Book Image

Mastering ServiceNow - Second Edition

Book Image

Mastering ServiceNow - Second Edition

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. The book steps through the main aspects of the ServiceNow platform, from the ground up. It starts by exploring the core architecture of ServiceNow, including building the right data structure. To add business logic and control data, and interactivity to user interaction, you will be shown how to code on both server and the client. You will then learn more about the power of tasks, events and notifications. The book will then focus on using web services and other mechanisms to integrate ServiceNow with other systems. Furthermore, you will learn how to secure applications and data, and understand how ServiceNow performs logging and error reporting. You will then be shown how to package your applications and changes, so they can be installed elsewhere and ways to maintain them easily. If you wish to create an alternative simple interface, then explore ways to make ServiceNow beautiful using Service Portal. By the end of the book, you will know the fundamentals of the ServiceNow platform, helping you be a better ServiceNow System Administrator or developer.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Mastering ServiceNow Second Edition
Credits
Notice
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Digging into Jelly


The web's language is HTML. Every page rendered by a web browser has some HTML content. Therefore, the ultimate job of any website is to generate the HTML that contains data formatted in the desired manner. The browser then renders it and hopefully displays something beautiful, informative, and useful.

ServiceNow uses Jelly to generate HTML. The Jelly processor in ServiceNow takes in an XML template and produces HTML. There are a variety of Jelly elements, including variables, loops, and conditions, which means that the produced HTML depends on the data that the processor is fed. In addition, ServiceNow has extended beyond the standard Jelly tags, allowing JavaScript to be used inside a Jelly XML document while also incorporating caching. This makes it powerful and fast!

Tip

The name Jelly was originally short for Java Elements. You can find more information about it at http://commons.apache.org/jelly. It is not something to eat!

While Jelly is very powerful, it is slowly...