Plan before you build

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Plan before you build

    This guidance helps ServiceNow customers plan effectively before building applications, emphasizing critical decisions that impact application development, scope, instance use, and naming conventions. Proper planning ensures irreversible actions are understood and supports building applications that align with organizational processes and access requirements.

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    Application Scope

    Choosing between private and global scopes is a foundational decision:

    • Private scope is the default and recommended for most custom business applications. It restricts access so only artifacts within the same scope can create, modify, remove, or run application data. It supports source control integration and delegated development.
    • Global scope is only recommended when the application must delete global data, change access on multiple default tables, or access APIs exclusive to the global scope. Note that globally scoped applications cannot use delegated development.
    • Globally scoped passthrough script includes provide access to global APIs from private scopes but are not a substitute for fully global-scoped applications.

    Instance Selection

    Proof of Concept (PoC) applications should be developed in separate instances such as sandbox or Personal Developer Instances (PDIs), not the main organizational development instance. This avoids scope conflicts and maintains clean namespace management. Production-ready applications should be developed within the organization’s developer instance to align with testing and deployment workflows.

    Naming Decisions

    Application names directly influence the scope namespace, which uniquely identifies application resources. The suggested scope format is x[company code][applicationname] with a maximum of 18 characters. For example, an application named "Legal Request" might have the scope xacmelegalreque. Since all application files inherit this scope, careful consideration of the application name is important. The application name is changeable if necessary.

    Essentially, an application is a digital program that supports user tasks. Some actions you take when building an application might be irreversible. Be aware of these actions and plan for them in advance.

    Agentic AI

    Create applications with help from agentic AI. For more information, see Agentic development on the ServiceNow AI Platform.

    Application scope

    One of the first major decisions to make when creating an application is: Should the application be in a private scope or a global scope?

    By default, applications are created in their own private application scope. Applications in a private application scope restrict access to their application artifacts so only application artifacts in the same scope have full access to create, modify, remove, or run application data. Scoped applications can use source control integration and delegated development. Globally scoped applications cannot use delegated development.

    Create custom business applications in scope unless:
    • The application has to delete global data.
    • The application needs to change application access settings on multiple default tables to function.
    • The application needs to access APIs only available in the global scope. Creating a globally scoped passthrough script include would not be enough for this requirement.
    Note:
    Globally scoped passthrough is a script include created in a global scope that is accessible from the private scope. The passthrough gives access to a global API that is not accessible by default from a private application scope.

    For more information, see Application scope and Understanding Application Scope on the ServiceNow AI Platform (Whitepaper).

    Instance selection

    Proof of Concept (PoC) application builds can and should be built in a separate instance from a regular development instance. The instance can be a sandbox instance or a Personal Developer Instance (PDI) from the Developer Site. The PDI naming format is dev12345.service-now.com.

    If using an instance with a different scope namespace, rebuild the PoC applications in the organization’s development instance. Do not import the applications into the organization's development instance. The scoped namespace for the applications will not match the scoped namespace for the company’s development instance.

    Applications the organization intends to use (i.e. production apps) should be created in the organization’s developer instance, so the application can follow the organization’s testing and deployment process.

    Naming decisions

    The application name matters. ServiceNow suggests a scope based on the application’s name. Application file names are appended to the scope to uniquely identify application resources in an instance. Scope is in the format: x_[company code]_[application_name] with a maximum of 18 characters. For example, an application name Legal Request has a suggested scope of x_acme_legal_reque.

    All application files within the application inherit the scope, so carefully consider what the value should be. The application name can always be changed.