Tips for studying for the CSA exam?

petergoldberg · Thursday

Anyone have any tips for studying for the CSA exam? I've taken the SNAF course but I'm wondering what other resources are helpful for preparing.

Thanks!

MaxMixali · Thursday

.

Master the Official Exam Blueprint

Download the CSA Exam Specification from the ServiceNow Certification Portal.

It lists all knowledge domains and their approximate weight:

DomainWeight

User Interface & Navigation	20%
Collaboration	20%
Database Administration	30%
Self-Service & Process Automation	20%
Intro to Scripting & Migration	10%

Use this as your study map. Focus most effort on high-weight areas like the data model, tables, forms, and lists.

🔹 2.

Work Directly in a Personal Developer Instance (PDI)

Hands-on practice is crucial.

Get your free PDI from developer.servicenow.com and:

Create/update users, groups, and roles.
Configure forms and lists, add UI Policies, UI Actions, and Client Scripts.
Build and run a simple Flow Designer flow.
Explore tables like sys_user, incident, and task.
Work with ACLs and business rules.
👉 Experience beats memorization — the exam favors scenario-based questions.

🔹 3.

Review the Now Learning Resources

After SNAF, take:

CSA Practice Exam on Now Learning (free).
ServiceNow Fundamentals Review Quizzes (they mirror real exam logic).
Exam Readiness: Certified System Administrator course — includes sample questions and explanations.

🔹 4.

Focus on Key Technical Areas

Make sure you deeply understand:

Table Hierarchy: Task table inheritance (Incident, Problem, Change, etc.).
Forms and Lists: Personalization vs Configuration.
Access Controls (ACLs): Role-based and condition/script logic.
Update Sets: Capture, commit, and best practices.
Business Rules & Client Scripts: When they execute and their order.
Flow Designer: Triggers, actions, and inputs/outputs.
UI Policies vs Data Policies: When each applies.
Service Catalog basics (items, variables, record producers).
Notifications & Email Logs.
Import Sets & Transform Maps.

🔹 5.

Use Community & Flashcards

Review ServiceNow Community posts tagged CSA for tips and common pitfalls.
Use Quizlet or Anki flashcards for rapid recall of key terms and concepts (search “ServiceNow CSA Flashcards”).
Join ServiceNow Discord or Reddit groups — many share legitimate study guidance (not dumps).

🔹 6.

Take the Practice Exam Seriously

The practice exam from Now Learning reflects real exam question style — read each explanation carefully.

If you miss questions, revisit that area in your PDI. Practice navigating the platform quickly — you’ll need to recognize UI terms under time pressure.

🔹 7.

Time & Strategy

60 multiple-choice questions, 90 minutes.
Passing score ≈ 70%.
Don’t overthink wording — most wrong answers include overly technical or unrelated platform features.
Use the “flag” feature to return to tricky questions.

✅

Final Recommendations

✔ Hands-on practice > theory.

✔ Know the difference between configuration vs customization.

✔ Understand how ServiceNow’s data model works (Task inheritance, dictionary, tables).

✔ Practice manipulating records, building simple workflows, and using Flow Designer.

✔ Review the official docs at docs.servicenow.com for terminology.

View solution in original post

GlideFather · Thursday

Hi @petergoldberg,

was any book available as part of the SNAF training? I don't remember it and some of the trainings have eBook at the InkLink portal, some they don't...

The best source of learning would be the CSA eBook, if you will read it a couple of times, making your own notes to review and the best learning is when you find something unclear to try find it on your own in a PDI or another availabke platform, then you will most likely remember it better than just google question and see asnwer "without any struggle" 😛

People below will be soon recommending you youtube videos and flash cards but I'd strongly discourage you from that. Firstly, these flash cards are full of incorrect data and sometimes there is a question and directly an answer, so you have no space to guess on your own.

It's a difference when you see:

Question?
- Option A,
- Option B,
- Option C,
- Option D.
  - and you have to think and select yourself.

Rather than:

Question? Option B!

Also, if you will fail (it can happen to anyone) who will be to blame if you studied from unofficial materials??? It's always recommended to use the official materials, training and info created by ServiceNow.

Let me know if this makes sense and if you don't have that eBook we can try to find that training that provides it..

GOOD LUCK 🍀

———
/* If my response wasn’t a total disaster ↙️ ⭐ drop a Kudos or Accept as Solution ✅ ↘️ Cheers! */

lucabernard · Thursday

Totally agree on this but let me say - a PDF ebook could have been more comfortable and easy for the study.

I tried also the flashcards you mention, i find them challenging, you need to know the exact answer and flip the card to understand that your thoughts were right or not (assuming that the flashcard is correct by itself).

I agree that sometime, taking a look to the possible answers helps you to recall the correct one (btw this doesn't means that you KNOW the correct answer..but maybe you just are able, by logic, to exclude the craziest ones).

I'm definitely preparing my CSA Exam on the Inkling ebook, but as i was saying...not really comfortable.

Good luck to @GlideFather but also good luck to me 🍀

GlideFather · Thursday

@lucabernard unfortunately no official eBook in PDF format is available. If any materials are there it's the ServiceNow University or the InkLing eBooks that are not shareable or transferable. It's not even possible to copy from that book...

Thanks for wishing me good luck, but I will not need it in upcoming weeks, I'm not the author 😄 but @petergoldberg might need it more than me ;)))

———
/* If my response wasn’t a total disaster ↙️ ⭐ drop a Kudos or Accept as Solution ✅ ↘️ Cheers! */

lucabernard · Thursday

@GlideFather thanks for the feedback - unfortunately i know, I've really deeply searched a PDF version without success..

Luck is useful to everybody!

@petergoldberg sorry for the previews miss 😅 GOOD LUCK!