Andrew Bowers Implementation from book Flashcards
What does the backup cycle consist of for ServiceNow instances
- Four weekly full backups and the last six days of daily differential backups that together provide 28 days of backups
What kind of archtecture is ServiceNow and what does this mean?
Single-instance meaning each customer has their own database and application set
Service now is Single Tenancy meaning there is only one customer on each server
What are the five core stages of the StartNow methodology?
Plan, Discover, Prepare, Deploy, and Operate
StartNow is essentially a combination of what two processes?
Agile developement (formerly SDLC/Scrum Process Pack), and Project and Portfolio Management
What happens during the Plan Stage?
- Official kickoff
- Project plan setup
- Team(s) setup
- Customer training
- Plan Requirements Workshops
What happens during the Discover Stage?
- Requirements workshop(s)
- Data requirements and KPIs
- Integration requirements
- Document requirements as stories
- Develop backlog
What happens during the Prepare Stage?
- Core system setup
- LDAP(s) integration
- Common data built
- Scrum planning for releases and Sprints
- Security and compliance
What happens during the Operate Stage?
- Acceptance testing
- Use and validation of Update sets
- End-User training
- Go-Live
- Go-live support
What happens during the Deploy Stage?
- Build functionality as defined in the Project and Scrum
- Project Management
- Sprint planning, stand-ups, reviews
- ACE report reviews
What are the four levels of the product development methodology
Products > Releases > Sprints > Stories
According to both StartNow and the Scrum methodology a Product is defined as what?
connects the potentially shippable Product increment to the project.
According to both StartNow and the Scrum methodology a Product Backlog is defined as what?
lists everything that a customer might want to do in a story format, ranked by the Product Owner, made visible by the Scrum Master, and added to a Release and Sprint. If a requirement is not defined in the Product backlog, it does not exist.
According to both StartNow and the Scrum methodology a Release is defined as what?
includes one or more changes to services that are built, tested and deployed together.
According to both StartNow and the Scrum methodology a Epic is defined as what?
is work that may not be done within a single sprint. All stories in an Epic must be completed to realize the business value
According to both StartNow and the Scrum methodology a Sprint is defined as what?
is a fixed duration during which the Scrum team has committed to complete work selected in the Sprint Backlog. This scope of work included in the Sprint does not change once it has been set. Sprints can have a duration of one-four weeks, but the duration of each Sprint should be consistent once set.
According to both StartNow and the Scrum methodology a Sprint Backlog is defined as what?
consists of stories selected for a given Sprint (i.e. work the team has committed to do right now). This work should not change once the Sprint is underway. Work is selected by the Scrum team through negotiations and disucssions with the Product Owner during Sprint Planning.
According to both StartNow and the Scrum methodology a Story is defined as what?
is an independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, small, testable requirement that usually comes out of a requirements workshop. Stories may have individual tasks defined.
What are the components of RIDAC?
- Risk
- May or may not happen - anticipate and mitigate!
- Decrease probability and impact of threats
- Potential to impact scope, schedule, resources, or hours
- Issue
- Has already happened or is happening now
- Identify corrective action, owner, and resolution
- Decision
- Decision made that impacts scope, schedule, resources, or hours
- Log details and cite evidence of decision (email, verbal, etc.)
- Action
- Key actions (outside of development or project management)
- Follow-up required to ensure follow-through
- Change
- Change to scope, schedule, resources, or hours with no financial impact
- Change to scope, schedule, resources, or hours with financial impact
What are the qualities of a story?
- Independent
- Negotiable
- Valuable
- Estimable
- Small
- Testable
What do you have when a sprint is completed
potentially shippable product
What are the characteristics of Waterfall (project management)
- Is a project management methodology
- Has a start date and an end date
- Is the process of defining scope, deciding on the optimum strategy for delivery, and creating teams. It is a methodical task-oriented approach.
- Is still about delivering optimum value based on a predefined framework of time, cost, and output and managing changes within this structure
- Waterfall fixes scope and allows time and cost to vary
What are the characterisitcs of the Scrum (Product Management) methodology
- Is a product developement methodology
- Useful for delivering work in an iterative and incremental way
- Has requirements and solutions that evolve through collaboration
- Values self-reflection, self-management, transparency and customer satisfaction
- Scrum fixes time and allows scope to be flexible
How long after the project signature does the Plan stage usually start?
3-4 weeks
What are the responsibilities of an Engagement Manager (EM) / Scrum Master and what team are they part of
- Overall ServiceNow lead for deployment (peer to the customer Project Manager)
- Accountable for delivery of ServiceNow implementation in alignment with SOW
- Accountable for overall deployment success and customer value
- Initially fulfills the secondary role of Scrum Master
- Transitions Scrum Master role to customer Project Manager when customer is ready
- This can be the same person as the Business Process Consultant
Part of the ServiceNow project team
What are the responsibilities of a Technical Consultant (TC)
Also what team are they a part of?
- imparts technical best practices and knowledge to the customer administrator
- develops and documents solutions to meet requirements
Part of the ServiceNow project team, can be the same person as the technical consultant
What are the responsibilities of the Business Process Consultant (BPC)
- Leads the process / requirements workshops
- Tailors process guides for customers
- Helps to define the initial backlog of requirements
ServiceNow project team, can be the same person as the Engagement Manager / Scrum Master
What are the responsibilities of an Integration Consultant?
What team are they a part of
- Technical Consultant with specialized integration skills
- Develops a strategy for integrations and implements integrations
Part of the ServiceNow Project Team, can be same person as TC
What are the responsibilities of a Specialist
May include a number of roles such as Advisor, Architect, or UI designer
What are the responsibilities of a Project Manager / Scrum Master
- responsible for the success of the project
- Assumes scrum master role from the engagement manager when ready
- coordinates, tracks, escalates, prioritizes, removes road-blocks
- part of customer project team
What are the responsibilities of an executive sponser
represents business stakeholders
clears road-blocks, chapions the project, and makes decisions
provides signoff and approvals
What are the responsibilities of a Manager / Director
- drives priority and making decisions
- tracks scope creep and provides visibility
- Part of the customer project team
What are the responsibilities of a Platform owner
Establishes and communicates product vision
Prioritizes features according to value
Represents business stakeholders
What are the responsibilities of quality assurance
- build test plans
- ensure product is fit for use and fit for purpose
Part of the customer project team
Upon becoming a ServiceNow customer what do most customers recieve and what are they collectively called
2-3 instances referred to as a stack.
1 is prod, the others are sub prod
What data does servicenow use to clone and how old is this data?
the most recent nightly backups which are at most 36 hours old
What are the five ways to look view tables
- list - primary ui
- tables - module
- tables and columns
- schema map
- dictionary
Do clones always capture everything in an instance?
not neccessarily. You can chose not to include table data so that only the configuration is included.
What are the two work streams in the Discover stage?
- Process Requirements
- includes the requirements to determine the “to be” processes to be implemented for a specific ServiceNow application - whether by the customers, by ServiceNow or by both.
- Technical System Requirements
- includes data, integration, system configuration requirements; relates to all non-application related technical specifications
What is the purpose of a Roadmap Workshop?
to create an actionable roadmap that answers the following questions: where would we like to be, where do we start, and how do we get there
What is the purpose of a Process workshop?
- discuss best practices
- identification of existing processes and areas for improvement
- review of how these processes are supported by the ServiceNow applications
- align customer workflows to servicenow best practices
What is the purpose of a technical workshop
- outline config options to control scalability, maintenance and performance
- tailored to customer objectivse and cover implementation and maintenance
What is the purpose of a requirements workshop
often a combination of process and technical workshops
incldue both process and technical aspects and focus on aligning customer process with platform capabilities
Who from the partner team attends the requirements workshop?
- Business Process Consultant
- facilitates and leads the workshop
- aligns custmoer processes and requirements to platform capabilities
- constantly emphasizes process efficiency and effectiveness
- tailors process guides and documents initial story backlog
- makes sure the group feels that the decisions are theirs
- Engagement Manager
- makes sure everyone feels comfortable participating
- encourages participation while remaining aligned to scope
- tracks time and assists in note taking
- Technical Consultant
- demonstrates existing functionality, as needed
- documents gaps as draft requirements or stories
- does not code on the fly or design solutions in the workshop
- Integration Consultants and Specialists
- may provide insight and expertise as needed based on scope of the engagement
who should participate in the requirements workshop from the customer side
participants should have a knowledge of their existing service-automation process and have the authority to make process-improvement design decisions.
At least two customer participants should have completed system admin training
The three parts of a requirements workshop are inputs, sessions, outputs. what is involved in each of these parts
- inputs
- questionnaires, input from stakeholders
- existing process documentation
- current metrics
- session
- identify current challenges
- review process best practices
- determine “to-be” processes
- explore high-level requirements
- outputs
- tailored process definitions and flows
- RIDAC items
- draft stories or input for story creation
What is a story?
A short description of what a customer needs written in the voice of the customer.
“As a <who>, I want <what> so that <why>"</why></what></who>
A good story should reflect what model?
INVEST
- Independent
- Negotiable
- Valuable
- Estimated
- Sized
- Testable
stories in what state should not be added to the sprint backlog?
If stories lack ___ ___ do not add them to the sprint backlog
draft
acceptance criteria
How should story acceptance criteria be written?
“Given <pre-conditions>, when <action> then <expected>"</expected></action></pre-conditions>
What are the story states
- Draft
- Product Owner is defining the story/requirement
- Estimation
- Product Owner works with the team to size the story
- Ready
- Story is ready to be assigned to a sprint
- Entrance criteria: Use case documented clearly, story points assigned, and acceptance criteria documented
- Story is assigned to a Sprint, but work has not begun
- Story is ready to be assigned to a sprint
- Work in Progress
- Story is actively being worked on by a Scrum team member
- Ready for Testing
- Work is complete and needs verification by product owner
- Testing
- Product Owner or representative of the product owner will test the story
- Complete
- Product Owner has verified the story meets acceptance criteria
- Cancelled
- Product Owner deems the story is no longer valid
Who typically changes the state of a story?
Draft
Can be set by anyone loading or creating stories
Who typically changes the state of a story?
Ready
Usually set by the Product Owner to indicate the story is fully defined and reflective of business need. Story ready to be selected into a Sprint to be worked on
Who typically changes the state of a story?
Work in Progress
Set as soon as a TC or customer sys admin starts work on the story
Who typically changes the state of a story?
Ready for Testing
Set by the lead TC after an internal review of the work. The story is typically assigned to a testing organization at this point
Who typically changes the state of a story?
Testing
Set by the test organization, usually the customer. Stories that fail testing during the Sprint may be reassigned back to the developer and set to Work in Progress
Who typically changes the state of a story?
Testing Failed
Set by the test organization to indicate the story fails to meet requirements and a discussion with the team regarding next action is required.
Who typically changes the state of a story?
complete
Set by the customer when testing is complete and successful. If set by the EM or Lead TC, always cite and include evidence of customer acceptance
Who typically changes the state of a story?
Cancelled
set by EM, customer, or lead TC when something is out of scope or covered elsewhere. Stories may be set to cancelled from any state except complete
The planning team is responsible for setting up releases, sprints, and stories.
It conssits of the following three people/groups:
Scrum Product Owner
Scrum Master
Scrum Team Members
What are their roles?
Scrum Product Onwer - decision maker prioritizing backlog to create the best possible product
Scrum Master (EM, Customer PM) - “Servent leader” ensuring scrum process is followed; removes impediments
Scrum Team Members - People to perform the work and deliver the product for the product owner
Describe the following parts of story point estimation:
Build notes
Unit Testing
Configuration
Story review
Contingency
Knowledge Transfer
Research
build notes - comments for future reference about the story
Unit testing - reduced time for testing usually leads to more time on defect fixes
configuration - making the changes
Story review - discussion, review supporting documentation…
Contingency - cover variation in skill levels
Knowledge transfer - to the customer system administrator (should include time needed to set up test data to support unit testing)
Research - configuration, e.g., scripts for re-use, guidance on Docs or community, prototype
Typically a story is considered done when:
Acceptance criteria has been met
unit testing and peer code review has been completed
documentation has been drafted / updated
updates are packaged for release
SME agress story is done
story is ready for demonstration at sprint review
Where can the system configuration page that controls “company name, logo, and color theme” be found
system properties > basic configuration
where can the icon image displayed in bookmarks and browser address bar be found
system properties > system
What happens to basic email properties when instances are cloned?
email sending and receiving are disabled
are users, groups, and roles captured in update sets?
users and groups are not, roles are considered a configuration and is thus imported
What are the steps to import data
- Load Data
- Create Transform Map
- Run Transform
The data represented in an LDAP enabled directory as a hierarchy of objects known as a:
What do the following hierachy acronyms stand for:
- RDN
- DC
- OU
- CN
- SN
- UID
Data Information Tree (DIT)
- Relative Distinguished Name
- Domain Component
- Organizational Unit
- Common Name
- Surname
- User ID
What are the components needed for LDAP server configuration
- Name
- Server URL
- Login distinguished name
- Login password
- Starting search directory
- OU Definition
What is the data source for a transform map
the import set table name is the name of the data source
The multiple provider single sign-on installer plugin allows a combination of authentication methods. What are they
- SAML 2.0
- Digest Authentication
- LDAP
- Local Database authentication
If a customer has end users connecting to ServiceNow, a MID Server Implementation, and needs to consume data from a ServiceNow Web Service is a VPN supported
No, ServiceNow does not support a VPN for any inbound traffic to ServiceNow. This communication is over https and is therefore encrypted
If a customer wants to implement LDAP with ServiceNow to simplify their login process is a VPN supported?
ServiceNow recommends implementing LDAPS (LDAP over SSL) rather than LDAP (non-encrypted). If an LDAP is still used a VPN can be considered
Which scenario doesn’t have encrypted traffic?
LDAP
In what scenario is a VPN required
A VNP is never required
under what situations will ServiceNow support a VPN?
an LDAP that is or isn’t encrypted can have a VPN or an email configuration where the Customer’s mail server is used.
where can access controls be defined and if there are no access controls what happens
Access controls may be defined on any level in the object hierarchy
other than admins users are unable to read, write, create, or delete unless ACLs are in place
What are the three levels of access
- System (requires successful authentication)
- Application Menus and Modules (Controlled by roles configured at the application menu and module levels.)
- Tables and Fields (System Properties, Access Controls)
Several methods of authentication are supported. What are they
- Local database
- User name and password are stored in the user’s record in the ServiceNow database
- Multifactor
- User name and password are stored in the user’s record in the database. Additionally, a passcode from a secondary source, such as Google Authenticator, is also required.
- LDAP
- User name and password are stored in the user’s LDAP account, which matches a user record in the ServiceNow database
- SAML
- User name and password are stored in the user’s SAML identity provider account, which matches a user record in the ServiceNow database
- OAuth 2.0
- User name and password are stored in the user’s OAuth identity provider account, which matches a user’s record in the ServiceNow database
- Digest Token
- An encrypted digest of the user name and password in the user record
What secures application menu’s and modules are secured by
Roles
If the role field for an application menu is left blank who has access?
if the role for a module is left blank who has access to that module?
All users
All users who have access to the parent application.
What are the conditions under which access control rules allow access to the specified resource (table, row, or field)
- The user has one of the roles speicified in the require role list (or the list is empty)
- Conditions in the condition field evaluate to true (or the condition is empty)
- The script in the script field evaluates to true or sets the value of an “answer” variable to true (or the field is empty)
Access controls match from specific to general. List the 6 field and 3 tables controls in order
Field
- Table.Field
- parentTable.Field
- *.Field
- Table.*
- parentTable.*
- *.*
Table
- Table
- Parent Table
- *
What is Table.None
A row rule applicable to all recods and must exist to view records
What is table.*
applies to every field on a record where there is no field specific access control rule
Describe the concept of HTTP/S
Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol
- Language used to transmit data over the internet
- Facilitates the transport of Web Services
REST
RESTful Service - Representational State Transfer
simple protocol for exchanging structured information between systems across a Network
HTTP, URI-based call to a server (endpoint) object and functions
Describe the concept of XML
Extensible Markup Language
- Language used to store datain hierarchical structures that is both human and machine readable
- Uses elements (tags) and attributes to markup content accoring to syntactical rules
Describe the concept of WSDL
Web Service Description Language
- XML document describing functions, arguments, data schema and endpoint
- Provides API for the Service
- Web Service methods for processing exchange of data
Describe the concept of SOAP
Simple Object Access Protocol
- Protocol for exchanging structured information between systems across a Network
- Uses XML for its message format
Describe the concept of SOAP API
Application Programming Interface
- Common Object Operations:
- get - query a single record from the targeted table by sys_id and return the record and its fields
- getKeys - query the targeted table using variable values and return a comma delimited list of sys_ids
- getRecords - query the targeted table using variable values and return all matching records and fields
- insert - create a new record for the targeted table
- update - amend existing record data in the targeted table, identified by the mandatory sys_id
- deleteRecord - remove a row from the targeted table by supplying its sys_id
What does it mean to be a publisher of Web Services
Provider/Producing
enabling a Web Service user (customer) to locate the service description
It also instructs the consumer how they should interact with the Web Service
What does it mean to be a Consumer of Web Services
Consuming
Consuming a Web Service means a Web Service user can interact with a published Web Service
Based on the WSDL definition and security restrictions, it can create, read, update, or delete records (CRUD operations)
What do the following HTTP status values mean?
200
400
401
503
- 200 - Successful
- 400 - Bad Request
- 401 - Unauthorized
- 503 - Service Unavailable
The following describe how a SOAP message work:
- What is the WSDL link in a SOAP Message
- What are the functions found within the WSDL
- The Test UI action
- Test value
- XML response
6.
- The WSDL link is the SOAP Message target that serviceNow can consume
- These are the functions that can be consumed by ServiceNow (what it will do)
- This is a related link used to test the functionality of the SOAP message
- The test value is the parameter used to test the web service (this must match the parameter expected in the SOAP message)
- This is an XML response from the test call containing information related to the attribute that was in the SOAP Message. Each returned value in the SOAP response can be parsed and added to any ServiceNow table as data, and can be exposed via a form or list.
ServiceNow provides two APIs to parse an XML Payload. What are they
- A global API called GlideSystem (gs)
- gs.getXMLText(String,String) the first parameter provides the XML text to be parsed, and the second parameter provides the Xpath query to locate a specific element within the XML. page 320
- A scoped API called XMLDocument2
- Creates an instance of an object including the original xml responseBody (what it’s pulling from). It then uses etNodeText to return the node value of the XPath query passed into the method
REST (Representational State Transfer) is a simple stateless architecture that runs over ___
HTTP/S
What are the formats in which REST can return data
XML and JSON
- JSON - JavaScript Object Notation - Compact format which represents data objects in a serialized textual format
- XML - Extensible Markup Language - Hierarchical/Structured data format based on Nodes and Attributes. Commonly queried using XPath
Describe the concept of a REST END Point
this is a unique URL that provides access to an object API/Function (the URL is the location of the data to be retrieved/updated/deleted)
It provides the API for the service
What does HTTP stand for and what is it used for in relation to REST
This is Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol and it is the language used by the internet.
It facilitates the transport of Web Services
What is a REST API
this is an Application Programming Interface:
It allows the following Object operations:
- GET - Read/retrieve a record
- POST - Create a new table record
- PUT - Update a table record
- DELETE - Delete a table record
REST messages can be authenticated in three ways:
Basic authentication -
OAuth 2.0 -
Mutual authentication -
explain them
- Basic - Sotre a user nam and password for access to the REST API
- OAuth 2.0 - A third party registry record is created in ServiceNow. Tokens are passed between the client and the OAuth provider
- Mutual - Exchange of SSL Certificates between ServiceNow as the outbound calling client and the server system
How is JSON typically formatted
There is an attribute/value pairs (object)
ex: {“title”:”Hamlet”, “type”:”tragedy”, “location”:”Denmark”}
SOAP is a protocol with a strict format between Client and Server
REST is a communication method based on URIs
Is the following SOAP or REST:
XML structure for data exchange - WSDL
SOAP
SOAP is a protocol with a strict format between Client and Server
REST is a communication method based on URIs
Is the following SOAP or REST:
URI based communication - endpoints
REST
SOAP is a protocol with a strict format between Client and Server
REST is a communication method based on URIs
Is the following SOAP or REST:
Each integration defines its own functions and parameters
SOAP
SOAP is a protocol with a strict format between Client and Server
REST is a communication method based on URIs
Is the following SOAP or REST:
Generic functions - PUT, POST, DELETE, GET
REST
SOAP is a protocol with a strict format between Client and Server
REST is a communication method based on URIs
Is the following SOAP or REST:
Secure transactions with WS-Security and HTTPS
SOAP
SOAP is a protocol with a strict format between Client and Server
REST is a communication method based on URIs
Is the following SOAP or REST:
More lightweight
REST
SOAP is a protocol with a strict format between Client and Server
REST is a communication method based on URIs
Is the following SOAP or REST:
Can support asynchronous messaging
SOAP
SOAP is a protocol with a strict format between Client and Server
REST is a communication method based on URIs
Is the following SOAP or REST:
Secure transactions with HTTPS
REST
SOAP is a protocol with a strict format between Client and Server
REST is a communication method based on URIs
Is the following SOAP or REST:
Not asynchronous
REST
The perceived performance of a customer ServiceNow instance is made up of what three componenets
- Application Server - Time for the application server to process a request and render the resultant page (ACLs Business Rules, Data Policies)
- Network - Time for the network to pass your request to the server and the response back (Public Internet, Cutomer Network, Proxy Servers
- Browser - Time for your browser to render the HTML and parse/execute JavaScript (Client Scripts, UI Policies, number of round trips the browser has to make to the server, Browser settings to accept compressed data)
Business rules should:
avoid the use of ___.___();
be wrapped in a ___ to encapsulate variables
Use ___ ___ instead of Global Business Rules because they are only loaded and initialized at the beginning of each interation
current.update();
wrap in a function
Script Includes
Client scripts and UI Policies run client side. The main differences are what?
- Client Scripts - triggered by onLoad, onSubmit, onChange, onCellEdit events. Pre/post values are available to onChange through oldValue and newValue, and list editing can be controlled using onCellEdit. No control over script execution order, other than all scripts execute before UI Policies
- UI Policies - fire against onChange and onLoad events only. No access to a field’s prior value, cannot execute on lists; full control over the order of execution and execution takes place after Client Scripts (so always win over Client scripts when script logic conflicts). Scripting not required to apply mandatory/read-only/visibility controls over fields
If a reference is needed the getReference() method can be used. Use a ___ ___ with a getReference() call to let the rowser retrieve the reference object data asynchronously
callback function
Data loaded server-side is more efficient than client-side
use ___ values
use ___ Business Rules
avoid using ___ ___ to populate fields on a form
- use default values
- use display Business Rules
- avoid using client scripts to populate fields on a form
Display business rules allow things to be added to g_scratchpad. Why is this a good thing to do?
By adding display business rules additional trips to the server can be avoided. The data is on the scratchpad and can then be pulled when needed
The role and responsibility of the Primary Support Contact is what?
Day-to-day operations responsibility - support and administration of the customer instance; Work with ServiceNow during notified incidents
The role and responsibility of the
Secondary Support Contact is what?
- Backup support to work with ServiceNow
- Added to the watch list on all the customer notifications
The role and responsibility of the Primary Technical Contact is what?
- Consulted on instance integrations / development - LDAP, VPN etc.
- Liaison on design/architecture concernces/issues with ServiceNow
Secondary Technical Contact
- Added to the watch list field on any related incidents
- Backup to Primary technical support contact
The role and responsibility of the Customer Admin is what?
- Create company user list and manage access to HI
- Maintain the company contacts - keeping contacts up to date
What happens 45 days after the project is marked Closed Complete
users are moved from StartNow Implementation Team group to the StartNow Post Implementation group
This means they will only be able to read StartNow records in their instance, it does not permit creating new or updating existing records
What does Exclude Tables in a clone do?
Table structured is cloned but data is not included. Used primarily for audit and log data, but may also be used to prevent sensitive data from being included in a clone
What does Preserve Data in a clone do?
Data will be stored prior to a clone and restored after the clone is complete. Used for system settings and integrations where configuration data is instance-specific, such as email settings, end-points, SOAP messages, etc
What do Cleanup Scripts do?
Scripts run after a clone to disable email, regenerate text indexes, and perform other functions. Additional scripts may be defined to perform other functions
