Managing custom apps using AEMC

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Managing custom apps using AEMC

    The App Engine Management Center (AEMC) enables ServiceNow customers to review metrics and manage custom applications throughout their development lifecycle. It provides visibility into both development and production environments, helping you track app usage, subscription details, deployment history, and collaborators efficiently.

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    Key Features

    • Custom App Metrics: The AEMC Overview page shows the number of apps in development and production. The Custom apps page offers detailed metrics, including lifecycle status trends over the last 90 days, app versions, and filtering options to focus on specific application types.
    • Application Details: Each app is listed with information such as published version (if in production), usage data, subscription monitoring, deployment history, and collaborators. You can open apps directly in App Engine Studio for deeper inspection and editing.
    • App Usage Data: The App usage tab displays aggregated monthly metrics like user count (number of users accessing the app), insert count (new records created), and update count (records updated). This data helps determine app adoption, identify issues, and assess load balancing needs.
    • Subscription Monitoring: View roles assigned within apps, users linked to those roles, and licensing implications. System administrators can see and modify the app’s subscription mapping if it pertains to App Engine. Role inheritance maps show how users acquired their roles, aiding in permission management.
    • Deployment History: Track all deployments for an app, including deployment dates and approvers. This visibility aids in troubleshooting defects, understanding changes across releases, and managing production deployments.
    • App Collaborators: Identify all collaborators with permissions to modify apps stored on the development instance. This enables quick action for issue resolution by knowing who has change rights.

    Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Gain comprehensive oversight of custom app development and production status.
    • Monitor app usage trends to decide on necessary updates or retire unused apps.
    • Manage licensing and subscription roles effectively to optimize costs and compliance.
    • Access detailed deployment histories to streamline troubleshooting and change management.
    • Identify and coordinate with app collaborators for faster issue resolution and maintenance.

    Review custom app metrics and manage apps through the development life cycle using the App Engine Management Center (AEMC).

    The App Engine adoption metrics section of the AEMC Overview page shows how many apps you have in development and production environments. Access more information by selecting the large number on each Custom apps card.

    The Custom apps page in AEMC shows more detailed metrics and a full list of your applications. In each tile in the Custom app lifecycle status section, you can see trending data for the last 90 days. You can show all apps in the Custom apps list or limit the list to only certain types of applications using the filter. Select a trend chart to filter the list to those criteria.

    Custom app page, with high-level metrics and list of all apps

    The Custom app page also lists all the applications individually, with a single record for each application. If the app has been published to production, the Published Version column shows the version number. If the Published Version column is blank, the app exists in development but has never been published to production.

    List of all custom apps

    View the app's usage data, subscription monitoring details, deployment history, and collaborators, if any, by selecting an application name from the list.

    Details on an application's record page.

    Select Open in App Engine Studio to see the contents of the app and access more information. The App Engine Studio application opens in a new browser window.

    App usage

    See a high-level view of the usage data for apps on production instances by selecting the App usage tab. The data includes the user count, insert count, and update count aggregated for the current month.
    • User count: The number of users who have accessed the application.
    • Insert count: The number of new records on tables in the application.
    • Update count: The number of records in the application that have been updated.
    Knowing usage data for your applications has several benefits:
    • Discover whether your app is being used. Are people using the app? Are they creating records? If not, consider updating or deleting the app.
    • Investigate and fix problems with the app. Knowing when or how data was changed can help identify where something went wrong.
    • Determine whether you must load balance the processing power of your instance by seeing when there might be consistently higher traffic in your app.

    In the User Experience Analytics dashboards section, see detailed data such as active users, sessions, and page views by selecting an experience. For more information about how to understand and use this data, see User Experience Analytics.

    Subscription monitoring

    Understand the roles used in your custom application and their implications for licensing and subscriptions. The data in this section includes details about each role and the users assigned to each role.

    Knowing subscription and licensing data information for each of your applications has several benefits:
    • Discover what roles are active in your custom application.
    • Discover which users are assigned each role and the permission levels they have.
    • See the cost implications of each license type and where it's used in your apps.
    System administrators can see which subscription the app is mapped to and have an option to change the subscription. Several factors affect what you see in this section.
    • If the app is mapped to an App Engine subscription, the Subscription Monitoring tab is visible.
    • If the app is mapped to a different subscription such as ITSM, the Subscription Monitoring tab is not visible.
    • If the app is mapped to App Engine, is switched to another subscription, and then is changed back to App Engine, the Subscription Monitoring tab is visible again.

    App Engine admins do not have permissions to change subscriptions. However, if an app is in the production environment, and there is a Subscription Monitoring tab, the App Engine admin can infer that the app is mapped to an App Engine subscription. If the Subscription Monitoring tab is not there, that app isn't mapped to App Engine.

    You can select a user's name in the Assigned Users section to see a role inheritance map. This map shows how this user inherited the role, whether from a parent role, a group assignment, or another inheritance. This information can help you take action if someone has a role you believe they shouldn't, and you want to change it.
    Figure 1. Role inheritance map
    Role inheritance map, showing how a user got their roles

    App deployments

    View the list of deployments your app has gone through on the Deployment history tab.

    Knowing deployment history information has several benefits:
    • If an app is deployed to production and there’s a defect, you can quickly see when the app was deployed and track down the problem.
    • If an app is deployed multiple times, you can quickly track what's changed over multiple deployments.
    • If an app is deployed to production, you can quickly see who approved the app deployment.

    App collaborators

    View the collaborators for the app by selecting the Collaborators tab. All collaborators are stored on the Development instance.

    If you must take quick action in the application to fix an issue or defect, you can quickly see who has permissions to make changes in an app and what those permissions are.