For businesses trying to manage IT services, automate business procedures, and streamline operations, ServiceNow has revolutionized the industry. Human Resource Service Delivery (HRSD) and IT Service Management (ITSM) are only two of the many features available on this robust platform. However, having knowledgeable engineers on your team who adhere to best practices is crucial if you want to take full advantage of ServiceNow’s capabilities. Writing code is only one aspect of ServiceNow development; another is providing dependable, scalable, and effective solutions that satisfy business requirements and improve organizational performance. In order to guarantee effective installation and long-term success, we’ll go over the best practices for ServiceNow development in this blog, along with what to anticipate from your developers.
1. Follow ServiceNow Development Standards and Guidelines
If you hire ServiceNow developers, they should follow ServiceNow’s unique set of best practices and development standards. These guidelines guarantee that solutions are developed consistently, effectively, and sustainably.
Key Guidelines to Follow:
- Naming conventions: When naming tables, fields, scripts, and other components, developers should adhere to accepted practices. As a result, the codebase is easier to maintain and cleaner.
- Use of Scoped Applications: Scoped applications make it simpler to maintain and upgrade by separating unique code and functionality from the ServiceNow platform’s global reach. When creating scoped apps for specific functions, developers should adhere to established practices.
- Workflow and Script Organization: Workflows, business rules, and scripts must all be clearly organized. Scripts must to be simple to understand, modular, and well-documented.
2. Maintain Clean and Efficient Code
There is a lot of scripting involved with ServiceNow development, and like any programming endeavor, code quality is important. The skill of the ServiceNow developers for hire and their comprehension of long-term maintainability are directly reflected in the quality of the code.
Key Practices for Clean and Efficient Code:
- Modular Scripting: Whenever feasible, developers should divide code into more manageable, reusable modules. This enhances readability and cuts down on redundancy. It is simpler to debug, maintain, and expand code that is modular.
- Remarks and Supporting Information: Scripts with appropriate comments and documentation make it easier for developers and others to comprehend the reasoning behind the code. Future developers will be able to take over the codebase with ease if complex business rules or workflows are explained clearly.
- Performance Optimization: It’s crucial to write code that is as efficient as possible in order to reduce the platform’s burden. When working with huge datasets, developers should optimize queries (such as GlideRecord) to prevent speed degradation.
3. Ensure Proper Testing and Validation
Testing is an essential part of ServiceNow development. No feature will ever be released by the top developers without extensive testing. Hire dedicated servicenow developers to deployment, testing helps find any possible flaws or performance problems and guarantees that the solution functions as intended.
Testing Best Practices:
- Unit Testing: To make sure each piece of custom code works as intended when used alone, it should be unit tested. Client scripts, business rules, and other server-side code require this.
- Regression Testing: To make sure that the new code doesn’t interfere with already-existing functionality, developers should do regression tests after adding new features or modifications. In larger firms with several integrations, this is especially crucial.
- User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Following development, the developer should make sure business users participate in UAT. In addition to enabling users to offer input on the system’s operation, this guarantees that the solution satisfies the real business requirements and workflows.
4. Use ServiceNow’s Out-of-the-Box Features Whenever Possible
Over-customizing the platform when ServiceNow already offers a basic feature that can satisfy the business requirement is one of the biggest blunders developers can make. A lack of flexibility, issues with platform upgrades, and an increased risk of introducing errors might result from over-customization.
Best Practices for Leveraging Out-of-the-Box Features:
- ServiceNow Modules: Incident Management, Change Management, and Problem Management are just a few of the many innovative tools that ServiceNow provides. Hire dedicated developers that develop bespoke functionality, and developers should assess these pre-existing modules to determine whether they can meet the needs.
- Flow Designer: With ServiceNow’s Flow Designer, developers can create processes with a drag-and-drop interface that requires no code.
- Configuration over Customization: Whenever feasible, ServiceNow encourages configuration over customization. Unless it is absolutely required, developers should use ServiceNow’s configuration options to set up business rules, data policies, and notifications rather than creating bespoke scripts.
5. Ensure Scalability and Future-Proofing
Your ServiceNow platform should grow and change with your company. A competent ServiceNow developer is aware of how critical it is to create solutions that are both scalable and future-proof.
Key Practices for Scalability:
- Modular Architecture: Customizations ought to be made in a way that makes future improvements or modifications simple. For instance, developing service catalogs and reusable components will enable scalability as your company expands.
- Separation of Concerns: Developers must make sure that user interface customisation and business logic are kept apart. Because of this division, it is simpler to change the logic without having an impact on the user interface, and vice versa.
- Updates and Patches: To enhance security, introduce new functionality, and address defects, ServiceNow regularly releases updates and patches.
6. Effective Collaboration with Stakeholders
Developing ServiceNow requires more than just technical expertise; ServiceNow developers also need to collaborate closely with project managers, system administrators, and business stakeholders. A solution that maximizes value and is in line with corporate objectives is guaranteed by effective collaboration.
Collaboration Best Practices:
- Compile the necessary information: In order to collect and record specific needs, developers should invest time in collaborating with business users. This guarantees that the solution is in line with the requirements and procedures of the company.
- Constant Communication: Throughout the development lifecycle, ServiceNow developers should communicate openly with stakeholders. Consistent updates, demos, and check-ins guarantee agreement.
- Agile Methodology: Using an agile development methodology is advantageous in many situations. This makes it possible to develop iteratively, including stakeholder feedback into each stage of the process.
7. Security and Compliance Awareness
Because ServiceNow apps frequently deal with sensitive data, developers need to be extremely mindful of security and compliance regulations. Standards for data security and privacy should be adhered to by the developer, particularly when working with financial or personal data.
Security Best Practices:
- Data Encryption: ServiceNow’s security measures, which include encryption for data in transit and at rest, should be understood by developers.
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): To guarantee that users have access to only the information and features they require, developers should set up the system to strictly enforce role-based access control.
- Audit Trails: Appropriate logging and audit trail implementation are necessary for compliance. For future evaluation, developers should make sure that all important platform operations are recorded.
Conclusion
A crucial task that propels digital transformation in most firms is ServiceNow development. A proficient ServiceNow developer makes sure that your instance is secure, scalable, and functioning by adhering to best practices. You can count on your ServiceNow development company developers to follow development guidelines, write clean code, emphasize testing, use innovative features, and constantly monitor security and scalability.
