Book Image

ServiceNow: Building Powerful Workflows

By : Tim Woodruff, Martin Wood, Ashish Rudra Srivastava
Book Image

ServiceNow: Building Powerful Workflows

By: Tim Woodruff, Martin Wood, Ashish Rudra Srivastava

Overview of this book

ServiceNow is a SaaS application that provides workflow form-based applications. It is an ideal platform for creating enterprise-level applications, giving requesters and fulfillers improved visibility and access to a process. ServiceNow-based applications often replace email by providing a better way to get work done. This course will show you how to put important ServiceNow features to work in the real world. We will introduce key concepts and examples on managing and automating IT services, and help you build a solid foundation towards this new approach. You will then learn more about the power of tasks, events, and notifications. We’ll then focus on using web services and other mechanisms to integrate ServiceNow with other systems. Further on, you’ll learn how to secure applications and data, and understand how ServiceNow performs logging and error reporting. At the end of this course, you will acquire immediately applicable skills to rectify everyday problems encountered on the ServiceNow platform. The course provides you with highly practical content explaining ServiceNow from the following Packt books: 1. Learning ServiceNow 2. ServiceNow Cookbook 3. Mastering ServiceNow, Second Edition
Table of Contents (39 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Module 1
36
Bibliography

Chapter 33. Diagnosing ServiceNow – Knowing What Is Going On

Have you ever written code that is longer than a few lines and had it work the very first time? Has a script always worked perfectly? The answer probably is no. Things don't always go according to plan during a complex implementation. Functionality doesn't quite work as you-or someone else-expects. Therefore, the tools and techniques needed to investigate the issue, come up with a diagnosis, and hopefully find a solution are a critical part of any administrator's toolkit.

ServiceNow provides a wide variety of ways to understand what is happening in the system. This chapter covers many of the ways through which the instance can tell you what's going on:

  • Session logs give you insight into what decisions are being made by the instance
  • The typical system log is where the system records messages while it processes
  • The database records its activity in the SQL log, giving you insight into slow queries
  • Every request is stored in the Transaction...