Thanks to a recent Kevtech video, I found that ServiceNow's Developer Program offers a free trial to practice some tasks using that software. I've never used ServiceNow before, and it has some differences from SpiceWorks.
The first step is following this link and signing up for the program. When prompted to "tune your experience", make sure to choose a "developer oriented IDE" for access to all the features we'll use.
Select "Start Building," and wait a couple of minutes while it generates your environment. The first page you'll get is the App Engine Studio. There are lots of options for configuring your environment here, but for basic IT purposes the most interesting links are under the "All" tab on the top left. I like to keep this docked as a sidebar on the left, which I did by clicking "All" and hitting the push-pin icon.
The list of options under "All" is very long. The first thing to check out is the "Incidents" board - this is ServiceNow's term for their ticketing system. This link will show you the active incidents under your name. There will be a test ticket created for you already. Change the filters to see other tickets by clicking the filter icon on the upper left. It uses Boolean logic to set which filters you are interested in. I wanted to see all Active filters, so navigated to the menu bars next to the filter icon, down to “Filters,” and selected Active. You can configure your own filters by setting up your Boolean rules, and hitting “Save.” Give the filter a name, and it will show up under the menu.
You can create a new ticket by clicking "New" at top right. (Keep an eye on the top right - that's where ServiceNow has most of their creation tools.) The ticket UI will look familiar to anyone who has used a ticketing system before. You can assign urgency and state, and add comments. Under "Related Search Results," you can see related articles from the Knowledge Base.
That brings us to the Knowledge Base itself: access it by clicking on "Knowledge" towards the top of the "All" sidebar. Here there is a preset section called "IT" with various articles you can study to understand their form and style. Hit "Create an Article" on the upper right to write your own.
There are a number of configuration options when creating an article. You are required to select which Knowledge Base it belongs to ("IT" or "Knowledge," in this case), and can pick a subcategory if one exists. Article type can be set to either HTML (where you enter information in a word processor-like UI), or to Wiki. There are useful links for adding attachments and checking duplicate articles on the top right.
Getting back to the ticketing system, scroll down the sidebar to "Service Desk." "Incidents" will automatically show you every active ticket in the system.
Because we are using a developer environment, all of these sections can be edited by clicking the edit icon next to their name. Click the icon next to "Service Desk" to see all the options. For example, you can add another section to go under that heading, such as Password Resets.
Make sure to click the Star next to the edit button - this will add the section to your Favorites. The "Favorites" menu is at the top left next to "All" and can also be pinned as a sidebar (only one menu can be pinned at a time, so this will replace "All").
This free trial is a great resource if you want to explore the ServiceNow system! Thanks to Kevtech for the heads up.
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