Determining good candidates for apps in ServiceNow
Before creating an app, determine if the idea is a good candidate for an application.
Consider the following questions to determine if you should create an application.
- Can you configure or customize an existing application instead of building a new one? For more information, see Modifying versus building an application.
- How many people will the application serve, and how often would they use it? If not many people would use it frequently, is it worth the effort?
- Are you willing to maintain the application as things change over time?
If creating a new application makes sense, then move forward.
Other considerations
There are other considerations you will need to factor into the decision of creating an app.
- Configuring and customizing existing applications can lead to complications with upgrading to a new version of the ServiceNow AI Platform. If you customize your applications, you own that code and are responsible for its upkeep.
- Creating apps in ServiceNow can have licensing and cost implications. Talk with your admin to determine the best course of action.
- Customer service and tech support may not be able to support custom code and applications because they don't know the expected functionality. Consider this when creating a new application.
Examples of when to create new apps
Instead of customizing an existing application, you can create new apps with App Engine products such as ServiceNow Studio.
- Net-new process: You’re building a new process that doesn’t fit neatly into any of the existing modules.
- Misaligned intent: You have a use case that could be built by customizing an OOTB app. However, it doesn’t align with the app intent.
- Separate group workflow: Your process is unique, proprietary, or spans multiple departments.