Deploying your Creator Studio app

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Deploying your Creator Studio app

    Deployment is the process of moving your Creator Studio app from a non-production instance (such as development or QA) to a production instance, which is the live environment your customers access. This step follows building and testing your app and involves publishing the app, its forms, and activated playbooks to production. Deployment is managed through pipelines configured in ServiceNow’s Pipelines and Deployments tool.

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    Deployment Process and Requirements

    • Build and thoroughly test your app, including all published forms and activated playbooks, on a non-production instance.
    • When ready, request deployment to production via your admin; apps cannot be deployed directly from Creator Studio.
    • Deployment uses pipelines set up by admins; if no pipeline exists, Creator Studio will notify you to ask an admin to configure one.
    • Each deployed app version requires a version number and release notes to help track changes and usage.

    Configuring Deployment Contents

    When submitting a deployment request, you can choose which published forms and activated playbooks to include or exclude from the production deployment. This granular control lets you deploy only the parts of the app you want to be live. Note that:

    • Unactivated playbooks will not run after deployment unless your App Engine admin activates them post-deployment.
    • Forms and playbooks included in the deployment become available in production according to your specifications.

    User Access After Deployment

    Once deployed, the app is published and ready for use, but user access is controlled by your admin. Admins assign users and groups access permissions to the app after deployment. This access assignment is separate from the deployment process itself.

    Congrats, you’ve built your app and are ready to share the first version of it with the world. That’s great! Deployment is the next step in the process.

    Deployment is a term that describes the process of an app moving from a non-production instance like development or QA through to production. Production is the instance that your customers see, or your “live” instance. To kick this process off, you should build your app in a non-production instance, and request that an admin deploy it to a production instance when you're ready.

    Deploying an app automatically publishes the app, as well as all of the published forms and activated playbooks that you include, to a production instance.

    Deployment uses pipelines configured in Pipelines and Deployments. If you don't have a pipeline configured, the Creator Studio home page alerts you and suggests you ask an admin to set it up for you.

    The ServiceNow AI Platform uses the Application Repository to move apps between instances, so release notes and a version number are required. Find out more in App versioning and release notes for Creator Studio apps.

    Requesting app deployment to production

    You should test your app and all of its published forms and activated playbooks on a non-production instance. Once it's ready, you can submit the app for deployment to production. For more information, see Request deployment for your app from Creator Studio to production.

    Apps aren't deployed directly from Creator Studio. Instead, your admin uses Pipelines and Deployments. Admins should check out Managing deployments using pipelines in AEMC.

    Deploying forms and automation with the app

    You may feel some hesitation at this point, perhaps wondering if your app is actually ready. Well, you can take small steps and include only the forms and activated playbooks that you want in your deployment request.

    When you submit an app for deployment, all of the app's published forms and activated playbooks are available to be deployed. When you request deployment though, you can specify:
    • Published forms that you don't want to appear in the catalog after the app is deployed to production.
    • Activated playbooks that you don't want to appear when users view records generated by the app after it's deployed to production.

    If you don't activate a playbook and its app is deployed to production, the automation won't run on the applicable records. However, your App Engine admin can activate the deployed playbook for you.

    Assigning users to a deployed app

    Your app is officially published and ready to be used, congratulations! But, who gets to use it, and do they have access? Your admin gets to take charge here.

    After your admin deploys the app to production, the admin must assign users and groups that can access the app. That is, you can't assign user access in the deployment/publishing process. See I've built my app in Creator Studio, now what? to find out more about where to access published parts of your app.