ServiceNow San Diego: What’s in the release for us?

Everyone at GuideVision loves the ServiceNow San Diego release. We sat down with Senior ServiceNow Consultant David Chalachan to talk about what’s in San Diego from various points of view: End users, administrators, developers and consultants like himself.

You can watch the entire 16-minute interview here as a video here. 

What end users will like in ServiceNow San Diego

End users can look forward to big improvements in ServiceNow’s look and feel. The new user interface, called Polaris, also makes life easier for administrators. “There are huge changes, actually. ServiceNow introduced similar changes - I think it was three years back - and now again, they came with a completely new layout. No worries - you don't actually have to switch to it. All the new clients will have it by default. It's called Polaris and it brings in many changes for the backend. The actual end user will not be affected by this change. However, the administrators have a lot to look forward to.”

David also likes San Diego’s focus on enhancing surveys and survey experiences for end users. “In San Diego there will be a redesigned out-of-the-box notification for surveys. And on top of that, you will be able to fill in surveys from your mobile application, which really points to the focus of ServiceNow on the mobile app, even within San Diego,” he said.

What’s in ServiceNow San Diego for administrators?

For ServiceNow administrators, David sees catalog order guide sequencing as being one of the most important and anticipated features. “A lot of companies use order guides as a way to allow end users in their specific departments to order multiple things within one order. But up until now it was challenging to set up a sequencing within that,” he says.

“For example, for a new hire, you have to first set up an account and only then start setting up a laptop. But now, starting from San Diego, this will be possible. And it will allow catalog admins to set them up even better for specific departments,” David adds.

We talked with GuideVision Senior ServiceNow Consultant David Chalachan about what ServiceNow developers can look forward to in the new San Diego release. In a word: Testing. 

ServiceNow San Diego for developers

Apart from the new look and feel, which David thinks many in the ServiceNow community will have to get used to, there are multiple things developers and implementers will appreciate in San Diego, David says. “There is one in particular which I'm quite looking forward to, and that's changes in the ATF, the automated test framework. ATF is a robust tool ServiceNow introduced a few releases back. And just through configuration, you are able to set up multiple tests which allow you to automatically test the basic functionalities in their platform. Which brings a lot of advantages, even for new releases, for every new development.

The San Diego release brings improvements many in the ServiceNow community have awaited for a long time, David says. “One is to add breakpoints, just like you do within the script, so you are actually able to - within your session - put a breakpoint in your test and see what's actually going on in there,” he explains.

“Sometimes the tests run so quickly that you cannot really notice what's going on. And of course, you lose this data right after. And that's it. ServiceNow now figured out that we might want to take a look at this data before they disappear forever. And they will allow us to do so because it does before it finishes. And they can look at this data.”

ServiceNow San Diego from a consultant’s perspective

A lot of what David likes in the ServiceNow San Diego release relates to ‘fit and finish.’ He explains that there has already been a lot said about the release, but that there are a lot of improvements that aren’t as well promoted. 

“I noticed several things, and it really shows how ServiceNow cares,” he says. “Those are improvements even in the incident management and problem management processes, which have been long established and are used among almost every client.”

“Even in these processes, which are really well done and have been enhanced throughout the releases, ServiceNow noticed things and took feedback from the developers in the community,” David adds. “In incident management, they enhanced one button which allows you to assign the incident to yourself, and they enhanced it in a way that it will automatically populate the assignment group if it can. If it cannot, it will display a pop up and allow you to choose from only your available assignment groups.”

“They enhanced the resolution codes, and it's the little things which can actually help you save time in an out-of-the-box implementation for every new client,” he says.

If you’re interested in learning more about the ServiceNow San Diego release and what it can do for your company, we’d be happy to talk with you. Get in touch here.