Viva Las Vegas! Now Learning IT Service Management Bellini 2103 - 2106

[Micah Russell]

This article will serve for a few different functions, really a one-stop-shop for all things for our course. First and foremost use this link to claim a student instance (https://clabs.link/itsmf-may-340).

Other uses may include:

• introduce yourself and connect with others (see first comment)
• ask questions and get answers (no I do not know the speed of an unladen swallow)
• random translations ('Viva Las Vegas' literal translation is 'Long Live the Meadows')
• and anything else you want (well this is Vegas so I will add, within reason)

Article is public so you don't even need to sign in to read it, but to comment you will need to sign into Community.

[Micah Russell]

Hello and welcome to our room Bellini 5! (Bellini translates to 'little beautiful one' and we have 5 TAs soo...)
My name is Micah Russell and I am here to help. I am a Technical Trainer here at ServiceNow and have been for almost 7 years.
Please feel free to connect with me here linkedin.com/in/micahjrussell
and please use this comment/thread to introduce yourself

Happy K22! (WE ARE BACK)

[That Phil Guy]

Otsukaresamadesu, everyone! Phil Sharp, here. I'll be Micah's sidekick as we learn the rules of baccar—er, I mean, facilitate ITSM Fundamentals (Baccarat will come later). And I can't wait to finally do this in person again!

Like Micah, I was brought into the ServiceNow San Diego office some seven years ago. Since then, I've migrated to Colorado, and finally, to Oklahoma—and with much gratitude, all while still part of ServiceNow's incredible training organization. I frequently teach development-oriented classes, and I hope my enthusiasm for the product (and for learning more about it) comes through this week.

Other interests include:

1. language,
2. cats, and, recently,
3. making my own cocktail bitters.

If you should witness anyone at some off-Strip karaoke putting way too much brio into a Tool song, it's probably me. It's a pleasure to be introduced, y'all! Let's rock!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pilaf/

[Jan Spurlin]

Greetings everyone! My name is Jan Spurlin and I will be a TA (Trainers Assistant) in this room.

I have been with ServiceNow for almost 5 years - wow how time has flown. I taught this class in NYC and had Micah as my sidekick. Can't wait to hear Micah present! He is going to rock it and you are going to have loads of fun and learn a lot!

In addition to ITSM, I also teach the GRC and SecOps courses at ServiceNow.

My hometown for many years has been Atlanta, GA. And yes, I can pull out a deep southern accent at the drop of a hat.

My other interests include:

• photography / digital scrapbooking - check out Forever.com
• robot competitions https://www.firstinspires.org/
• tennis (if you live in ATL you have to play tennis!)
• bourbon...
• and I could go on and on - there is not much that doesn't interest me!

Connect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/janspurlin/ 

Can't wait to see everyone in person!!

Jan

[treyhem]

Welcome to Vegas! I'm Trey Hemmingsen and I'll be one of your TA's in the room. 

I've been at ServiceNow for two years and am on our Custom Training and Adoption team, which focuses on building out training collateral for process users and fulfillers along with consultative change enablement engagements to drive adoption - don't forget about this important group when you're implementing! 🙂 

I'm based in Denver, CO and love hiking, traveling, cooking, and checking out breweries and restaurants. 

Find me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/treyhemmingsen/ 

See you on Monday! 

Trey

[treyhem]

Welcome to Vegas! I'm Trey Hemmingsen and I'll be one of your TA's in the room.

I've been at ServiceNow for two years and am on our Custom Training and Adoption team, which focuses on building out training collateral for process users and fulfillers along with consultative change enablement engagements to drive adoption - don't forget about this important group when you're implementing! 🙂

I'm based in Denver, CO and love hiking, traveling, cooking, and checking out breweries and restaurants.

Find me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/treyhemmingsen/

See you on Monday!

Trey

[Katrina Miller]

Hello! Viva Las Vegas! I am Katrina Miller and I will be one of your TAs.  I have been at ServiceNow for 7 years now, having moved from Atlanta, GA to sunny San Diego.  I am currently on the Custom Training and Adoption team which works with our customers to develop and deliver custom training.  I have a background in telecom, software engineering, network engineering, SAAS and technical training.  I love to travel and try new foods and I enjoy spending time with my husband, our three kids and our dog Bailey.  I cant wait to meet everyone.  

Connect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrina-miller-a761b386/

[xianoh]

Hello and Welcome to Knowledge 2022 in Vegas!!  So excited to be back here. My name is Christian Oh and I am a Principal Technical Trainer from the East Coast namely Washington DC Metro area. I have been with ServiceNow for almost 7 years and my life prior to this was with the State Department as a Lead Training Program Manager.  Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and I hope to see you in a future class. I teach CSM, HR, FSM, Performance Analytics, ServiceNow Fundamentals and a couple of facilitated workshops. 

I run a few film festivals in DC and I come from a film/tv background as well.  Looking forward to helping out these next two days!   

[Suzanne Smith]

Hello Everyone!

It will be a joy to meet all of you. It seems like AGES since our last Knowledge conference in 2019 and I have missed seeing customers, partners, and colleagues.

I've been with ServiceNow for 11 years and it has been the job of a lifetime participating in growth of this wonderful company. In the past, I worked on the product documentation team and the knowledge base team. For the past four years it has been a dream come true to join the Custom Training and Adoption team to work closely with customers training their process and end users.

Beautiful San Diego (where ServiceNow was founded!) is home for me, my husband, our two college-aged children, and our rescue doggie. Outside of work, I enjoy everything Southern California has to offer, including the desert, the mountains, the beach, and a variety of cultural activities. I'm also a little obsessed with reading, jazz, mid-century modern design, San Diego Comic Con, and Mediterranean cooking.

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanneasmith/

[Suzanne Smith]

Hello Everyone!

It will be a joy to meet all of you. It seems like AGES since our last Knowledge conference in 2019 and I have missed seeing customers, partners, and colleagues.

I've been with ServiceNow for 11 years and it has been the job of a lifetime participating in growth of this wonderful company. In the past, I worked on the product documentation team and the knowledge base team. For the past four years it has been a dream come true to join the Custom Training and Adoption team to work closely with customers training their process and end users.

Beautiful San Diego (where ServiceNow was founded!) is home for me, my husband, our two college-aged children, and our rescue doggie. Outside of work, I enjoy everything Southern California has to offer, including the desert, the mountains, the beach, and a variety of cultural activities. I'm also a little obsessed with reading, jazz, mid-century modern design, San Diego Comic Con, and Mediterranean cooking.

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanneasmith/

[ld762]

.

[That Phil Guy]

?

[That Phil Guy]

What's a Service? Well, do you ever hear this?

"Ruh-roh, people are saying _____ is down! We gotta get it back up and running!"

I'd betcha whatever "isn't working" is something you could think of as a Service—especially if it's something that's y'all's responsibility for providing.

[xianoh]

For those of you who asked about upgrades here is a great docs link about the Upgrade Center. 

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/sandiego-platform-administration/page/administer/upgrade-center/c...

[Jan Spurlin]

A few details about the CMDB and the CSDM (Common Services Data Model)

For those who don't know about CSDM v4.0 https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=c981db3a1b018154ccc253da234bc...

[That Phil Guy]

So, Jan, CSDM isn't like a thing we buy or a recipe we follow, right? Is it kind of like ITIL in that it gives us a common way of thinking? (But for our CMDB.) Something like that?

[Jan Spurlin]

Perfect idea - CSDM to the CMDB what ITIL is to incident and change management.

[That Phil Guy]

Whew! That makes sense. 🙂

[Jan Spurlin]

I stole this from @Benjamin Forrest 

[xianoh]

Common Shared Data Model White Paper

[xianoh]

Also know the distinct differences between an Asset and a CI - what is the distinguishing characteristic or focused piece of info between the two?  

[Jan Spurlin]

Here are some links to on-demand courses in Now Learning on the CMDB and CSDM.

CSDM on-demand course

https://nowlearning.service-now.com/lxp?id=learning_course_prev&course_id=eaa12d8d1bcb10505b2699f4bd4bcb82

CMDB on-demand course - this is also taught by an instructor

https://nowlearning.service-now.com/lxp?id=learning_path_prev&path_id=c120bb5bdbd0c8103e3aaca2ca9619bf

Here is the link to the instructor-led CMDB Fundamentals course:

https://nowlearning.service-now.com/lxp?id=learning_course_prev&course_id=e79cd6971bc01410ce5420622a4bcb6f

[That Phil Guy]

Y'ever watch the show House MD?

I love thinking of it in ServiceNow terms, too:

The stuff House is writing on the whiteboard: Incidents (i.e., symptoms)

Why're they writing those things? To find the underlying Problem (i.e., the pathology affecting the patient)

What about Change? Other connections?

[Sam141]

Is there any training for the new UI Next Experience for all the requesters and fulfillers in my company that we can use before we upgrade to San Diego? 

[That Phil Guy]

I wouldn't call this proper training, but the video on this page is worth a look:

https://docs.servicenow.com/en-US/bundle/sandiego-platform-user-interface/page/get-started/serviceno...

[xianoh]

Check out this site. 

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/sandiego-platform-user-interface/page/administer/navigation-and-u...

[That Phil Guy]

Want some training about roles, personas, etc., vis-à-vis citizen development in UI Builder?

Check this learning path in Now Learning about Citizen Developer Fundamentals, and

this K22 lab might be interesting, too!

[That Phil Guy]

REQUEST DATA MODEL METAPHOR (warning: contains gin)

So, a ServiceNow trainer walks into a bar. (The trainer is obviously me.)

I order a shrimp cocktail and a Negroni. Cool. Bartender starts a tab for me. That tab is our REQ record. The shrimp cocktail is one RITM, assigned to the kitchen. The Negroni is another RITM, which the bartender assigns to themself.

Each item on my tab (each RITM in my REQ) has a different process to get it done. Each step in that process is like a SCTASK.

For the Negroni RITM, SCTASKs (simplified!) may be:
1. Add equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari to a cocktail building vessel
2. Stir
3. Serve

For the shrimp cocktail, SCTASKs may be:
1. Find a portion of chilled, deveined shrimp
2. Add to martini glass with remoulade

When the Negroni SCTASKs are done, the Negroni itself is done, too. (Finishing SCTASKs close the RITM they belong to.)

Same with the shrimp cocktail, yeah?

Let's say I've enjoyed both my items and I’m ready to close out? Close my tab (the REQ).

Other questions in this metaphor to think about in ITSM terms:
* What if the kitchen forgot to prep the shrimp?
* Are there any Approvers?
* What would we call the bar menu in ServiceNow parlance?
* Any other dots to connect?
* How does this metaphor not quite work in terms of REQ = "bar tab"? (Hint: do bartenders automatically close your tab when you're done?)

[Sam141]

How to make the new view (list or form) the default view for specific group? 

[That Phil Guy]

Interested in delegating approvals? I've got three helpful links for you!

1. The general product documentation for this ability
2. Harvard University's how-to guide (presumably for their staff—but still!)
3. A Community thread about delegates and email notifications

[That Phil Guy]

Yes!

When you create a View, you can find records for each View you create in a module called "Views." There are fields there to force that View for groups, roles, etc.

You can also set Views in other situations using records called View Rules.

[Daniel Choisser]

Hello!

I'm from UNF and we've been preparing for our impending ServiceNow implementation.  Part of that process was meeting with our internal IT teams to identify their "Services".  We have run into that question sooo many times and have had to work with each of them to clarify what is a service vs Incident, task, project etc..

It has been an interesting journey but I believe people are starting to see the light.

[That Phil Guy]

Wanna see an at-a-glance set of statuses across the enterprise, as informed by the CMDB? There's a default Portal Page for that. Try adding this to the end of your class instance URL:

sp?id=services_status

Example:

https://purrvicemeow.servicenow.com/sp?id=services_status

[Daniel Choisser]

Is flow designer part of the standard ServiceNow application, or is it an additional module? I would also like to know if there was more focused training on creating flows.  Thank you!

[That Phil Guy]

I think one of my colleagues is on providing links, but lemme say for sure that, yeah, Flow Designer is free and standard.

[xianoh]

There are courses on Now Learning for Flow Designer. https://nowlearning.service-now.com/lxp

[Deb Frank]

RE: Incidents are linked to Problems, but not requests.  Question: Why aren't requests able to be linked to problems?  Our teams may get stuck fulfilling a request due to a problem that was previously unknown and until that problem is resolved, the request cannot be fulfilled.  Appreciate insights.

[xianoh]

More stuff. 

https://nowlearning.service-now.com/lxp?id=learning_course_prev&course_id=3edcc0b8dbf24d90ad1cf9c8f4...

Now Learning:

Next Experience Unified Navigation Overview = https://nowlearning.service-now.com/lxp?id=learning_course_prev&course_id=5c2dd0101bb48050b1c7fe631a...

Get Started with the Next Experience User Interface (UI) and Unified Navigation = https://nowlearning.service-now.com/lxp?id=learning_course_prev&course_id=3edcc0b8dbf24d90ad1cf9c8f4...

Get Started with the Now Platform = https://nowlearning.service-now.com/lxp?id=learning_course_prev&course_id=9455b7f91b288050528f639fbd...

[That Phil Guy]

Also, this:

Request Management Architecture

[Jan Spurlin]

Here is a screen shot of the courses available on Now Learning for Flow Designer

[Daniel Choisser]

Thank you! I'll be sure to look those over.

[That Phil Guy]

I'm interested to see discussion on this!

To me, I hear "Request" and think something like: "I want a ____," like "I want to order a gym badge." Things are fine—I just need something additional.

I hear "Incident" and I think something like: "This used to work and now it doesn't. What gives??" In this case, things aren't fine. I need help.

And, when I hear "Problem," I think of the underlying cause of a series of things not working. It's harder for me to imagine this as an underlying cause of people wanting a gym badge (jokes aside, of course).

Let's go with a medical metaphor!

• I have a sore throat (symptom-->Incident), a rash (symptom-->Incident), and a fever (symptom-->Incident).
• I want to make an appointment with my doctor to get this addressed. (Request)
• Whoops! Doc says that's because I have Scarlet Fever. It's the underlying cause of those disruptions of daily good health. It was the Problem.

I think in the original post, it would be that a Problem has been brought to light while fulfilling a Request, but at that point, there's an Incident to log, too.

That said! if you wanna go straight from a Request to a Problem, you absolutely can—with a little customization, of course. The UI Action called "Create Problem" that we see on Incidents could be hijacked and added to the Request form, too.

[Jan Spurlin]

I had to go look - but it is possible to make the related list of Problems accessible/visible on the SC Task form.

You might want to add additional logic that goes to the SC Task assignee when the problelm is resolved.

[Deb Frank]

Wow, these are cool updates to our approaches that we would want to look into.  I am going to review these areas and may have more questions.  thanks!

[That Phil Guy]

WANNA ALWAYS SHOW BOTH WORK NOTES AND ADD'L COMMENTS?

I have a wacky idea I just tried and it seemed to work:

• Create a record on the sys_user_preference table with the following values:

1. Name: glide.ui.activity_stream.multiple_inputs
2. User: [blank]
3. System: true
4. Value: true

This fools your instance into thinking that every single user clicked the "Show both journal fields" button thingy. They can possibly still just un-click the button.

MORE IDEAS:

Wanna set Work Notes and Additional Comments to behave a certain way? This Community Thread might help.

Some deeper scripting ideas here, too.

[That Phil Guy]

As Jan said, the Docs lay out Universal Request very cleanly (still valid in San Diego):

[That Phil Guy]

Also, this has been unceremoniously jacked from sir @Benjamin Forrest.

"Universal Request IS the droid you're looking for and probably not the other ones"

Once you discover that request management is AWESOME and the idea that just about anything can be requested by anyone even if they're not IT, you start wondering how you can make service catalogs for EVERYTHING!  OK awesome - but then maybe other teams also want to make all of the things into catalogs?  This is where Universal Request comes in and allows us to de-couple requests from specific apps/business processes so that when someone asks for something, you can route them to the right place/catalog.

Prior to this, there were a few tables that made it into the old school part of the platform that were used by various apps - enter Interaction / Ticket / Case that did _some_ of the things that UR does but not all.  So you might run into these tables from time to time but these days when we're talking about ensuring that you're working on future proofed items to be requested UR is the way to go.  

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/sandiego-employee-service-management/page/product/universal-request/concept/ur-landing-limitedaccess.html

OK cool - but what if I've already started using interactions/cases/tickets/etc?  In much the same way Workflows continue to be a thing and supported as an automation engine in the platform, Flow Designer Flows are the latest and greatest things we suggest folks use to do what we used to use Workflows to do, Workflows aren't going anywhere and will still work, but if you're going to build new automations, Flow Designer is what we'd suggest using.  In the same way, interactions/cases/tickets aren't disappearing but for net new asks UR is where you want to be.

[That Phil Guy]

Overheard: "Won't that open the door for a big vat of "general" requests that are difficult to classify/categorize?"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Whaddy'all think?

[xianoh]

One more link for Platform Navigation hands-on.

Get Started with the Now Platform Simulator = https://nowlearning.service-now.com/lxp?id=learning_course_prev&course_id=2843cb2c1b5d249030c3ff72cd...

[Daniel Choisser]

It could be tricky depending on how it is setup and managed. Often people navigate to the path of least resistance or work. If there is a bucket to dump all of their requests into without the necessary support desk to triage, it could get very messy very quickly.

[Daniel Choisser]

Can you share dashboards with non licensed users.  For instance: Showing a department chair all of the incident's requested in the past 30 days by their employees broken down by type, priority, and resolution time?