Following on from my Welcome to ServiceNow (Zurich) series, this post is the first in a series documenting common validation errors that may be encountered in the Micro-Certification assessment simulator tasks.
Rather than providing the exact solution, these notes aim to help you troubleshoot validation errors by highlighting common pitfalls and guiding you toward the correct solution. The aim is to help you understand why validation fails, not just how to fix it.
Note: Some assessment simulator tasks assume that you are continuing directly from previous tasks and therefore still impersonating Platform User, even if this is not explicitly stated in the task instructions.
To build these guides, I deliberately validated the task before completing any steps to see what conditions were being checked. This allowed me to capture the full set of error messages upfront.
This assessment simulator task focuses on user personalisation settings including:
- Impersonating another user
- Updating instance preferences
Below are the validation messages you're likely to encounter, along with some guidance on how to troubleshoot them.
- Did you change the 'show data and time format on forms' setting in user preferences?
The very first thing to check is that you are impersonating Platform User, so double check you're not using the default System Administrator account.
The validation checks for an exact match, so if this step isn't performed as the correct user, it will fail.
Tip: If your avatar has a red outline and an eye icon, you're impersonating another user.
Once you've confirmed that you are impersonating the correct user, the next step is to check your user preferences.
Ensure the 'Show date and time formats on forms' option is enabled under 'Preferences'. You'll know if it's enabled if the slider is positioned to the right, as shown below
Hint: If you're struggling to find this setting, check out the 'Accessibility' options. - Did you change the 'show help tips on forms' setting in user preferences?
This error is specific to enabling the 'show help tips on forms' setting.
Hint: If you're struggling to find this setting, check out the 'Display' options.
As with future posts in this series, the aim here isn't to hand over the solution, but to help you think through the validation errors and understand where you may have deviated from the task instructions.
That way, you're not just completing the assessment simulator tasks, you're learning how to troubleshoot them which should help if you encounter issues in real-world examples.
If you've experienced other pitfalls along the way, or this post has helped you to resolve an issue, feel free to share by commenting below - those insights help others working through the same tasks.
Posts in this series - Welcome to ServiceNow (Zurich) Micro-Certification
- Task 1: Personalize Your Instance
- Task 2: Favorite a Filtered List (coming next)
- Tasks 3-7: Coming soon…
