Should I Customize ServiceNow to solve my Business Problem? A real example

[Felix Abril Cas]

This is a question asked almost all the time, and if you're reading this article, it's likely your situation, too. While quick answers might be:

• No, we shouldn't add technical debt to our platform
• Yes, ServiceNow is flexible enough to accommodate customizations

We should approach this decision more systematically. A balanced approach, examining both business and technical perspectives, is crucial for making informed choices.

Putting into Practice

During a recent customer implementation of Now Assist, the Service Owner of a healthcare organization raised a requirement to change the default tab in the Service Operations Workspace to the Templates one. The reason for this requirement was to align with their current process, which uses Templates to respond to incidents, providing homogeneous responses with limited effort.

To determine our way to proceed, we discussed some questions as a team.

Why is this change needed?

Understanding the impact and criticality of the change is one key factor in determining our course of action. Some questions helped with the assessment.

• Is it a regulatory requirement? No, this was not a regulatory requirement.
• What is the estimated monetary savings from the requirement? Financial savings were complex to estimate, but a productivity gain from saving one action for almost all incidents was identified.
• What is the cost of doing nothing? The cost of doing nothing was not measured in money but in missing the chance to boost agent satisfaction by providing them with the Templates without having to always click the same button.

How are we going to solve it?

The second key factor is to understand the technical perspective of the problem, which possible solutions are available, and the technical risks associated with each one.

• Are there Out-of-the-box solutions, even if those solutions require process changes or manual steps? Reviewing the available out-of-the-box solutions, none of them met the requirements to solve this business problem.
• Will the desired functionality be included in future releases of ServiceNow? Alternative solution paths were not currently outlined in the current ServiceNow roadmap.
• Does the development team have the right skills for implementation and maintenance? It was necessary to engage a Subject Matter Expert, who found a customization using UI Builder to add an Order field and documented it for future maintenance. Having this documentation provides the maintenance team with the knowledge to keep the customization working after each upgrade.
• What is the cost of implementation and maintenance? The UI Builder solution proposed was determined to require low implementation and maintenance efforts, according to the estimated number of hours (less than one day for implementation and one or two hours for upgrading).

Which decision was made?

After evaluating all these factors, it was time to make a decision. Our customer determined that the productivity gains and higher agent satisfaction outweighed the effort for implementation and maintenance, as well as the skills needed to manage technical debt, so they gave the go-ahead!

Recommended Resources

The Best Practice for Business-Smart Customization white paper provides a detailed checklist and a decision matrix to help standardize your process. Document all the relevant questions for your company and your approval process in your "Demand and organizational change management governance & policies for configuration and customization" as a reference for all teams.

Conclusion

ServiceNow customization decisions should never be made in isolation or based solely on immediate needs. By implementing a structured evaluation framework that weighs business value against technical sustainability, Platform Architects and Platform Owners can make strategic decisions that enhance organizational capabilities while maintaining platform health.

The goal isn't to avoid all customizations—it's to ensure that every customization delivers measurable business value and aligns with long-term platform strategy. When approached systematically, ServiceNow customizations become a powerful tools for competitive advantage rather than sources of technical debt.