The Batch API provides endpoints to send a single request containing multiple REST API calls, and returns a stream of response payloads.

This REST API enables integrators to:

  • Decrease the amount of time required to send API requests by batching them together, and reduce overhead by narrowing authentication, session setup, and round-trip traffic to a single step.
  • Create more efficient code for client-side integrations.
  • Mix batch item formats and include them in single batch request. For example, one batch can include a Bases64-encoded request in XML format to send to one endpoint and a Base64 encoded request in JSON format to send to a different endpoint.
  • Receive a stream of response payloads in return.
  • Apply existing ACLs to each API call in the batch.

You can include any API available on the instance in a Batch API call. For performance reasons, avoid including long-running requests and requests that retrieve large amounts of data.

Important: The Batch API has the same performance characteristics as individual API requests but avoids the overhead of multiple client-server requests. The Batch API is not intended for parallel transaction processing and long-running API requests may cause the API request to exceed the maximum transaction time and return a failure.

Size and processing limits

Payloads adhere to these size limits:

  • Each item in the request: 5 MB​. You can change this default by updating the glide.rest.batch.max.inputSize​ system property. Maximum value: 10 MB.
  • Each item in the response: 10 MB. You can change this default by updating the glide.rest.batch.max.outputSize​ system property or adding the X-BATCHREQUEST-MAX-OUTPUT-SIZE​ header to your request. The X-BATCHREQUEST-MAX-OUTPUT-SIZE​ header value cannot exceed the value of the system property.
Note: If a request runs longer than 30 seconds, the REST Batch API request timeout transaction quota rule ends the transaction. Increasing the value of this transaction quota rule may result in performance issues.

When a batch request reaches a size or processing limit, the system cancels the transaction and returns unprocessed requests in the unserviced JSON array in the response.

Batch - POST /now/batch

Sends multiple REST API requests in a single call.

You can include any API available on the instance in a Batch API call. For performance reasons, avoid including long-running requests and requests that retrieve large amounts of data.

URL format

Versioned URL: /api/now/{api_version}/batch

Supported request parameters

Table 1. Path parameters
Name Description
api_version Version of the endpoint to access. For example, v1 or v2.

Data type: String
Table 2. Query parameters
Name Description
None
Table 3. Request body parameters (JSON)
Name Description
batch_request_id ID that identifies the batch of requests.

Data type: String
rest_requests Required. List of request objects to include in the batch request.

Data type: Array

"rest_requests":[
   {
      "body": "String",
      "exclude_response_headers": Boolean,
      "headers":[Array],
      "id": "String",
      "method": "String",
      "url": "String"
   }
]
rest_requests.body Base64-encoded body of the request. Only applies to methods that require a body, for example POST. Before encoding, the body can be in any format. For example, XML or JSON.

Data type: String
rest_requests.exclude_response_headers Flag that indicates whether to exclude response headers from the response.
Valid values:
  • true: Response headers are not included in the response.
  • false: Response headers are included in the response.

Data type: Boolean

Default: false
rest_requests.headers List of request header objects to send to the endpoint.

Data type: Array

"headers":[
  {
    "name":"String",
    "value":"String"
  }
]
rest_requests.headers.name Name of the header.

Data type: String
rest_requests.headers.value Value of the header.

Data type: String
rest_requests.id Required. ID for each item in the batch.

Data type: String
rest_requests.method Required. Method to call for the associated endpoint.

Data type: String
rest_requests.url Required. Relative path of the endpoint to send the request to. Includes the query parameters.

Data type: String

Headers

The following request and response headers apply to this HTTP action only, or apply to this action in a distinct way. For a list of general headers used in the REST API, see Supported REST API headers.

Table 4. Request headers
Header Description
Accept Data format of the response body. Only supports application/json.
Content-Type Data format of the request body. Only supports application/json.
X-BATCHREQUEST-MAX-OUTPUT-SIZE​ Size limit for each item in the batch response. Add this header to provide a lower size limit than the default set by the ​glide.rest.batch.max.outputSize​ system property. You cannot set a value higher than the value in the system property.

Default: 10 MB.
Table 5. Response headers
Header Description
None

Status codes

The following status codes apply to this HTTP action. For a list of possible status codes used in the REST API, see REST API HTTP response codes.

Table 6. Status codes
Status code Description
200 Successful. The request was successfully processed.
401 Unauthorized. The user credentials are incorrect or have not been passed.
500 Internal server error. An unexpected error occurred while processing the request. The response contains additional information about the error.

Response body parameters (JSON)

Name Description
batch_request_id ID of the batch that matches the batch_request_id parameter in the request.

Data type: String
serviced_requests List of response objects from the batch request.

Data type: Array

"serviced_requests":[
  {
    "body": "String",
    "error_message": "String",
    "execution_time": Number,
    "headers": [Array],
    "id": "String",
    "redirect_url: "String",
    "status_code": Number,
    "status_text": "String"
  }
]
serviced_requests.body Base64 encoded body of the response. To get the value of the body, Base64 decode the content of this parameter.

Data type: String
serviced_requests.error_message If present, the error messages.

Data type: String
serviced_requests.execution_time Time it took to execute the batch item request.

Data type: Number

Unit: Milliseconds
serviced_requests.headers Headers for the batch item.

Data type: Array

"headers":[
  {
    "name":"String",
    "value":"String"
  }
]
serviced_requests.headers.name Name of the header.

Data type: String
serviced_requests.headers.value Value of the header.

Data type: String
serviced_requests.id ID of the batch item that matches the rest_requests.id parameter in the request.

Data type: String
serviced_requests.redirect_url If present, the redirect URL.

Data type: String
serviced_requests.status_code Status code for the batch item.

Data type: Number
serviced_requests.status_text Text of the status code for the batch item.

Data type: String
unserviced_requests IDs of the requests that were not processed because the batch request reached a size or processing limit.

Data type: Array

Example: cURL request

This batch request sends two GET requests to the instance and one POST request to the incident table. The body of the POST request is Base64 encoded.

curl "https://instance.servicenow.com/api/now/v1/batch" \
--request POST \
--header "Accept:application/json" \
--header "Content-Type:application/json" \
--user "username":"password"\
--data "{
   \"batch_request_id\":\"1\",
   \"rest_requests\":[
      {
         \"id\":\"11\",
         \"headers\":[
            {
               \"name\":\"Content-Type\",
               \"value\":\"application/xml\"
            },
            {
               \"name\":\"Accept\",
               \"value\":\"application/xml\"
            }
         ],
         \"url\":\"/api/global/user_role_inheritance\",
         \"method\":\"GET\"
      },
      {
         \"id\":\"12\",
         \"exclude_response_headers\":true,
         \"headers\":[
            {
               \"name\":\"Content-Type\",
               \"value\":\"application/json\"
            },
            {
               \"name\":\"Accept\",
               \"value\":\"application/json\"
            }
         ],
         \"url\":\"/api/now/table/incident?sysparm_limit=1\",
         \"method\":\"GET\"
      },
      {
         \"id\":\"13\",
         \"exclude_response_headers\":true,
         \"headers\":[
            {
               \"name\":\"Content-Type\",
               \"value\":\"application/json\"
            },
            {
               \"name\":\"Accept\",
               \"value\":\"application/json\"
            }
         ],
         \"url\": \"/api/now/table/incident\",
         \"method\":\"POST\",
         \"body\": \"eyd1cmdlbmN5JzonMScsICdzaG9ydF9kZXNjcmlwdGlvbic6J015IGNvbXB1dGVyIG
          Jyb2tlJywgJ2NvbW1lbnRzJzonRWxldmF0aW5nIHVyZ2VuY3ksIHRoaXMgaXMgYSBibG9ja2luZyBpc3N1ZSd9\"
      }
   ]
}" \
{
    "batch_request_id": "1",
    "serviced_requests": [
        {
            "id": "11",
            "body": "PD94bWwgdmVyc2lvbj0iMS4wIiBlbmNvZGluZz0iVVRGLTgiPz48cmVzcG9uc2U+PHJlc3VsdD48dX
            Nlcl9uYW1lLz48L3Jlc3VsdD48L3Jlc3BvbnNlPg==",
            "status_code": 200,
            "status_text": "OK",
            "headers": [
                {
                    "name": "Pragma",
                    "value": "no-store,no-cache"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Expires",
                    "value": "0"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Content-Length",
                    "value": "88"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Content-Type",
                    "value": "application/xml; charset=UTF-8"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Cache-control",
                    "value": "no-cache,no-store,must-revalidate,max-age=-1"
                }
            ],
            "execution_time": 5
        },
        {
            "id": "12",
            "body": "eyJyZXN1bHQiOlt7InBhcmVudCI6IiIsIm1hZGVfc2xhIjoidHJ1ZSIsImNhdXNlZF9
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            "status_code": 200,
            "status_text": "OK",
            "headers": [],
            "execution_time": 8
        },
        {
            "id": "13",
            "body": "eyJyZXN1bHQiOnsicGFyZW50IjoiIiwibWFkZV9zbGEiOiJ0cnVlIiwiY2F1c2VkX2J
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            "status_code": 201,
            "status_text": "Created",
            "headers": [],
            "execution_time": 2638
        }
    ],
    "unserviced_requests": []
}