Service Now Interview Questions

How do you personalize a form ? Add/Remove fields ?

How do you add a extra values to any drop down list ?

How can you make a specific field as a mandatory ?

How can you make a specific field as read only ?

How do you rename a specific field label ?

How do you organize fields on a specific form ?

How do you set a maximum length to a specific field on a form ?

What is an incident?

What is a problem?

How do you create a custom table in snow?

How do you copy all the users from LDAP to sNow ?

How do you copy all the uses from Active Directory to sNow?

How do you create a role ?

How do you create a user ?

How do you create a group?

What is group , user and role in sNow ? How they are associated each other ?

How do you assign a user to role / group ?

How can you make a specific 'Number' field automatically increment whenever new record created in a database table ?

- How do you find the Database field name of a specific field which displays on a form ?
- What is Update Set ? How do you export and import in sNow ? 

- Question : How do you find out  value associated to a specific lable in a drop down list on a form ? for eg : I want to know the value associated to ' High' in a Priority drop down list 
Answer : Right click on the drop down list on a form, choose Personalize dictionary and you can able to see the label and it's associated value.

- Question : How can you change sequence of list of values in a choice list component ? For eg : I want to re arrange the choice list values for a 'Priorty' column ?

- Question : How do you set a default value to a 'Choice List ' field ? For example, Whenever incident created, I want to set default value for 'Priority' choice list as '3'

- Question : What is the significance of 'Order' attribute while configuring Advance Business rule ?

Q. What is servicenow?

ServiceNow is a cloud based ITSM tool. Please check the below url before attending a service-now interview.

http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Product_Overview

Q. What do you mean by term "Application" in servicenow?

Application is a group of modules which provides its related information.For example change application provides the information related to change process. It consist of modules like create change ticket, view change tickets etc.

Q. What is the latest servicenow user interface and when it was released?

The latest user interface is UI14 interface.It came in Eureka release

Q. How to enable or disable an application ?

Navigate to "Application Menus" module under system definition application.Open the respective application that require to be enable or disable.Set active as true to enable it or set active to false to disable it

Q. What is a view ?

View defines the arrangement of fields on a form or a list. For one single form we can define multiple views according to the user preferences or requirement.

Q. What is ACL?

An ACL is access control list that defines what data a user can access and how they can access it in service now.

Q. What do you mean by impersonating a user? How it is useful?

Impersonating a user means that you can log in to the system as that user and can have feel how the service-now UI is set for that user.This is very useful while testing.For example if you are required to test that a user can access change form or not.You can impersonate that user and can test instead of logging out from your session and logging again with that user credentials.

Q. Which is the Parent table for incident, change and problem ?

Task table

Q. What is a record producer?

A record producer is a type of a catalog item that allows users to create task-based records from the service catalog.For example you can create a change record or problem record using record producer. Record producers provides an alternative way to create records through service catalog

Q. What is dictionary override?

Dictionary Overrides provides the capability to override several properties of a field in extended table.For example change table is extended from task table.There is a field named status in task table and set as read-only. When we use this field in change form it will show be a read only.We can set this to non-read only by using the dictionary override.Similarly there are other properties that can be set for the fields in extended table.

Q. What do you mean by coalesce?

Coalesce is a property of a field that we use in transform map field mapping.When we set the coalesce as true for a field mapping it signifies that this field will work as unique key.If a field match is found with the coalesce field, then existing record will be updated with the imported information in target table else a new record will be inserted into the target table

Q. What is an UI policy?

UI policies are alternative to client scripts.It can be used to set a field as mandatory, readonly and visible on a form. You can also use UI policy for dynamically changing a field on a form.

Q. What is a data policy?

Data policy checks the mandatory and read-only of a field whenever a record is inserted or updated through a web-service or import set.For example: If a mandatory field in the incoming record (from import set or web-service) is empty then the data policy will not allow to insert that record into the table.

Q. What is difference between UI policy and data policy?

UI policy acts when a record is inserted or updated through a servicenow UI i.e servicenow forms while data policy acts whenever a record is inserted or updated into database through any means.

Q. What is a client script?

Client script sits on the client side(the browser) and run there only.types of client script are OnLoad() OnSubmit() OnChange() OncellEdit)(

Q. How can you cancel a form submission through client script?

In the onSubmit function return false. function onSubmit() { return false; }

Q. What is a business rule?

Business rule is server side scripting that executes whenever a record is inserted, updated, deleted, displayed or queried.The key thing to keep in mind while creating a business rule is that when and on what action it has to execute. You can run the business rule 'on display', 'on before' or 'on after' of an action (insert,delete,update) is performed.

Q. Can you call a business rule through a client script?

Yes you can call a business rule through a clientscript by using glideajax

Q. What is a gliderecord?

Gliderecord is a java class that is used for database operations instead of writing SQL queries.

Q. What do you mean by data lookup and record matching?

Datalookup and record matching feature helps to set a field value based on some condition instead of writing scripts. For example:on Incident forms, the priority lookup rules sample data automatically sets the incident Priority based on the incident Impact and Urgency values. Data lookup rules allow to specify the conditions and fields where they want data lookups to occur.

Q. What is an update set?

Update set is a group of customization.It captures the customization or configuration changes made by a user and then these update sets can be moved from one instance to another. For example if we made some configuration changes in our development environment and want same changes in our test environment then we can capture all the changes in an update set and can move this update set to the test environment instead of doing changes manually in test environment.

Q. What is a sys_id?

A unique 32-character GUID that identify each record created in each table in servicenow

Q. What is LDAP Integration and its use?

LDAP is Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.It is used for user data population and User authentication. Servicenow integrates with LDAP directory to streamline the user log in process and to automate the creation of user and assigning them roles

Q. How to set a field unique on table?

Go to that respective field dictionary and set the unique check box to true.

Q. What is data dictionary?

Data dictionary defines every table and field in the system. It contains information about a field's data type, default value, dependency, and other attributes

Q. What happens when a user make some changes the homepage?

When a user make some changes on the homepage then that pages is saved as his personalized homepage instead of updation on the actual homepage.For example home page name is Incident overview.When a user make some changes on it then this page is saved as My incident overview and is only visible to that user.

Q. What role you are required to create/update ACL

security_admin

Q. How you can check on which servicenow instance node you are working ?

Goto SystemDiagnostic -> Stats. Statistic page will be open where you can get the details of node and the instance on which you are working on

Q. How to enable or disable the pie chart labels?

To enable or disable the labels in pie chart we need to set the property glide.ui.chart.pie.labels to true or false.

Q. What is installation exit?

Installation exits are customizations that exit from Java to call a script before returning back to Java. Navigate to System Definition > Installation Exits. Some installation exit names (Login, Logout, ValidatePassword, ExternalAuthentication) are reserved and cannot be changed. Other installation exits can override these with custom script that replaces the script in the default installation exit.

Q. What is import set?

Import Sets is a tool used to import data from various data sources and, then using transform map, map that data into ServiceNow tables. The Import Sets table acts as a staging table for records imported.

Q. What is transform Map?

A transform map transform the record imported into servicenow import set table to the target table. It also determines the relationships between fields displaying in an Import Set table and fields in target table

Q. What do you mean by Foreign record insert?

A foreign record insert occurs when an import makes a change to a table that is not the target table for that import. This happens when updating a reference field on a table.

Q. Which searching technique is used to search a text or record in Servicenow ?

Zing is the text indexing and search engine that performs all text searches in ServiceNow.

Q. What does the Client Transaction Timings plugin does?

The Client Transaction Timings plugin enhances the system logs by providing more information on the duration of transactions between the client and the server. By providing information on how time was spent during the transaction, performance issues can be tracked down to the source by seeing where the time is being consumed.

Q. What is inactivity monitor?

An inactivity monitor triggers an event for a task record if the task has been inactive for a certain period of time. If the task remains inactive, the monitor repeats at regular intervals.

Q. What is domain separation?

Domain separation is a way to separate data into (and optionally to separate administration by) logically-defined domains. For example A client XYZ have two business and they are using servicenow single instance for both business.They do not want that user's from one business can see data of other business.Here we can configure domain separation to isolate the records from both business.

Q. Ho you can remove Remember me check box from login page?

You can set the property - "glide.ui.forgetme " to true to remove the Remember me check box from login page.

Q. What is HTML Sanitizer?

The HTML sanitizer automatically cleans up HTML markup in HTML fields to remove unwanted code and protect against security concerns such as cross-site scripting attacks. The HTML sanitizer is active for all instances starting with the Eureka release.

Q. Which table is used in servicenow to audit changes to records?

ServiceNow uses the Sys Audit [sys_audit] table to audit changes to records.

Q. What is Schema map?

The schema map displays the details of tables and their relationships in a visual manner, allowing administrators to view and easily access different parts of the database schema.

Q. What is a dashboard?

Dashboard is a visual collection of reports and paralytics presented as KPI scorecards and indicator summary tab.

Q. What is scorecard?

A scorecard can be used to measure the performance of an employee or a business process. It is a graphical representation of progress over time. A scorecard belongs to an indicator. The first step is to define the indicators that you want to measure. Scorecards can be enhanced by adding targets, breakdowns (scores per group), aggregates (counts, sums, and maximums), and time series (totals and averages).

Q. What do you mean by indicators in performance analytics in servicenow?

Indicators, also known as metrics, business metrics, or KPIs, are statistics that businesses track to measure current conditions and to forecast business trends.

Q. How to set the default value of a date field to current datetime value?

Goto the dictionary of the respective date-time field and set the default value as : javascript:gs.nowDateTime();

Q. What is client transaction timing?

Client transaction timing provides more information on the duration of transactions between the client and the server.This require to activate the plugin - "Client transaction timing plugin".

Q. What a setWorkflow(e) function does?

setWorkflow(e) enables or disables the running of business rules that might normally be triggered by subsequent actions. If the e parameter is set to false, an insert/update will not be audited. Auditing only happens when the parameter is set to true for a GlideRecord operation. Parameters: e - Boolean variable that if true (default) enables business rules, and if false to disables them.

Q. What the setForceUpdate() function does?

setForceUpdate() updates the record even if there is no changes on the record.

Q. What is the significance of setLimit(n) function?

setLimit(n) functions limits the number of records to query by Gliderecord()

Q. Can you update a record without updating its system fields(like sys_updated_by, sys_updated_on)?

Yes, you can do it by using a function autoSysFields() in your server side scripting.Whenever you are updating a record set the autoSysFields() to false example: var gr = new GlideRecord('incident'); gr.query(); if(gr.next()){ gr.autoSysFields(false); gr. short_description = "Test from Examsmyntra" ; gr.update(); }

Q. How to get the row count in a gliderecord?

By using the getRowCount() function you can retrieve the number of rows

Q. What is the difference between deleteMultiple() and deleteRecord()?

deleteMultiple() deletes multiple records according to the current "where" clause. Does not delete attachments, whereas deleteRecord() deletes single record.

Q. How to restrict users to upload an attachment in servicenow?

1.Navigate to System Properties > Security. 2.In the Attachment limits and behavior section, locate the List of roles (comma-separated) that can create attachments: property (glide.attachment.role). 3.Enter one or more roles separated by commas. 4. Only roles listed in this property are able to upload attachments to a record. If no roles are entered, then all roles can upload attachments to ServiceNow forms. Click Save.

Q. How to disable attachment on a specific servicenow table?

Go to the dictionary of that table and add "Add no_attachment" to the Attributes field.

Q. What is the significance of cascade variable checkbox in order guide ?

Check box to select whether the variables used should cascade, which passes their values to the ordered items. If this check box is cleared, variable information entered in the order guide is not passed on to ordered items.

BSM: What is driving companies to implement CMDB today?

CM: They have a desire to understand what they have in their environment and to understand how those things are related to one another. This in turn provides them with the ability to understand and manage the high-level services that they provide to the business –- to ensure that changes to the environment are done with due regard to impact to the business.

BSM: Why does CMDB have a reputation for deployment and maintenance challenges in the past, and how has CMDB changed to address these issues?

CM: Most of the past issues stemmed from the fact that people were looking at CMDBs as repositories of technology supported by business services -- rather than repositories of business services, supported by technology. I’m not sure that CMDB has changed that much -- but PEOPLE have changed. They have come to the realization that approaching this from a technology perspective is all wrong. CMDB needs to be looked at from the perspective of the business –- and of the services that IT provide to it.

BSM: Is CMDB an important technology to enable BSM?

CM: Absolutely. You need to have an understanding of the technology building blocks of your business services in order to ensure the availability and performance of those services.

BSM: What is the difference between CMDB and CMS (Configuration Management System)?

CM: The CMS term was ITIL v3 trying to catch up with what everyone else had already figured out. ITIL says that “the Configuration Management System maintains one or more CMDBs, and each CMDB stores Attributes of CIs, and Relationships with other CIs.”

So, a CMDB is not a solitary entity that holds all information about all configuration items, but rather a collection of repositories that “roll up” data into a master system (now called a CMS). Quite frankly, this is how most leading vendors (including ServiceNow) and most practitioners saw the correct implementation of the ITIL v2 CMDB anyway -– and from a ServiceNow perspective, we can fit into either camp. Many customers elect to use ServiceNow as a CMS pulling information from other CMDBs, while others see us as a CMDB data source.

BSM: What are the key features or functionality a company should look for when purchasing a CMDB?

CM: First and foremost, remember that the CMDB is a repository -- a repository that is used by other ITIL processes. So, it’s vitally important that the CMDB is an integral part of the same system as those processes. You should look for a CMDB that uses the same technology; the same data model; and the same platform as the consuming ITIL processes -– don’t accept disparate tool “integration” stories.

Second, look for a CMDB that will allow itself to be organized from a business process level first -– and then extended down to technology. A CMDB that forces users to build up from a technology perspective is not going to meet the objective of CMDB, and will turn into a complex implementation that will likely fail.

Third, look for a CMDB that can be easily integrated with other data sources outside the Service Management environment. Look for it to have built-in reconciliation and normalization capabilities to ease the burden of these integrations.

Finally, it is imperative the tool efficiently supports the way people expect to work. The commitment of the people using and maintaining the information in a CMDB is critical to its success. Unfortunately, poorly designed tools have have thwarted even the best CMDB intentions. For example, if updating a CI record takes 40 clicks when it should only take six, user frustration will mount and a CMDB initiative will wither and die.

BSM: Is analytics an important feature of CMDB?

CM: Not necessarily a feature of the CMDB itself, but analytics and reporting should be able to easily access the data within the CMDB. In the case of ServiceNow, all data within the CMDB can be directly accessed for reporting purposes through actions as simple as a right-click from a filtered list; or by selecting from an extensive list of pre-created reports; or by using the ad-hoc report writer built into the product; or by accessing the data directly through our ODBC driver for extraction to third-party reporting or analytics tools.

BSM: How has CMDB evolved in order to handle the new dynamic virtual and cloud environments?

CM: CMDBs now have to track additional CI attributes in these dynamic environments. They also have to be prepared to be less “definite” about the physical location of a particular CI. For example, in a virtual/cloud world, applications can be moving from machine to machine continually –- and so this creates some new challenges for a CMDB.

Additionally, ServiceNow has introduced runbook automation capabilities to the CMDB. So those dynamic virtual and cloud environments can actually be created and provisioned directly from within ServiceNow -– and then information is automatically fed back into the CMDB for ongoing configuration management.

BSM: What are the top benefits that a company can gain from CMDB?

CM: The benefits are actually realized in areas outside the CMDB itself –- and all boil down to the ability to offer better service to the business through better IT. Better change management; faster incident resolution; higher application availability; reduced asset maintenance costs; more automated processes; simpler problem resolution; increased IT governance capability ... the list goes on. Dumping thousands of configuration items into a CMDB won't do any good unless there's a clear business justification. For IT people, that might mean getting on the phone with application owners and other business managers to draw clear links between CIs and the services they support. A relevant and accurate CMDB can provide actionable data and have a positive impact across all service improvement initiatives.

BSM: How will CMDB continue to evolve in the near future?

CM: CMDB will continue to evolve as the technology around it evolves –- as we have seen with the introduction of cloud/virtual infrastructure.

In terms of predictions -- In ITIL v3, we were introduced to the concept of the Service Knowledge Management System, or SKMS, and we feel that this will continue to develop. This is the set of tools, processes, and databases used to manage knowledge and information. This includes the CMS, trusted sources, CMDBs, the SACM process and anything else required to turn data into wisdom. After all, that is why you are collecting this data in the first place –- so that it can be re-used.

As Social IT becomes more prevalent, a new community-driven, organically growing knowledge repository will quickly overtake the static knowledge bases of old. IT will no longer be the gatekeepers of knowledge, but will retain responsibility for storing it; possibly indexing it; and making it accessible to the business. The CMDB will play a key part in this knowledge revolution –- and may end up as the repository for knowledge about CIs, in addition to the configuration and relationships stored there today.

The other prediction that we would make would be in the area of automatic remediation –- and we have customers doing this today using our CMDB in conjunction with our Runbook Automation capability. In these situations, customers are identifying issues with CIs (perhaps non-standard configurations or similar) and then using runbook automation to automatically remediate those issues with zero-touch.

How do you create a new application in sNow

How do you create a new module in sNow ?

How do you copy a existing module from one application to other ?

Q1 : Can we create Existing groups as a subgroup while creating a new group?

Ans :   It can be done by adding related links , will let you the workaround later.

Q2 :Why do we create subgroups ?

 Creating subgroups allows you to customize your contact list to send messages to a targeted group of members within your system.   

Q3: What are Elevated Privileges ?

•An elevated privilege is a role that has the elevated_privilege field set to true. After the plugin is activated, a new security_admin elevated privilege is created and assigned to the default System Administrator user. This role grants modification access to the High Security Settings and allows the user to modify the Access Control List, directly import XML files, and access the Scripts - Background module. A user can get an elevated privilege role in his session only by manually elevating to it. The role is in the user's session only for the duration of the session. Session timeout or log-out removes the role.

•A role that is an elevated_privilege does not appear in an assigned user's session when the user logs in. The user must manually elevate to that role. See the following section for details.

 (Requires admin or security_admin role) Presents the Activate an Elevated Privilege dialog box, which allows the administrator to select an elevated role, which will expire at the end of the session.   

other roles available are : 

•High Security Settings: provide default property values to harden security on your platform by centralizing all critical security settings to one location for management and auditing.

•Default Deny Property: provides a security manager property controls the default security behavior for table access.

•Security Administrator Role: provides a role to prevent modification of key security settings and resources. The Security Administrator role is not inherited by the admin role and must be explicitly assigned.

•Elevated Privilege: allows users with the security admin role to operate in the context of a normal user and elevate to higher security role when needed.

•Property Access Control: allows security administrators to set the roles required to read and write properties.

•Transaction and system logs: are read only.

•Access Control Rules: control what data users can access and how they can access it

Q4 : Use case for Understanding groups and roles?

It is fact that you can assign roles to individual users as well, and not just to groups.

 use case:

• A university Physics professor has "Grade Test" role (aka right or privilege) for a particular course or set of courses. However, he decides to go on sabbatical for year and wants another instructor (or perhaps, several instructors - a group), i.e. his replacement(s), to have the same role(s) (privileges) over the same set of courses. Note that the substituting instructors may belong to different user groups. The administrator can easily assign the role(s) in question to individual users or groups of users. Of course, after the tenured professor returns, the administrator can revoke those roles (privileges).

•From a system perspective we only care which methods a user (or a group of users) is allowed to execute. Before executing restricted method we check user roles by calling other methods that normally return Boolean values.

Q5: What is internal integration User ? 

Select this check box to designate this user as an internal integration user.  

Enabling WSS[web services security] requires authentication for all SOAP requests including internal integration communications such as the MID Server, ODBC Driver, Remote Update Sets, and high availability cloning. SOAP requests for these internal integration communications cannot implement WSS due to technical implications. If your instance uses these SOAP interfaces, you can allow them to bypass the WSS authentication requirement by marking their user accounts as internal integration users

Q6: What is web services access only ?

Web service access  enforces web service security using a combination of basic authentication challenge/response over the HTTP protocol and system level access control using theContextual Security. Administrators can control what system resources web services users can access by granting them one of the SOAP Roles

 Select this check box to designate this user as a non-interactive user. This field is available with Non-Interactive Sessions.

Q7: why do we have hourly rate in a group ?

Once the Project Management v2 Costing Add-on Plugin is installed  Group Hourly rate is displayed.

The plugin creates an Hourly rate field on the Group form and adds a new form called Group resource, which calculates the estimated cost for the group, based on the hourly rate provided. The Group Resources will be added automatically based on the groups associated with the Project or its associated Project Tasks.

Defines the hourly rate for members of this group, as defined in the Group record , The hourly rate is multiplied by the Estimated hours for the group to estimate project costs. 

Q8 : what is Role delegator ?

Role Delegator : Administrators can grant users the right to be role delegators. These delegators can assign roles to users who are in a particular group. The roles that delegators can assign to other users include the roles that the delegator inherits from a group those roles that the administrator specifies.

Q9 : Difference between roles and groups ?

•Roles and groups serve distinct purposes. You can't assign permissions to a role or capabilities to a group. 

•The identity hierarchy is relevant for groups, but not for roles. If you are a member of a role, you have all of that role's capabilities, regardless of whether you are a direct member of that role and what your other memberships are.

•You can deny a permission to a group, but you can't deny a capability to a role. Each role either provides or doesn't provide each capability. No role takes capabilities away from its members.

•A group's permissions are not displayed as part of a group definition, but a role's capabilities are displayed as part of a role definition.

•A group can be a member of another group, but a role cannot be a member of another role. Instead, one role can contribute its capabilities to another role.

•It's not possible to group by 2 different attributes in a list report.

- Can u please explain some SOAP requests, remedy data, integration

- Can you please tell me about JDBC, SOAP, LDAP

-Tell me about UI pages, UI macros,PG’s

-Tell me about Jelly scripting. How you are using in your company.

- How to build report or fetch data for CI relationships?

-In which table CI-relationships will store in CMDB?

-Import sets- Can you please differentiate between Synchronous and 

-asynchronous import sets

-Did u work on discvery. Can you explain

- Can u explain about Client scripts, UI policies, JQuery

-How re you implementing Single sign in your company

- What methodology are you using in your project

- Tell me about Service Catalog. How are you using now.

- Do you create workflows in service catalog?

- In Work Flow, I need to change the delivary time from 2 to 5 business 

days. How will you do that

- What catalog you are using. Is it single or multiple?


- Did u face any issue at instance level for service catalog?

1) What integration have you built with other systems outside servicenow?

2) Did u use webservices, extracts, imports in servicenow? What kind?

3) Did u create catalog items from Scratch or did u do modifications to the 

existing one?

4) Did u work with customer to create catalog items?

5) How much is your team size?

6) Who gets the requirement? Is it architect or you interact with enduser?

7) How many UI forms have you built? What is the purpose of building UI 

forms in your company?

8) How many end users you have?

9) Clients scripts/Jquery have you worked in front end or backend? Any 

challenges you faced?

10) Have you has experience with content management in service 

now?what kind of experience?

11) From support prospective, did u have any experience with trouble 

shooting?

12) Were you involved in notifications in existing one?

13) Working on CMDB- Did u start recently or how is the CI/CS 

relationship works?

14) Tell me about your work experience with WorkFlows/Notifications

15) Have you done anything regarding Custom Development/Custom 


App?

- Tell me about yourself(about your resume, Technicalities, Skills)

- Service Catalog- Did u create new workflow or worked on old one?

- WorkFlow-  Are you working on Workflow created by implementing 

partners or yourself?

- What is the complex workflow you have worked in Service Catalog?

-In Service Catalog, If I want to change the state to resolved,is there any 

option?

- Can you tell me about autoclosure?

-Do u have any knowledge about UI macros?

- Can you make changes to portal by seeing the code(logic)?

- Hav e you worked on Inbound action? Tell me about your experience?

- Have you worked on Integration? Tell me about your experience?

-If I have to create similar type of fields, similar type of functionalities, 

where we have to create?

-What is script action?

- What is the use of UI script?

- What are the best ways to trouble shot performance issue in 

serviceNow?

- What is datapolicy?

- Does Datapolicy apply on Form level?

- Does Datapolicy works on Listview?


- Cell Edit means? What is the use of it?

Access Controls
- What is ACL ? Give an example how do you create simple ACL, which restricts access on 'Caller' field on Incident table while creating brand new Incident

Glide Reference
- What do you understand about Glide Record ?, Explain use of it ? How do you find total number of records in a problem table using Glide Record?

- What is Glide Element ? Explain usage of it ?

- What is Glide System ? Explain use of it ?

- How do you insert data into a table using Glide Record  ? Explain the syntax

- Explain how do you perform a deletion on a specific table, specific row using Glide Record 

Business Rules

-  Explain how to write a simple business rule display total number of rows in Incident table right after new incident record created
- What do you mean by 'Run Async Business Rule' ?

Database Tables

- Explain steps how do you create a database table in service now ? and how do you add new fields to the table ?

1.What are your typical day-to-day activities in your platform?

2.What is ITSM and ITIL?

Ans.IT service management (ITSM) refers to the entirety of activities – directed by policies, organized 

and structured in processes and supporting procedures – that are performed by an organization or part 

of an organization to plan, deliver, operate and control IT services offered to customers.

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is an integrated, process-based, best practice framework for managing 

IT services. It provides guidance for creating and operating a Service Desk that provides efficient 

communication between the user community and the IT provider. (Incident, Problem ,Change 

Management etc).

3.What do you know about CMBD?

Ans. The Configuration Management Database (CMDB) is a series of tables containing all the assets and 

business services controlled by a company and their configurations. This includes computers and devices 

on the network, software contracts and licenses, business services, and more. The IT desk can use the 

CDMB to understand better their network users' equipment, and the relationships between them. The 

CMDB can also be referenced by other processes within the system. 

The CMDB can be populated using the Discovery product. Discovery searches the network for all 

attached computers and devices, then populates the CMDB with information on each computer/device's 

configuration, provisioning, and current status. Discovery also reports on any software which is running, 

and the TCP connections between computer systems, thereby establishing their relationships.

4.Do you know anything about Knowledge and Knowledge articles?

Ans. Knowledge management allows users to create, edit, and view knowledge articles to share 

information across the organization.

Knowledge articles are pieces of knowledge, such as a policy or release notes. Each article exists within a 

knowledge base, which is managed by one or more knowledge managers.

Users can browse and search knowledge using a knowledge homepage or contextual search from other 

ServiceNow applications. Knowledge authors can contribute articles. Administrators can create multiple 

knowledge bases and assign these knowledge bases to individual managers responsible for controlling 

the behavior and organizational scheme of each knowledge base.

5.What are the 3 basic components of Workflow?

Ans. Approvals

Notifications

Task

6.What is BSM?

Ans.Business Service Management BSM map graphically displays the configuration items, CI, that 

support a business service.

7.What is the difference between SLA, OLA, and Underpinning Contracts?

Ans. Type field.

8.How do you check the upgrades that are made to the system, using which module?

Ans. System Diagnostics-- Upgrade History

9.Do you know anything about SaaS and PaaS. Service Now comes under what category?

Ans. Software as a service (SaaS; pronounced /sæs/ or /sɑːs/) is a software licensing and delivery model 

in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted.

Platform as a service (PaaS) is a category of cloud computing services that provides a platform allowing 

customers to develop, run and manage Web applicationswithout the complexity of building and 

maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching an app.

ServiceNow is a PaaS service.

10.My manager is going to be out of town and needs to have the supervisor approve while he/she is 

out of town, what would he/she utilize in ServiceNow?

Ans.Delegate-Delegation is the ability to designate other users to receive and interact with approvals 

and task assigned to you

11.Tell me few points on Integration.

12.Did you have any idea on Asset Management?

13.How did you use CI's in your projects?

14.What do you know about Discovery tool?

15.Do you know what are the added features in Fuji Version?

Ans. Application Scope.

16.What are credentials required for Discovery tool, and what kind do you need?

Credentials are generally a user/password used to authorize use of a system. For discovery purposes, 

the following types of credentials are required: 

 user / password or preshared key - for UNIX and Linux systems

 domain authorization - authorizing WMI for Windows systems

 community strings - for SNMP

17. Can you import Discovery data?

Yes. For example, you may want to import a list of IP addresses in host file format to start the discovery 

process on a set of known machines. The system is very agile at importing, exporting, and synchronizing 

(federating) data.

18.What is this MID Server and How are the MID servers administered?

Ans.It is a small Java process that runs the probes for the discovery.All administration (with the 

exception of the installation) is handled centrally from your instance. Configuration of IP ranges, 

credentials, schedules for discovery are all in a web-based UI.

19.Do integrations need to be done before the ServiceNow implementation goes live?

You can establish integrations before or after the ServiceNow implementation goes live, however the 

best practice is to enable integrations before your implementation goes live. Enabling integrations prior 

to going live allows you to test the integration. This is especially important for integrations to user lists 

or single sign-on applications since a problem in one of these integrations can prevent users from 

logging on.

20.What are import sets?

The Import Sets workspace provides tables that are a staging area for your data. Data in multiple 

formats is accepted and transformations can be done before passing the data to your ServiceNow 

instance.

21.How are integrations secured?

Security is one of the first concerns mentioned in doing an integration project. These mechanisms 

contribute to a secure integration:

 A ServiceNow implementation connects from a single machine using a fixed IP address and 

through a specific port on your firewall. This allows firewalls to limit all traffic to a particular IP 

address and communications port.

 Many integrations communicate over the HTTPS protocol. This ensures that all communications 

are encrypted.

 Mutual Authentication (Single sign-on (SSO)) and other login techniques provide user 

verification and role assignment.

 Access Control Lists (ACLs) provide protection of assets that do not need to be exposed in 

integration processing.

 The High Security Plugin provides additional security controls.

22.Did you work on web service in your recent project. If yes please tell me about what you did.

23.Do you have any idea on how to implement Automation in servicenow?

Ans. Using Orchestration

24.What is Orchestration?

Ans.Orchestration automates simple or complex multi-system tasks on remote servers that are normally 

done manually. An Orchestration process can cross all management disciplines and interact with all 

types of infrastructure elements, such as applications, databases, and hardware. Orchestration 

combines the ServiceNow graphical workflow with the MID Server to run Orchestration-specific 

workflow activities.

25.Why Use Orchestration?

Orchestration enables an IT organization to automate complex tasks on remote computers quickly and 

reliably, with best practices every time. Orchestration workflows employ the skills and knowledge of an 

entire organization, while requiring less skill and labor to execute

26.How Orchestration Works

When an Orchestration activity starts within a workflow, Orchestration launches a probe and writes a 

probe record to the ECC Queue. The workflow pauses as the MID Server picks up the request and 

executes the probe. When the probe reports back, the workflow resumes as the results are analyzed. 

The workflow can exit or continue at this point.

27.Did you create Reports and what kind of graphical representations did you use?

28.What are Reference Qualifiers and Dependent fields.

Reference qualifiers and Dependent fields allow you to present context-sensitive choices to your users 

when they fill out a form. Reference fields are usually used when you’ve got a lot of choices or you’ve 

got some complex filtering needs. Dependent fields are great when you just have a simple filtering need 

based on another field value on the form.

Set up a filter on the incident list. Copy the query for this filter and understand how it is formatted.

Set up the ‘Configuration Item’ field on the ‘Incident’ form to only show Business services. You should 

not change the referenced table to accomplish this.

Modify your reference qualifier to show Computers. Check against the ‘Computers’ module to verify the 

count. If the numbers didn’t match up, why?

Modify your reference qualifier to show ALL Computers, Servers, etc. Hint: The query for this should 

only reference a single table.

Open a couple of Business service and computer records and assign them to a particular user. Modify 

your reference qualifier to only display Business

services and computers assigned to the user populated in the ‘Caller’ field.

Set up a new field on the incident form called ‘Sub-subcategory’. Without writing any code, make this 

field dependent on the Subcategory field.

29.What is difference between Client side scripting and server-side scripting. Name few examples.


30.Tell me what you know about Access Control List.

Difference b/w SLA/OLA/UP
Answer

SLA = Servicelevel Agreement = Agreement with the customer 
OLA = Operation Level Agreement = Agreement with internal delivery processes 
UP = Underpinning Contract = Contract with Supplier

The OLA's and UP's have to be in line with the SLA, which has to be fulfilled. Cause the OLA's and UP's ensures that your customer get's the agreed service and value add by having a partnership with your company.

Question : Difference b/w Eureka and FUJI versions in Service Now ?
Answer :

1. In the application model few key concepts such as application scope and unique namespaces to 

prevent inadvertent cross-application conflicts are introduced.

2. It also includes functionality to limit the number of events triggered to ensure the application 

doesn’t tie up system resources and cause a degradation in performance. 

3. Developers can now put controls in place to manage scripts for each application by setting them 

up as fully editable, read-only, or protected, with the latter capable of hiding and encrypting 

scripts.

4. A new application called IT Financial Management is introduced which allows organizations to 

distribute, manage, dashboard, and report on expenses using components such as a general 

ledger, fiscal periods, cost models, and an allocation engine.

5. Another new application called Test Management is introduced which helps manage the 

software testing process and integrate with PPM.  This is used to track test cases, executions, 

and results to allow users to report on the overall status. 

6. The reporting list user interface now aligns with the rest of the platform.  There are a number of 

new chart types including a speedometer and dial, pyramid, and funnel; reports are now 

grouped into categories including the most heavily used vs. unused; and where or when 

aggregation can be used with reports has been improve.

7.  Not only was out of box reporting improved but there were also a number of additions to 

Performance Analytics including the ability to setup second level breakdowns or specify what 

the default chart type is for an indicator. 

8. There are several things introduced specific to the CMDB including The Next Generation BSM 

application which replaced the version in Eureka, the ability to create a baseline for a particular 

business service, and functionality to log proposed changes against a CI relationship.  

9. Discovery now includes a dashboard that provides a high-level status of schedules and status, 

enhanced caching ability and probes, and support for SNMPv3 enabled devices.

10. The authority documents, citations and controls from the Unified Compliance Framework (UFC) 

can now be downloaded and imported into IT GRC application. Quarterly updates are also 

proposed to the Administrators to make sure the Authority library is kept up to date. A new 

certification survey and IT GRC reports are also part of the release.

Question : How do you modify the out of box validation scripts ?
Answer : Goto 'Validation scripts' , Select the script which you want to modify and make changes and save it

Question : what are the new features in Istanbul version ?
Answer : Below are the new features added to Istanbul version
                 - Wishlist - Service Catalog items can be saved for future without performing 'Add to cart'. This is very useful when user doesn't have complete information before he submit.
                 - New Variable types - Email and URL
                 - Customizable display width - We can set the % of the width of field, for eg : you need more width for 'URL' field, you can set 100% width.. this applicable only for single column layout
                 - Required check box - For any service catalog item, that allows user can click on submit only by selecting 'Required check box' for eg : 'I read all terms and conditions'
                 - Record Producer reporting

What is full form of CMDB?

Configuration Management Database

What is CMDB Baseline?

CMDB baselines helps to understand and control the changes that have been made to a configuration item(CI) after its Baseline has been created. Baseline is the snapshot of a CI

How to enable or disable an application ?

Navigate to “Application Menus” module under system definition application.Open the respective application that require to be enable or disable.Set active as true to enable it or set active to false to disable it

 What is a view ?

View defines the arrangement of fields on a form or a list. For one single form we can define multiple views according to the user preferences or requirement.

What is ACL?

An ACL is access control list that defines what data a user can access and how they can access it in service now.

What do you mean by impersonating a user? How it is useful?

Impersonating a user means that you can log in to the system as that user and can have feel how the service-now UI is set for that user.This is very useful while testing.For example if you are required to test that a user can access change form or not.You can impersonate that user and can test instead of logging out from your session and logging again with that user credentials.

Desired to gain proficiency on ServiceNow? Explore the blog post on ServiceNow Training to become a pro in ServiceNow.

Which is the Parent table for incident,change and problem ?

Task table

What is a record producer

A record producer is a type of a catalog item that allows users to create task-based records from the service catalog.For example you can create a change record or problem record using record producer. Record producers provides an alternative way to create records through service catalog

What is dictionary override?

Dictionary Overrides provides the capability to override several properties of a field in extended table.For example change table is extended from task table.There is a field named status in task table and set as read-only.When we use this field in change form it will show be a read only.We can set this to non-read only by using the dictionary override.Similarly there are other properties that can be set for the fields in extended table.

What do you mean by coalesce?

Coalesce is a property of a field that we use in transform map field mapping.When we set the coalesce as true for a field mapping it signifies that this field will work as unique key.If a field match is found with the coalesce field, then existing record will be updated with the imported information in target table else a new record will be inserted into the target table

What is an UI policy?

UI policies are alternative to client scripts.It can be used to set a field as mandatory, read only and visible on a form. You can also use UI policy for dynamically changing a field on a form.

What is a data policy?

Data policy checks the mandatory and read-only of a field whenever a record is inserted or updated through a web-service or import set.For example: If a mandatory field in the incoming record (from import set or web-service) is empty then the data policy will not allow to insert that record into the table.

What is difference between UI policy and data policy?

UI policy acts when a record is inserted or updated through a servicenow UI i.e servicenow forms while data policy acts whenever a record is inserted or updated into database through any means.

What is a client script?

Client script sits on the client side(the browser) and run there only.types of client script are OnLoad() OnSubmit() OnChange() OncellEdit)(

How can you cancel a form submission through client script?

In the onSubmit function return false. function onSubmit() { return false; }

What is a business rule?

Business rule is server side scripting that executes whenever a record is inserted, updated, deleted, displayed or queried.The key thing to keep in mind while creating a business rule is that when and on what action it has to execute. You can run the business rule ‘on display’, ‘on before’ or ‘on after’ of an action (insert,delete,update) is performed.

Can you call a business rule through a client script?

Yes you can call a business rule through a client script by using glideajax

What is a gliderecord?

Gliderecord is a java class that is used for database operations instead of writing SQL queries.

What is import set?

Import Sets is a tool used to import data from various data sources and, then using transform map, map that data into ServiceNow tables. The Import Sets table acts as a staging table for records imported.

What is transform Map?

A transform map transform the record imported into Servicenow import set table to the target table. It also determines the relationships between fields displaying in an Import Set table and fields in target table

What do you mean by Foreign record insert?

A foreign record insert occurs when an import makes a change to a table that is not the target table for that import. This happens when updating a reference field on a table.

Which searching technique is used to search a text or record in Service now ?

Zing is the text indexing and search engine that performs all text searches in ServiceNow.

What does the Client Transaction Timings plugin does?

The Client Transaction Timings plugin enhances the system logs by providing more information on the duration of transactions between the client and the server. By providing information on how time was spent during the transaction, performance issues can be tracked down to the source by seeing where the time is being consumed.

What is inactivity monitor?

An inactivity monitor triggers an event for a task record if the task has been inactive for a certain period of time. If the task remains inactive, the monitor repeats at regular intervals.

What is domain separation?

Domain separation is a way to separate data into (and optionally to separate administration by) logically-defined domains. For example A client XYZ have two business and they are using servicenow single instance for both business.They do not want that user’s from one business can see data of other business.Here we can configure domain separation to isolate the records from both business.

How you can remove Remember me check box from login page?

You can set the property – “glide.ui.forgetme” to true to remove the Remember me check box from login page.

What is HTML Sanitizer?

The HTML sanitizer automatically cleans up HTML markup in HTML fields to remove unwanted code and protect against security concerns such as cross-site scripting attacks. The HTML sanitizer is active for all instances starting with the Eureka release.

What is the significance of cascade variable checkbox in order guide ?

Check box to select whether the variables used should cascade, which passes their values to the ordered items. If this check box is cleared, variable information entered in the order guide is not passed on to ordered items.

What are Gauges ?

A gauge can be based on a report and can be put on a homepage or a content page.

What do you mean by Metrics in ServiceNow?

Metrics record and measure the workflow of individual records. With metrics, customers can arm their process by providing tangible figures to measure, for example, how long it takes before a ticket is reassigned or changes state.

How may types of search is available in ServiceNow ?

Use any of the following searches to find information in ServiceNow:

Lists: find records in a list;

Global text search: find records in multiple tables from a single search field.

Knowledge base: find knowledge articles.

Navigation filter: filter the items in the application navigator.

Search screens: use a form­like interface to search for records in a table. Administrators can create these custom modules.

What is a BSM Map?

BSM Map is a Business Service Management map.It graphically displays the configuration items (CI) that support a business service and indicates the status of those configuration items.

In which table update sets and customization are stored?

Each update set is stored in the Update Set [sys_update_set] table, and the customizations that are associated with the update set, are stored in [sys_update_xml] table.

What happens if a Default update set is marked as complete?

If the Default update set is marked Complete, the system creates another update set named Default1 and uses it as the default update set.

Does Homepages and Content pages are added to the update sets ?

Homepages and content pages are not added to update sets by default. You must manually add pages to the current update set by unloading them.

What is Reference qualifier?

Reference qualifiers is used to restrict the data that is selectable for a reference field.

What is Performance Analytics in ServiceNow?

Performance Analytics is an additional application in Service Now that allows customers to take a snapshot of data at regular intervals and create time series for any key performance indicator (KPI) in the organization.