An update set is a group of one or more changes that can be moved from one instance to another altogether.

This feature allows administrators to group a series of changes into a named set and then move them as a unit to other systems for testing or deployment.

An update set is an XML file that contains:

A set of record details that uniquely identify the update set.

A list of configuration changes.

A state that determines whether another instance can retrieve and apply configuration changes.

Update sets track changes to applications and system platform features.

This allows developers to create new functionality on a non-production instance and promote the changes to another instance.

Screenshot: A sample update set record that has captured a configuration change

Learn more here!

An Access Control List (ACL) rule only grants a user access to an object if the user meets all of the following permissions required by the matching ACL rule:

The condition must evaluate to true

The script must evaluate to true or return an answer variable with the value of true

 The user must have one of the roles in the required roles list. If the list is empty, this condition evaluates to true

 [Record ACL rules only] The matching table-level and field-level ACL rules must both evaluate to true.

Image: ACL evaluate permissions

Learn more here!

Selecting Save in the form updates an existing record and keeps the form open.

Screenshot: Selecting 'Save' from the Incident form context menu to save the changes and remain on the page

Learn more here!

Business rules are not real-time and do not monitor fields on a form.

UI Actions can execute both client-side and server-side.

Data Policy can be run as a UI policy client-side.

UI policies are only enforced on data entered into a form or list (passing through the UI).

Client scripts execute on the browser but may also run when a database lookup is needed.

Image: Business rule processing flow

Code: A sample code for a UI Action that can run both client-side and server-side

Screenshot: Converting a data policy into a UI policy

  Step 1: Opening a Data Policy record

  Step 2: Clicking on the 'Convert this to UI Policy' link on the Data Policy record

Learn more about Business Rules here!

Learn more about UI Actions!

Learn more about Data Policy here!

Common Service Data Model (CSDM) provides standard fields and values for tracking life cycle stages and stage statuses for CIs.

Using these standard values consistently across applications helps track assets through their life cycle effectively.

Streamline life cycle management by migrating all life cycle fields and field values across the platform into a CSDM standard set of fields with a standard set of values.

Then, to maintain consistency, continue to use only the standard fields and values when updating or creating CIs.

Use a pre-populated mappings table that specifies mappings from legacy life-cycle fields and values into the standard Life cycle stage and Life cycle status fields.

Implement these standards to help monitor and manage asset life cycles effectively.

Using standard life cycle values is important in scenarios such as:

Event Management and Operational Intelligence need to know if a CI is in maintenance to handle alerts accordingly.

Cloud Insights need to know the state of a CI to report cost data effectively.

Audit and Compliance need to use standard life cycle values to generate consistent tasks and workflows.

You must activate life cycle migration to migrate legacy life cycle values in the system to the CSDM standard fields and values.

Image: Common Service Data Model (CSDM) conceptual model

Learn more here!

Security is built into all levels of the Now Platform.

User Authentication / Login, Application and Modules Access and Database Access are the different levels of ServiceNow security before an end-user has the capability to perform CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations on a table.

You can:

Configure login security options to control access to your instance.

Assign Roles to control access to features and capabilities in applications and modules.

 Set up Rules for access control lists (ACLs) to restrict access to data by requiring users to pass a set of requirements before interacting with it.

Image: ServiceNow High-level Security Layers

Learn more on Login and authentication security here!

Learn more on Application and Modules Access via Roles here!

Learn more on Database Access via Access Control List Rules here!

Selecting the Knowledge Base is mandatory when importing Microsoft Word documents as knowledge articles into a knowledge base.

You need the Can Contribute access to at least one active knowledge base, and the required role is knowledge.

Screenshot: Importing a sample word document into a Knowledge Base

Learn more here!

You can sort knowledge articles by Views, Newest and Alphabetical attributes in ascending and descending orders when opening a knowledge base from the service portal.

You can additionally refine the article list by applying filters such as their category and rating.

Views: sorts by the number of article views.

Newest: sorts by the date created or updated.

Alphabetical: sorts alphabetically by the article Short description field.

Relevancy: sorts by relevance to the search term.

Screenshot: Sorting knowledge article search results on the Service Portal

Learn more here!

Some of the IT challenges that can be solved with the CMDB are:

consolidating disparate Configuration Item (CI) data into a single Configuration,

regularly maintaining complex data for accuracy and

making sense of data to drive decisions and services.

Screenshot: End-to-end service and infrastructure visibility via a ServiceNow CMDB solution

Learn more here!

You can enable provider notification definitions to accept actions as scriptable action, flow actions, and Virtual Agent.

You can select one of the following types of notification actions you would like to create from the Notification Action wizard.

Scriptable Action

Flow Action

Virtual Agent

Screenshot: The Actions related list which displays the Class of a particular action

Learn more here!