Knowledge16 Hackathon Pro-Tip: Put Share to Work!

[ben_hollifield]

So you've signed up for the K16 Hackathon - good move!

Maybe you already have a killer idea. Maybe you're planning to brainstorm with the team when you get there. Either way, 8 hours isn't a long time, so you won't want to waste a moment.

The ServiceNow ecosystem has generated a tremendous amount of content, including many productivity tools that you can use to accelerate your development at the Hackathon - most of these are freely available on Share or native to the platform. As a ServiceNow employee, I can't directly compete in the Hackathon. But, if I could, here are the tools that I'd have in my toolkit:

1. Xplore: Developer Toolkit (Share) & Developer Studio (Platform): James.Neale and the guys at SN Developer have created a tremendous console for developers. This will help you with everything from writing scripts to exploring JSON objects to using Regular Expressions. Similar, but different, is the   Developer Studio released with Geneva. If you're working with a scoped app, the Studio provides a powerful development environment.
2. Service Portal (Platform): SP is brand new with the Helsinki release, but it's set to change the face of ServiceNow. Interested in creating an AngularJS experience, and want to toy around with the ServiceNow cutting edge? Give it a go!
3. Scripted REST Web Services (Platform) & Objectify (Share): If you're still using GlideAjax and Processors in the Hackathon, you're doing it wrong. Scripted REST is now available in-platform, and it's the fastest, sexiest, and best way to interface with your instance from the client. Objectify adds a layer on top of Scripted REST to help you quickly create the data objects you need and generate snippets you can drop directly into your code.
4. CMS Lite (Share): Need to quickly spin up a CMS front-end for your Hackathon creation? Don't spend extra time navigating traditional CMS. matt.metten built CMS Lite to accelerate portal development - this is your fastest way to get from A to B with your CMS portal.
5. Data Generator (Share) & Stagehand (Share): Need to generate demo data to show off your creation? john.roberts fantastic Data Generator is a flexible and powerful tool to generate tons of data on any table. Need less, more prescriptive data? Stagehand can generate specific, highly relational data, and can then facilitate the build-up/teardown/reset of that data.
6. Notify (Platform): Notify is a great way to make your app interactive via SMS and Voice interaction. I have it on good authority that we'll have Notify credentials available for any Hackathon teams that need them!
7. Data Poller (Share) & UI Notifications (Share): Planning to use AngularJS for your Hackathon creations? These handy directives interact with the ServiceNow platform to provide heightened functionality. Data Poller provides periodic data polling for specified scope variables to keep data dynamic and up to date on your UI. UI Notifications provides a simple way to inject real-time bootstrap-style alerts into your UI.
8. Legacy Mobile UI Deactivation Utility (Share): Planning to present a mobile-first creation for Hackathon? Disabling the standard mobile UI is tricky. Use this one-click solution from john.andersen to make this task a non-issue.
9. FileSync (Share) & SublimeText 2 Plugin (Share) & ServiceNow Grunt (GitHub): Sometimes you'd just rather work in your own development environment instead of a web browser. These fantastic utilities from daniel.pettet, salcosta, and arthuroliveira enable you to use your preferred dev environment while syncing with your ServiceNow environment. Need a plugin for SublimeText 3? john.andersen has you covered here.

What am I missing? The Knowledge16 Hackathon is going to be the biggest and baddest ServiceNow Hackathon yet, and we're excited to see what crazy creations you guys come up with. Don't waste time re-inventing any wheels - put Share and the platform to work so that you can milk every last bit of innovation out of those 8 hours on May 17.

See you there!