ServiceNow ServiceNow “How-To” FAQs

ServiceNow
ServiceNow “How-To” FAQs
1. What if the contact is not a UBC Student, Faculty or Staff member?
If you cannot find the contact you are looking for, you must select “Guest User” from the lookup list,
and then enter the actual contact details in the “Description” box. For best practice, also enter the
name in the Short description; this will help you to look up users when more than one guest user is
assigned to you.
2. The location I am looking for is not listed (in the “Location of Issue (Building)” field). Why can’t I find
it and what should I do now?
The location information is provided by Archibus - the UBC facilities database. Although the
Archibus list is extensive, there will be some locations which aren’t listed, for example, buildings
under construction, temporary portable offices etc. In these instances, if necessary, the location
detail can be noted in the Description section.
3. How long, after a period of inactivity, does ServiceNow time-out?
ServiceNow will time-out after 1 hour (60 minutes) of inactivity.
4. What is a Watch List?
The Watch List allows individuals to monitor the progress of specific incidents by specifying the
email addresses of those wishing to be notified of any progress/updates made. Watch List users will
receive all Additional Comments that are added to the ticket. Watch List users, however, will not
receive notifications when the agent emails the customer through Service Now. The Watch List
should be used for internal use.
5. I noticed that there is a Watch List and an ITIL Watch List, what is the difference?
ITIL Watch List users receive the same notifications as Watch List users, but will also receive a
notification when a Work Note is added to the incident.
6. How do I add more than one contact to the Watch List?
Select the padlock icon which will bring up a text box then enter either an email address or search
for a name.
7. What is the difference between the “Description” box and the “Work Notes” box?
The “Description” box should be used to record all incident details and symptoms.
The “Work Notes” box should be used to record all trouble shooting steps and information.
8. Do I need to log everything?
It is best practice is to log everything; however, common sense should prevail.
9. What is the process for prioritizing incidents?
All incidents are classified in accordance with the global priority matrix. All high / critical calls are
escalated as per matrix best practices. Please refer to the global priority matrix quick reference card
here.
10. At which points does ServiceNow generate automatic emails to clients?
Clients will receive an email when a new incident/service request is created on ServiceNow and
when the status is changed to “resolved”.
11. Is there a flag if a ticket hasn’t been worked on for a while?
No. In this current module there is no flag. This can only be determined by running a manual
report.
12. What if a ticket contains more than one incident or request that needs to be transferred to different
groups?
In this instance, new tickets will have to be created for each service request or incident as a ticket
can only be transferred to one group at a time.
13. Does service now contain SLA functionality?
Not yet, however this may be incorporated in future releases/modules
14. What kind of tickets will be logged in ServiceNow?
You will use ServiceNow for logging incidents and service lite requests however future release will
include a request fulfillment module provide more functionality.
15. What do we do with open tickets incidents or service lite request on our current systems
(SDE/JIRA)?
After four weeks, these will need to be manually moved onto SNC.
16. Does everybody have the same access privileges in Service now?
No. A user can be assigned one of four roles in ServiceNow:
 User: The user/process role can perform standard actions for an IT service desk technician
 Administrator (Admin): The IT administrator has more privileges than the role and is intended
for Team Leads
 Reporter: user capabilities plus ability to run reports.
 Director: reporter capabilities but receives no notifications and tickets cannot be assigned to this
person
17. Will our webforms transition to ServiceNow?
All webforms which have been identified by the project team and group managers will be directed
to Service Now on go live day. Check with your manager to find out more.
18. Who is the owner and/or ultimately responsible for the incident/service request?
Incidents and Requests are stewarded to completion by the assigned analyst or group i.e. once an
agent receives a ticket, they will oversee that ticket until it is assigned to another person/group.
The end user relationship is owned by the original agent who logged the record in the first place.
This person is responsible for ensuring the incident or request was resolved/fulfilled to the
customer's satisfaction before closing the ticket.
19. Is “short description” searchable by report?
No.
20. Does ServiceNow contain student data?
Yes
21. Does the customer receive any automatic notifications?
Yes. The customer will receive notification when the ticket is in the opened and resolved state.
22. At what point does a ticket close automatically?
A ticket will close automatically 3 days after it is marked as resolved
23. Will there be an audit trail of the ticket activity?
Yes. Each time you make an update and save, this will be recorded in the activity section –the
activity section is non-editable.
24. I notice there is an “Apply Template” function; I would like to create a new template. Who has
access to create these templates?
Templates can be created by the ITIL admin role – this would normally be your manager/team lead.
25. What is the purpose of the “Type” field?
The type field indicates which category the ticket falls into i.e. Incident, Request, Password, How-To
and Information Request.
 Incident: An unplanned interruption (outage or performance reduction) to normal service
operation
 Request: A request to access a service (Service Request)
 Information Request: A general inquiry for information
 How To Request: A specific question about how to…
 Password Reset: A request to reset a password
It is important this field is completed accurately to ensure it is correctly categorized. Please note, by
default, the value of this field is incident.
26. Does ServiceNow have an auto save function?
No, however, if you have made changes and haven’t saved yet, the system will prompt you when
you try to navigate to a different page.
27. When I make changes to “My Homepage”, I see two homepage options: “My Homepage” and “My
My Homepage”. How can I change this?
“My Homepage” is a default view. When you make changes to the layout, ServiceNow saves it as
“My My Homepage.” You can edit this name by clicking in the title bar, and typing a name that
makes sense to you, such as “Sam’s Page”. You will now see that you have two view options: “My
Homepage” (the default view) and “Sam’s Page” (your custom view).
28. How do I print so I can see ALL the ticket details? The Print Friendly version seems to miss out some
detail.
The best way to print a ticket is to convert it into PDF. If you right-click on the incident’s menu bar,
select Export, and then PDF, this will convert the ticket into PDF. From that PDF you can see the
Description (and initial email contact) and any Work Notes and comments that belong to that
incident (at the time the PDF was created.
29. What is the difference between “comments” and “work notes” in an incident form?
Comments are visible to your customer, whereas work notes are visible to other IT support staff.
When you update comments or work notes, any people listed on the watchlist and ITIL watchlist
respectively will be notified by ServiceNow and be able to read what you have written.
30. Where does the existing list of departments in ServiceNow come from?
The HRMS system has been identified as the “gold source” for user information. As new staff and
faculty are added in HRMS, these user records are passed nightly to ServiceNow as new records or
inserts into the existing database. When there are staff or faculty information changes (e.g. user
moves to a new department or assumes a new position) in HRMS, these updates are also passed
nightly to ServiceNow.
31. Why aren’t we allowed to change the user information in ServiceNow?
The ServiceNow application is a “consumer” of end user data. Like all consumers we want to ensure
we have a reliable source from which to draw our information. HRMS has been identified as ‘the’
source for faculty name, staff name, position, department etc.
To improve our data quality at UBC and to support a more scalable enterprise architectural
approach, we need to minimize manual one-off entries in other “downstream” applications like
ServiceNow, otherwise these become difficult to support as teams lose track of which application is
the “true source” of information; such as an employee’s department.
32. What do we tell customers or stakeholders who indicate that the department is wrong?
If customers indicate to us that the department information is incorrect we can advise them that
department descriptions can be changed (or spelling corrections made) by contacting Lindsay
Coleridge in HR.
33. What do we tell customers or stakeholders who indicate that a department name or code is missing
and should be added?
To create new HRMS department codes, or to sub-divide an existing department code (thus creating
new lower-level codes) the customer or stakeholder should be advised to contact Lindsay Coleridge
in HR.
34. What do we tell customers or stakeholders who ask to rename an HRMS department codes:
Unfortunately, HR does not rename HRMS department codes. The department code in HRMS was
never meant to be descriptive or informative for end users. It is just a system code that should not
be changed. Codes need to be consistent over time, even if the department descriptions change,
otherwise we lose the ability to do historical reporting. HR has tens of thousands of historical
records containing department codes and cannot change these.
35. Where can I find more information about ITSM, the ITSM process frameworks and the ServiceNow
functions that I need to use in my job?
You can refer to the ITSM website, which includes information about ITSM, links to the ITSM process
frameworks and the ServiceNow UBC Process User Guide.