I also create integrations between ServiceNow and external tools. This allows users to see real-time and historical metrics on devices from the record they are working. Utilizing UI Macros, I pass the information to the external tool and present the relevant data to the end user.
What impact did it have on the business? How did your app change the way that work gets done?
The mean time to fix of high priority issues decreased. The ability to analyze historical data from a server was reduced to a single click.
How do you see ServiceNow changing the employee or user experience?
The automation afforded to the tool makes the job of the employee easier. The robustness of the tool allows for there to be a single experience, rendering third-party tools a thing of the past. One place to do all your work.
What is your favorite aspect of developing on the platform?
I can literally do anything my stakeholders want, no matter how crazy the requirement. I have never found something asked of me that I just could not do.
What's your tip for a new ServiceNow developer?
Use the tools at your disposal. There are sites out there put up by users, sites run by ServiceNow, and a huge amount of knowledge in the community. Use them. Don't be afraid to ask questions.
Become a Creator and change the way work is done. Over the next few weeks leading up to #CreatorCon at Knowledge16 (#Know16), we'll be highlighting ServiceNow Creators and sharing their motivations, challenges and successes in changing the way people work at their enterprises. We'll also share how you can use the ServiceNow Platform to create your own work hacks. Click here to catch up on the beginning of our series.
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Be sure to share your own experiences in our Developer Community and by tagging @ServiceNow and #IAmACreator on Twitter.
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