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Catalog Items - Personal Instance.md

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Catalog Items within ServiceNow

Objective: learn about catalog items, variable sets, variables, UI policies, client scripts, and workflows.

Login to your personal developer instance.

Create the Catalog Item

  1. Go to the Catalog Items table (Look for Service Catalog > Open Records > Maintain Items)
  2. Hit the "New" button
  3. Fill out these values:
    • Name: Tutorial Item
    • Availability: Desktop and Mobile
    • Short description: My test catalog item
  4. Right click the header and select "Save"

Your catalog item is now created!

Add Variable Sets

Variable sets allow you to create a collection of structured variables that can be reused across multiple catalog items. Using variable sets saves time because you do not have to create the same variables individually for many catalog items. From the other Catalog Items tutorial, you saw the "Contact Information" and "Additional Information" variable sets as examples.

To start, your personal instance might not have the "Variable Sets" tab in the Related Lists section at the bottom of the page.

To fix this:

  1. Click on the black hamburger menu at the top bar.
  2. Go to Configure > Related Lists.
  3. Scroll down in the "Available" section until you find "Variable Sets".
  4. Select "Variable Sets" and hit the "Add" button (the right arrow).
  5. Hit the "Save" button.

You should now be able to add variable sets to your catalog item.

From the Variable Sets tab, click on the "Edit" button and add the "Standard Employee Questions" variable set to your catalog item.

Hit the "Try It" button to preview what your catalog item looks like so far. You should see something like this: first-try-it

At UC Davis, catalog items are always submitted using the Service Portal. To view your catalog item in the Service Portal on your personal instance instead, right click on the header of the catalog item and select "Copy sys_id." Go to the following link, replacing with your personal instance and the catalog sys_id you just copied: https://your instance.service-now.com/sp?id=sc_cat_item&sys_id=your catalog item sys_id

Add Variables

Service catalog variables allow you to gather information from users. There are many different types of variables you will use when creating catalog items. Here's some of the most common ones:

Variable Functionality
Check box Enable / disable options by selecting and clearing it
Container start Define a layout for a container that can hold more variables. This is the start point of a container layout
Container end The end point of a container layout to close the container
Multi-line text Field that lets you enter multiple lines of text
Multiple Choice Creates radio buttons for question choices
Reference References a record in another table
Single-line text Field to enter a single line of text
Yes/No Choice list with Yes and No as options

Start by adding a Container Start variable to your catalog item:

  1. Go to the Variables Tab
  2. Click on the "New" button
  3. Fill out these values:
    • Type: Container Start
    • Display title: checked
    • Question: Request Information
    • Name: request_information
    • Order: 200
      • as explained in the other Catalog Items tutorial, the "Order" field determines the position of this variable on the catalog item.
  4. Hit "Submit"

Click the "Try It" button to see your new Container Start Variable. As you can see, the "Request Information" header appears underneath the Variable Set, since it has a greater Order than the Variable Set's Order (200 vs. 100).

Add the rest of these variables:

  1. Variable 1

    • Type: Single Line Text
    • Mandatory: Checked
    • Order: 300
    • Question: Enter your email:
    • Name: enter_your_email

  2. Variable 2

    • Type: Reference
    • Mandatory: Checked
    • Order: 400
    • Question: Enter your manager:
    • Name: enter_your_manager
    • Type Specifications > Reference: User [sys_user]

  3. Variable 3

    • Type: Yes/No
    • Mandatory: Checked
    • Order: 500
    • Question: Enter if you need additional information:
    • Name: enter_if_you_need_additional_information

  4. Variable 4

    • Type: Multi-line text
    • Order: 600
    • Question: Explain your problem:
    • Name: explain_your_problem

  5. Variable 5

    • Type: Container End
    • Order: 700

Hit the "Try It" button to see your catalog item so far. It should look something like this:

second-try-it

Catalog UI Policies

Catalog UI policies control the behavior of catalog item forms when presented to your users.

To start, add the "Catalog UI Policies" to your Related Lists if it isn't already there.

Create a new UI policy and give it these values:

  • Short Description: Hide explain your problem
  • Catalog Conditions:
    • enter_if_you_need_additional_information is No
    • Check that it Applies on Catalog Item view, Catalog Tasks, Requested Items

Hit the "Submit" button.

So, we've created a UI policy that will only take effect when the condition is true. In this case, whenever the Yes/No variable is set to No.

To have the UI policy actually do something, we need to add Catalog UI Policy Actions.

Create a new Catalog UI Policy Action and fill out these values:

  • Variable name: explain_your_problem
  • Mandatory: False
  • Visible: False

Hit the "Submit" button.

Go back to the "Try It" view of your catalog item and test that your UI Policy works.

When the question "Enter if you need additional information" is set to "No", then the Multi-line text variable asking to "Explain your problem" disappears from the form.

Since the UI Policy is set to "Reverse if False", when the question is set to "Yes", then the "Explain your problem" question appears on the form.

Catalog Client Scripts

Client-side scripts can add dynamic effects and validation to forms. You can use client side scripts to:

  • Get or set variable values
  • Hide or display variables
  • Make variables mandatory or not
  • Validate form submission
  • Add something to the cart
  • Order something immediately

To start, add the "Catalog Client Scripts" to your Related Lists if it isn't already there.

Create a new "Catalog Client Script" and fill out these values:

  • Name: Email validation
  • UI Type: All
  • Type: onChange
  • Variable name: enter_your_email
  • Applies on Catalog Item view: Checked
  • Applies on Requested Items: Checked
  • Applies on Catalog Tasks: Checked
  • Script:
// Checks for a valid email address format ([email protected])
function onChange(control, oldValue, newValue, isLoading) {
    if (isLoading || newValue == "") {
        return;
    }

    // Initialization of field, error message, and regex
    var errField = "enter_your_email",
        errMessage =
            "Make sure you enter a complete email with @ and a domain (i.e., .edu, .com, etc.)",
        regex = /^[A-Za-z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Za-z]{2,}/,
        errFlag = "false";

    // Testing the field against the regex
    errFlag = regex.test(g_form.getValue(errField));
    g_form.hideErrorBox(errField);

    // Error if email did not pass
    if (!errFlag) {
        g_form.showFieldMsg(errField, errMessage, "error");
    } else {
        g_form.hideErrorBox(errField);
    }
}

Hit the "Submit" button.

Go back to the "Try It" view of your catalog item and test out this client script. Whenever the value in the email field changes, then this script will run.

If you enter something like "test", then an error message will pop up saying that the email is not properly formatted. If you change the value to "[email protected]", then the error message should go away.

Workflows

Workflow provides a drag-and-drop interface for automating multi-step processes across the platform. Each workflow consists of a sequence of activities, such as generating records, notifying users of pending approvals, or running scripts. The graphical Workflow Editor represents workflows visually as a type of flowchart. It shows activities as boxes labeled with information about that activity and transitions from one activity to the next as lines connecting the boxes.

To start, click the magnifying glass icon on the Workflow field of your catalog item. Hit the "New" button and fill out these values:

  • Name: Tutorial Workflow

Hit "Submit".

The starting workflow should look like this: initial-workflow

Add these tiles to create the workflow:

  1. Set Values

    • Name: Set RITM values
    • Set these values:
      • State: Work in Progress
      • Assignment group: ITSM Engineering

  2. If

    • Name: If additional information is Yes
    • Condition: Variables, Tutorial Item, Enter if you need additional information, is, Yes

  3. Catalog Task

    • Name: Test task
    • Stage: Fulfillment
    • Populate task variables:
      • Task value from: Fields
      • Fulfillment group: ITSM Engineering
      • Short description: Do the work
    • Add variables:
      • Add all of them

    Click on the condition "Always" and change it to:

    • Name: Complete
    • Condition Type: Standard
    • Condition: activity.result == 3

    Save this workflow condition. Then, change the values to:

    • Name: Incomplete
    • Condition Type: Else

    To save this, right click on the header and select "Insert"

  4. Approval - User

    • Name: Approval from Abe
    • Stage: Waiting for Approval
    • Approvers:
      • Users: Abraham Lincoln

  5. Set Values

    • Name: Set rejection values
    • Stage: Request Cancelled
    • Values:
      • State: Closed Incomplete

  6. Set Values

    • Name: Set completion values
    • Stage: Completed
    • Values
      • State: Closed Complete

Connect the tiles like this, so it looks like the final workflow:

final-workflow

So, what exactly is going on?

  • At the start, the first "Set Values" tile will make the Request Item, which is created when a person submits this catalog item, have a State of Work in Progress, and be Assigned to the ITSM Engineering assignment group.
  • The If condition checks the response for the form question "Enter additional information".
    • If the answer is "Yes", the workflow moves to the Approval - User activity
    • Else, the workflow moves to the Catalog Task activity
  • The Approval - User activity will require the user Abraham Lincoln to either approve or reject this request.
    • If Approved, the workflow progresses to the same Catalog Task as the Else case from the If tile
    • If Rejected, the workflow goes to the Set Values tile that will make the request be in a cancelled state
  • The Catalog Task activity will generate a task for the ITSM Enginnering assignment group.
    • If the state of this task becomes "Closed Complete", or Completed, then the workflow progresses to the Set Values tile that makes the request be in a closed state.
    • Else, if the state of task is anything else like "Closed Incomplete", then the workflow progresses to the same Set Values tile that the Rejected Approval goes to
  • The "Set rejection values" tile will make the RITM be in a Closed Incomplete state.
  • The "Set completion values" tile will make the RITM be in a "Closed Complete" state.

To see this workflow in action, test around with submitting your catalog item with different answers for the "Enter additional information" question, and setting different state values for the Approval and Catalog Item tasks.