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The Best Kept Secrets of ServiceNow ­– Including the World of llamas

As the ServiceNow service portfolio and platform continue to grow, I thought it would be useful to look at some useful but lesser-known features. These are some of my top picks from the hundreds of applications and thousands of features available in ServiceNow.

Many of the features I have listed are included in typical licenses like ITSM, CSM, HR, for example. However, it is a good idea to check with your account representative to be on the safe side before activating them in one of your ServiceNow instances.

Help users get familiar with the ServiceNow UI

If the back-end or the front-end portal of ServiceNow is new to the users that you would like to assist, worry not! The guided tours feature offers help for end-users and fulfillers by describing the platform’s features step by step. Thanks to this feature, it’s easier to understand how to use ServiceNow. It is also a far more convenient way to learn than reading user manuals.

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Make ServiceNow updates, integrations, and testing a touch easier

ServiceNow offers many features to make keeping the platform healthy and up to date a breeze. Instance scan helps with monitoring platform health and identifies issues with ServiceNow instances as well as recommends corrective actions.

When you are updating the platform or making changes in existing applications, automated test framework makes testing smoother. It helps automate routine test tasks that can be useful with regression testing after you’ve made changes in existing applications because of smaller enhancements or projects, for example.

For those dealing with ServiceNow integrations, there is the IntegrationHub Starter feature. It helps with a no-code / low code integration between ServiceNow and third-party tools such as Cisco WebEx Teams and Meetings, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, Plivo, ServiceNow Remote, Slack, Twilio, Vonage, Workplace from Facebook, and Zoom – just to name a few.

Best kept secret features for Microsoft products

If you are looking for ways to make creating or dealing ServiceNow tickets just a tad easier, the platform has got you covered.

With the ServiceNow add-in for Microsoft Outlook end-users can create new ServiceNow tickets from their Microsoft Outlook application. They can report incidents or customer cases as well as any other kinds of records. And, with the Outlook actionable messages end-users and fulfillers can respond to notifications sent from ServiceNow using their Microsoft Outlook application.

As a final bonus tip, you can also help end-users increase productivity. With the ServiceNow for Microsoft Teams they can request – and receive – ServiceNow services from within Microsoft Teams.

Enhance workflows and make fulfillers’ lives easier

Speaking of efficient work – there are a ton of features in ServiceNow to make workflows smoother. The workspaces for various roles helps users manage their work queue efficiently, and the process automation designer enables process owners to easily create workflows.

Some lesser-known features are also available for making the lives of fulfillers easier. Playbook experience helps fulfillers visualise business process workflows in a simple, task-oriented view. Advanced work assignment helps with routing tickets to fulfillers automatically based on their availability, capacity, and skills, for example. The procurement feature makes it possible to create and track purchase orders in ServiceNow to obtain items for fulfilling service catalog requests.

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Where can I get these features?

The reason some ServiceNow features and applications stay hidden for so long is that there are so many – literally hundreds and hundreds of them. To get your hands on the features I have listed here and to see what else is out there, there are three places for you to visit.

ServiceNow plugins can be found and activated in ServiceNow instances under the “Plugins” module with a system administrator user.

The ServiceNow Share site is a place for ServiceNow developers to upload smaller apps and custom features that they developed and wish to share with the ServiceNow customer and partner community for free.

The ServiceNow Store is a business application store that works in a similar way as consumer stores such as the Apple Store and the Google Play Store. Simply pick and choose the application you want and download it onto your platform. Some of the ServiceNow Store apps are free and some of them come with an annual license fee.

And finally: The World of llamas

The World of Llamas app was released back in 2014 for ServiceNow’s annual conference in Las Vegas. According to rumors, global llama communities think the app is most likely ServiceNow’s number one llama farming solution.

Let’s just think about those good old times when people enjoyed each other’s company in Knowledge conferences in person, and relax a bit and enjoy playing llama farming in ServiceNow with that thought in mind. The app itself is unfortunately not available publicly anymore, but as a seasoned llama farming expert I saved the app for the pleasure of future generations of ServiceNow professionals. Feel free to get in touch at zalan.heil@sofigate.com to get a copy – and if llamas are not your thing, you can contact me with any questions about ServiceNow features, too.

Zalan Heil heads Sofigate CEE. He has extensive experience working with ServiceNow solutions.

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