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What Our Team Learned at ServiceNow Knowledge 2024

In May, our team had the incredible opportunity to attend Knowledge 2024. They experienced days filled with insightful AI sessions, innovative case studies, and explored various services and updates. From everything they learned, here are some of the most influential takeaways and experiences shared by our team members.

Jason

“I’d say I learned a lot about how generative AI is being put to use in the platform. For the most part, I think they are using it wisely by automating/simplifying mundane tasks, like summarizing an incident.  I also learned that for all it can do, it can’t innovate.  That’s still the job of us humans.”

Louise

“The most significant thing I learned was about cloning, which has been helpful when working with my client who has been trying to improve their cloning process. Being able to attend a lab on cloning best practices means that I can discuss things like Preservers and Clean Up Scripts (and their merits and limitations) with more confidence. 

I also realized that I have learned a TON here at Pathways over the past year and a half – most of the technical sessions I went to didn’t teach me anything new – even when they said things like “Advanced” in the title. This was disappointing at the time, but it also helped me realize just how much I’ve learned so far. Our knowledge here (at Pathways) goes deeper than what ServiceNow is dishing up at Knowledge.”

Laurel

“One of the most significant takeaways from Knowledge for me was in deepening my understanding of Integrated Risk Management, in terms of where it fits into the suite of GRC applications and where the product roadmap is headed. Given that my current work revolves around IRM, I really wanted to learn more about how the various applications work together and discover ways of leveraging AI-driven insights and integrating them into workflows. For example, in one lab, I learned how to customize Gen AI-created flows in Flow Designer, use a Decision Table to dynamically run subflows, and handle errors directly in the flow. As we start moving toward AI-generated flows, I can tap this knowledge to ensure they match our client’s needs. In another lab, I learned about end-to-end Third Party Risk Management and how to use Internal Risk Questionnaires to determine the level of risk new vendors introduce to an organization. The questionnaires can be automated/scheduled or ad-hoc, transforming the usual cumbersome, manual routines into a nicely streamlined process.

Also, I learned it is wise to maintain at least 10 ft of distance between you and the person in front of you when hopping on an escalator at a 20,000+ person event if you want to avoid becoming a human domino when there is a traffic jam of bodies at the top. 

Also, the sheer magnitude of the event made an impression on me. I came away feeling like we were all part of something so much bigger than the sum of its parts. And I really enjoyed spending time in person with all of you. Thank you for bringing us all together!”

Samantha

“The two most significant things I learned were surrounding Now Create and Generative AI. Since Jason so kindly covered Generative AI, I will share what I think was a pretty awesome takeaway regarding Now Create.

I have used Now Create success packs and assets in the past to help with requirements gathering and elicitation, primarily from a product-specific standpoint. I gained insight into different assets that are available in Now Create that are more focused on user experience versus product-specific. Now Create has assets for conducting user experience activities, specifically Empathy Maps, which can be useful to help with guiding decisions, and ensuring there is a shared understanding of the purpose and goal of a project. During requirements gathering, we identify the purpose, goal, and objective(s) of an engagement to ensure that we are meeting the users’ needs and expectations at the end of delivery. A fair amount of time users know what they want, but can not fully articulate what they need. Empathy maps allow us to engage with end-users to better understand their true motivation, actual actions, and behaviors. Utilizing more non-product-specific assets available on Now Create will help build a positive rapport, drive a constructive user experience, and deliver improved outcomes. I have started using some of these assets in my daily conversations with end-users to really shine light and focus on the source of a need to ensure we are delivering the best product possible.” 

Sarah

“It’s hard to pick the most significant thing [I] learned from Knowledge, as there were a few incredibly informative sessions. There was a walkthrough and demonstration done on a couple of features and applications within ATF that were particularly interesting.  

The Pathways QA team was aware of the new ATF Test Generator and Cloud Runner, but we were never able to see it in action to truly understand how it functioned or at what level. In the “Unleash the power of ATF and stop shipping bugs to prod” session, they walked through configuring and running the test generator on an instance that had custom fields and conditions on Incident and Problem forms. From what they showed, the system was able to account for the conditions and rules put in place and accurately create a test surrounding form validation.

Depending on the form, these tests can be a bit time-consuming to create. Even if there are steps that get missed in the generated tests, the time saved by having multiple test scripts created is considerable and can be incredibly valuable to testing teams. It’s something I would like to explore more in our own instance. 

Performance Profiling is another newer addition to ATF. A user can open a test script in ATF and choose to run a performance test on that script. There are a total of 11 tests the script is run through and once complete, a report can be reviewed. The series of tests run through UI and functional changes are included in the script and will display statuses based on the results. The real prize here is the performance statistics. After running a performance test twice, a comparison is done with the previous run. Each step in a given test is reported on and shown whether or not the step has a possible regression, is unchanged, has an issue that occurs inconsistently, etc. The tester can then review the details of the issue.

The only possible issue with this is that the system will pause while these tests are being run. Still, this is something that could be beneficial to us if we time it right and figure out a good system.

It was an amazing experience, and much more could be mentioned that would/does help our testing team. There was just so much! Thank you again for the opportunity to be a part of Knowledge 2024!”

Attending Knowledge 2024 was an enlightening experience for the Pathways team. Each member returned with valuable insights into various aspects of the NOW platforms, including everything from ATF to generative AI. Events like these help to both expand our capabilities and reaffirm the depth of knowledge we possess at Pathways. We are excited to apply these insights and learnings to our current process. Thank you to everyone who made Knowledge 2024 an unforgettable experience!