Practical ServiceNow tips, deep dives, and free tools for developers and administrators.https://snprotips.com/en-ushttps://snprotips.com/blog/2026/bi-directional-journal-entry-sync-without-infinite-loops-for-comments-or-work-no/https://snprotips.com/blog/2026/bi-directional-journal-entry-sync-without-infinite-loops-for-comments-or-work-no/If you've ever tried to solve this problem with one or two 'after' Business Rules that simply copy comments from one record to the other… congrats, you've discovered recursion! Unfortunately, you've also discovered **infinite loops.** If you next tried adding .setWorkflow(false) to the BusinessThu, 19 Feb 2026 11:04:28 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2026/flow-designer-vs-scripting-rest-message-performance/https://snprotips.com/blog/2026/flow-designer-vs-scripting-rest-message-performance/Some of our existing ServiceNow outbound REST calls were being made through a Flow Designer action, using an imported RestMessage with OAuth authorization (typical OAuth Application Registry and OAuth Profiles). This was initially set up since our /oauth/token endpoints were internal and not on theFri, 09 Jan 2026 06:13:56 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2025/find-filthy-inefficient-single-record-queries-fast/https://snprotips.com/blog/2025/find-filthy-inefficient-single-record-queries-fast/I made a thing. The script at the bottom of this article scans all scripts in a given table/field for GlideRecord queries that use if (gr.next()) {} WITHOUT a preceding .setLimit(1) before .query(). Unfortunately, since there is no way (to my knowledge) to filter out-of-box recorMon, 29 Sep 2025 20:18:00 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2025/communicating-servicenow-changes-to-your-users/https://snprotips.com/blog/2025/communicating-servicenow-changes-to-your-users/I was sending dank memes in the [ServiceNow developer community Discord server](https://discord.snc.guru/) this morning instead of being at all productive in any way whatsoever - *as we do be doin' over there* - when someone went and ruined it by asking an intelligent question. Unfortunately, I foMon, 15 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2025/calculate-the-distance-between-two-locations-without-an-api-call/https://snprotips.com/blog/2025/calculate-the-distance-between-two-locations-without-an-api-call/If you need to calculate the distance between two Location records in the cmn\_location table in ServiceNow, as long as both of those locations have latitude and longitude values, you can do so using the script below! Usage examples at the bottom. You can turn these functions into methods of a ScrTue, 25 Mar 2025 04:14:03 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2025/3-ways-to-check-your-servicenow-instance-for-dangerous-code-in-less-than-5-minut/https://snprotips.com/blog/2025/3-ways-to-check-your-servicenow-instance-for-dangerous-code-in-less-than-5-minut/Your ServiceNow instance **DEFINITELY** has DANGEROUS CODE executing in it *RIGHT NOW*, causing performance issues, unexpected behavior, and hiding records from people who should be able to see them (including you)! This isn't a fear-mongering tactic; it's a fact we all overlook - until it's too laWed, 12 Mar 2025 02:22:00 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2024/how-to-identify-a-duplicate-record-by-multiple-fields-in-servicenow/https://snprotips.com/blog/2024/how-to-identify-a-duplicate-record-by-multiple-fields-in-servicenow/> “*I have some records in a table which are duplicates. In this case, I can only identify “duplicate records” by whether several fields are identical; not just one. For example, let’s say I want to identify Incidents where the Short description, Assignment group, and Assigned to user are all the saThu, 28 Mar 2024 23:12:32 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2024/how-to-merge-personal-amp-company-servicenow-accounts/https://snprotips.com/blog/2024/how-to-merge-personal-amp-company-servicenow-accounts/If you got your ServiceNow certifications or made progress in courses on NOW Learning using a ServiceNow partner or customer account, you may find that when you move on to another company, you no longer have access to those certifications or training progress. This can be frustrating, and unfortunatFri, 08 Mar 2024 01:35:11 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2024/5-lessons-about-programming-from-richard-feynman/https://snprotips.com/blog/2024/5-lessons-about-programming-from-richard-feynman/I believe that Richard Feynman can teach ServiceNow developers (and any software developers) a great deal - about physics, sure; but also about our own discipline. I'm something of a physics nut myself (insert Spider-Man meme here), which has led me to something of an obsession with Richard FeynmanTue, 13 Feb 2024 01:52:34 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2023/managing-instance-specific-system-properties-for-devtestprod-in-servicenow/https://snprotips.com/blog/2023/managing-instance-specific-system-properties-for-devtestprod-in-servicenow/While watching [this video](https://youtu.be/mcjTRR3L2R0) by the venerable Jace Benson, I was inspired by an idea presented around the 4-minute mark: a more effective way to manage instance-specific System Properties. So inspired was I, that I decided to not only adopt his suggestion, but to write aThu, 06 Jul 2023 05:12:07 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2023/your-servicenow-acls-are-broken/https://snprotips.com/blog/2023/your-servicenow-acls-are-broken/> *“My ACL requires a given role. A user has that role, but is still failing the access check. The ACL debugger says that the ACL script is what’s failing, but my ACL is not “Advanced” and there’s no script field! What is going on??”* Even when the "Advanced" checkbox is unchecked on your ACLs or BFri, 28 Apr 2023 21:22:11 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2022/be-the-guide/https://snprotips.com/blog/2022/be-the-guide/Every ServiceNow developer, administrator, and architect has at one time or another, got a requirement from their client that they *know* is bad-practice, silly, or sub-optimal. I often come across developers in the ServiceNow communities (such as the ServiceNow Developer [**forums**](https://commuWed, 14 Dec 2022 04:28:02 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2022/efficientgliderecord-a-faster-more-efficient-client-side-gliderecord-free-tool/https://snprotips.com/blog/2022/efficientgliderecord-a-faster-more-efficient-client-side-gliderecord-free-tool/EfficientGlideRecord is a free, drop-in replacement for client-side GlideRecord that's up to 93% faster - no extra Script Include needed.Wed, 19 Oct 2022 21:31:58 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2022/animated-progress-message-with-collapsible-details-on-servicenow-form-client-sid/https://snprotips.com/blog/2022/animated-progress-message-with-collapsible-details-on-servicenow-form-client-sid/I recently found myself in a bit of a sticky pickle in ServiceNow. I was building a **client-side UI Action** which needed to call a Script Include via [GlideAjax](https://ajax.snc.guru/). The server-side component of that script would then call a REST API and retrieve some data. The data wouldMon, 10 Oct 2022 00:33:00 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2022/using-gliderecords-addjoinquery-amp-how-to-query-for-records-with-attachments-in/https://snprotips.com/blog/2022/using-gliderecords-addjoinquery-amp-how-to-query-for-records-with-attachments-in/Here’s a common question: > *“How do I use a scripted GlideRecord query to get all records in a given table that have attachments?”* Often, people in the Community Forums will suggest querying the table, iterating through every single record, running *.hasAttachment()* on every single one, and addTue, 23 Aug 2022 22:17:49 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2022/free-simple-url-shortener-for-servicenow-nerds-sncguru/https://snprotips.com/blog/2022/free-simple-url-shortener-for-servicenow-nerds-sncguru/🛠️That’s right folks, it's yet another FREE ServiceNow tool on SN Pro Tips!🔧 This one is a URL Shortener that uses the *fancy-fun-fresh* "[**snc.guru**](https://snc.guru)" domain, so you can look like a really *heckin'* [*hoopy frood*](https://hoopyfrood.guide) when you share a link to your blogThu, 18 Aug 2022 22:05:35 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2022/how-to-get-servicenow-journal-entries-as-strings/https://snprotips.com/blog/2022/how-to-get-servicenow-journal-entries-as-strings/I come across this question all the time in the ServiceNow community forums, and in the ServiceNow developer community [**Discord**](https://discord.snc.guru), [**Slack**](https://slack.snc.guru), and [**Telegram**](https://telegram.snc.guru) groups. “How do I get the last N journal entries from aTue, 16 Aug 2022 22:53:16 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2022/0zsig0bjlxn1c8jvk3y8lzajj9x1ox/https://snprotips.com/blog/2022/0zsig0bjlxn1c8jvk3y8lzajj9x1ox/Imagine you’re searching for an issue you’re researching in ServiceNow, and the first result you find on Google is a ServiceNow documentation page… from the *Jakarta* version of ServiceNow. It’s totally out of date. How do you make sure that you’re getting the *latest* version of this same page inSun, 14 Aug 2022 20:43:47 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2022/how-to-change-servicenow-applications-repositoryurl/https://snprotips.com/blog/2022/how-to-change-servicenow-applications-repositoryurl/Unfortunately, ServiceNow has made the interesting (*see: baffling*) decision to make it confoundingly difficult to figure out how to change the Git repo your application is associated with, once it’s been linked to one. I can’t fathom why they might’ve done this, but that is unfortunately not an unSat, 05 Mar 2022 06:34:18 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2022/how-to-return-a-csv-file-from-a-servicenow-scripted-rest-api/https://snprotips.com/blog/2022/how-to-return-a-csv-file-from-a-servicenow-scripted-rest-api/I recently dealt with a requirement whereby I needed to export only certain columns from records on a given table that match a given query, to a CSV file. No problem, I said; that's easy. You just add ?CSV to the end of the table URL. Oh, but it's never that easy, is it?Tue, 08 Feb 2022 07:16:45 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2021/adding-a-guided-setup-to-your-servicenow-application/https://snprotips.com/blog/2021/adding-a-guided-setup-to-your-servicenow-application/Very often, we’ll find ourselves writing a custom application (whether scoped or global) that requires some “setup” by the admin who installs it. Maybe we’re writing the app to be distributed to multiple ServiceNow customers, each with their own environments and needs; or maybe the app just requiresMon, 03 May 2021 23:03:00 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2021/use-atf-to-validate-guided-setup/https://snprotips.com/blog/2021/use-atf-to-validate-guided-setup/Here's a **Quick Pro-Tip**: If you have an application which requires some setup or initial configuration, write **ATF tests** specifically to **validate that the application is set up properly**. Add **executing the tests** as a final step in your application's **Guided Setup**, and provide some mTue, 27 Apr 2021 22:32:17 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2021/processors-srapis-and-how-to-run-a-script-and-redirect-a-user-from-a-url/https://snprotips.com/blog/2021/processors-srapis-and-how-to-run-a-script-and-redirect-a-user-from-a-url/**Processors** in ServiceNow are (*were*) actually extremely useful things, though they’re surprisingly not very well-known. They give you a URL you can hit (like *my\_processor.do*) and allow you to run a server-side script, then redirect the user to some other page. Processors are quite useful foFri, 12 Feb 2021 01:10:19 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2020/the-sn-guys-a-servicenow-consulting-firm-acquired-by-jahnel-group-an-enterprise-/https://snprotips.com/blog/2020/the-sn-guys-a-servicenow-consulting-firm-acquired-by-jahnel-group-an-enterprise-/It’s finally here! We’re thrilled to announce that **The SN Guys** (which runs *SN Pro Tips*)will be joining forces with our new parent company, **Jahnel Group**! The Jahnel Group team is a passionate and dedicated group of over 100 software engineers with 20+ years of experience in the industry.Wed, 18 Nov 2020 04:45:25 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2020/eliminating-servicenow-notification-nuisance-amp-another-free-tool/https://snprotips.com/blog/2020/eliminating-servicenow-notification-nuisance-amp-another-free-tool/You’ve just implemented a new instance, process, catalog item, or workflow. You put all that **time** and **thought**, and **effort** into making sure that *everything* that *anyone* could *possibly* want to know about, results in an email notification to *all potentially-interested parties*, so tTue, 15 Sep 2020 03:15:00 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2020/debugging-client-amp-catalog-client-scripts-in-servicenow/https://snprotips.com/blog/2020/debugging-client-amp-catalog-client-scripts-in-servicenow/When dealing with server-side scripts, the ServiceNow Debugger makes debugging relatively easy (most of the time), as you can actually see into the call stack, and the contents of your server-side variables as you step through your code, line-by-line. When available, that tool is **incredibly usefulFri, 31 Jul 2020 22:51:24 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2020/getting-help-from-the-servicenow-community/https://snprotips.com/blog/2020/getting-help-from-the-servicenow-community/As I mention in my recent [interview with Robert ‘The Duke’ Fedoruk](https://youtu.be/ewd-Bb_7t9g) ([9:46](https://youtu.be/ewd-Bb_7t9g?t=586)), I truly believe that the highest calling of mankind is to **learn**, and then to **teach**. I’m *far* from the only person in the ServiceNow developer coTue, 21 Jan 2020 01:24:09 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2019/can-script-includes-use-the-current-variable/https://snprotips.com/blog/2019/can-script-includes-use-the-current-variable/Every once in a while, I look into the top search terms people have entered into Google or Bing (lol, who uses Bing?) that take them to this site. I do this to see if there are any common questions that people come here looking for answers to, but which I don’t yet have an article to answer. This moThu, 19 Dec 2019 07:40:43 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2019/handling-textplain-and-other-unsupported-content-types-in-scripted-rest-apis/https://snprotips.com/blog/2019/handling-textplain-and-other-unsupported-content-types-in-scripted-rest-apis/If you’ve ever tried to set up an AWS/SNS integration, you know that ServiceNow fails (rather spectacularly) to handle certain standard REST API request “Content-Types”; most notably, **text/plain**. In this article, we’re going to discuss what happens when you you try to integrate with something tMon, 18 Nov 2019 23:20:54 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2019/understanding-and-using-glideattachment/https://snprotips.com/blog/2019/understanding-and-using-glideattachment/> This article was originally written in February 2016, but was last updated on 4/21/19. Attachments in ServiceNow are not as straight-forward as email attachments, and it's not always obvious how to do what you want with them. Recently, I needed to copy some attachments programmatically and otherMon, 22 Apr 2019 01:35:00 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2019/using-custom-search-engines-in-chrome-to-quickly-navigate-servicenow/https://snprotips.com/blog/2019/using-custom-search-engines-in-chrome-to-quickly-navigate-servicenow/How often have you wanted to do something like look up a record in a table by sys\_id, look up a user by user\_name, or jump straight to a table in ServiceNow *just* so you can run a query on it, but found yourself having to wait for the entire table to load, or having to navigate through several paThu, 11 Apr 2019 07:21:07 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2019/set-catalog-variables-from-url-params-free-tool/https://snprotips.com/blog/2019/set-catalog-variables-from-url-params-free-tool/I've had this question come up over and over again in my career: "How do we populate variables on a catalog item or record producer, from the URL?" There are a couple of ways to do this, but often you'll see one-off solutions that require custom code for each and every catalog item, which also meaFri, 05 Apr 2019 00:59:25 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2019/outlook-for-android-breaks-email-approvals/https://snprotips.com/blog/2019/outlook-for-android-breaks-email-approvals/If you’re an Android user who uses Outlook (and who among us corporate tools is not blighted by that app on a daily basis?) you may have noticed that the Outlook app for Android has recently undergone something of a redesign recently. I haven’t decided if I love or hate the new design personally,Mon, 01 Apr 2019 23:14:01 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2019/glidefilter-is-broken-heres-an-alternative/https://snprotips.com/blog/2019/glidefilter-is-broken-heres-an-alternative/Once upon a time, there was a global, instantiatable “GlideFilter” object. It was a little ugly and unintuitive, but it technically worked; usually. Nowadays though, the GlideFilter object is a [scoped](http://scope.snc.guru/)\-API object (also available to the global scope) that is *not* instantiatTue, 12 Mar 2019 02:39:15 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2019/making-update-sets-smarter/https://snprotips.com/blog/2019/making-update-sets-smarter/Update Sets are how you track and promote changes to your ServiceNow environment from one instance to another (for example, from Dev to Test, and then from Test to Prod). They’re a great tool for keeping things orderly, but they don’t always tie up into a neat little bow when you need them to - espeThu, 28 Feb 2019 06:45:13 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/how-to-learn-servicenow/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/how-to-learn-servicenow/Hi! I'm Tim Woodruff. I write most of the articles [SN Pro Tips](/archive) articles, and I’m the author of a few books on ServiceNow development, including [Learning ServiceNow](https://lsn.snc.guru/), and [The ServiceNow Development Handbook](https://handbook.snc.guru/). I've put together this **quicFri, 30 Nov 2018 07:53:00 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/servicenow-amp-itsm-admindevelopmentarchitecture-as-a-career/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/servicenow-amp-itsm-admindevelopmentarchitecture-as-a-career/Starting a career within a new IT niche can be risky, but the potential rewards can be outstanding. Maybe you're just starting out your career in IT Service Management development/administration/architecture, or maybe you're a veteran of the industry and you're looking for a change. Either way, inWed, 07 Nov 2018 01:27:28 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/synchronous-lite-onsubmit-catalogclient-scripts/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/synchronous-lite-onsubmit-catalogclient-scripts/I often get questions that go something like this: > When a user submits a Catalog Item, I need to be able to do some validation that requires client-server communication (either a GlideAjax script, a GlideRecord query, or a getRefRecord() query). How can I make this happen? As anyone who’s read mFri, 19 Oct 2018 23:34:50 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/how-to-do-massive-slow-database-operations-without-slowing-down-your-instance/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/how-to-do-massive-slow-database-operations-without-slowing-down-your-instance/**Scenario**: You need to perform a very heavy scripted database operation, on a very large number of times. To do this all at once, would: (1) slow down your instance, and (2) take longer than the maximum allowable transaction time/sql count/etc. and (3) other bad stuff. Each operation takes *beThu, 11 Oct 2018 23:42:08 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/broken-queries-and-query-rules/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/broken-queries-and-query-rules/**ACLs Vs. Business Rules for security?** **Short answer**: ACLs. **Longer answer**: ACLs, but also sometimes query business rules; but usually for performance reasons more than security. There *are* benefits to using Query Business Rules. Namely, performance benefits. This is because query BusinWed, 19 Sep 2018 04:10:55 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/new-free-tool-journalredactor-easily-redact-or-delete-journal-entries-in-service/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/new-free-tool-journalredactor-easily-redact-or-delete-journal-entries-in-service/*After being asked how to remove information from, or delete, a journal entry three times in as many days, I finally decided to get off my butt, and write this tool. Then I realized that it's difficult to code standing up, so I sat down back on my butt, and got to work.* If you've ever tried to moSat, 08 Sep 2018 01:33:15 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/admin-duty-separation-with-a-single-account/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/admin-duty-separation-with-a-single-account/If you typically use a single account for your "admin" duties, as well as for creating and updating tasks, approving changes, and so on, it would be easy to **accidentally** utilize your "admin override" functionality *without even knowing it*. There is no notification or other indicator when you'reTue, 24 Jul 2018 06:15:10 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/improving-performance-on-older-instances-with-table-rotation/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/improving-performance-on-older-instances-with-table-rotation/If your instance has been around for a while, you've probably built up a few tables that are quite extensive. The good news is - there are steps that you can take to both mitigate, and even preemptively prevent this issue. "Table Rotations Groups" are a little-known feature that allows you to spliTue, 19 Jun 2018 22:49:17 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/qqbnfzgdo1cr1wwzpsuesn12thyug5/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/qqbnfzgdo1cr1wwzpsuesn12thyug5/If you're anything like me, you're tired of logging in to instances manually, wondering if you've typed your password wrong or if it's expired or been changes, and having to manage dozens of logins - one for each account on each instance owned by each client! Password managers are fantastic (I useTue, 05 Jun 2018 04:15:00 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/learning-servicenow-second-edition-is-now-available-for-pre-order/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/learning-servicenow-second-edition-is-now-available-for-pre-order/The second edition of Learning ServiceNow is available, with updated coverage through the London release.Wed, 30 May 2018 09:49:58 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/upgrading-express-to-enterprise-whats-missing/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/upgrading-express-to-enterprise-whats-missing/If you're a ServiceNow Express customer, then you probably already know that ServiceNow is forcing everyone on the Express edition of the "Now platform" to upgrade to the Enterprise edition. While you might think that after an upgrade, you'll have a typical ServiceNow Enterprise instance, that is noTue, 17 Apr 2018 23:19:10 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/if-a-genie-gave-me-three-wishes-id-use-them-all-to-fix-scope/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/if-a-genie-gave-me-three-wishes-id-use-them-all-to-fix-scope/You can categorize the ServiceNow dev community into two camps: Those who love the idea of "application scope" and how it's been implemented, and those who think that scoped apps in ServiceNow are a bit *broken*. As you may have guessed from the title of this post, I belong to the second camp, butFri, 13 Apr 2018 03:22:35 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/service-catalog-try-in-portal-button/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/service-catalog-try-in-portal-button/When building or modifying a Catalog Item in ServiceNow, the **Try it** button is **fantastic** for allowing you to quickly and easily see what the changes you've made look like in your development environment. This is a **crucial tool** for testing! However, as many of you will no doubt be aware,Tue, 20 Mar 2018 08:20:52 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/video-custom-output-transition-conditions-from-a-single-workflow-script-activity/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/video-custom-output-transition-conditions-from-a-single-workflow-script-activity/Video walkthrough of creating multiple custom output transitions from a single Workflow script activity in ServiceNow.Fri, 16 Mar 2018 03:59:42 GMThttps://snprotips.com/blog/2018/we-have-a-new-book/https://snprotips.com/blog/2018/we-have-a-new-book/Introducing The ServiceNow Development Handbook - a concise reference for ServiceNow development and administration best practices.Mon, 12 Feb 2018 12:15:40 GMT