General availability of the newest family version of ServiceNow is coming soon. We have prepared a brief summary of some useful features for those who are curious about the improvements and advancements that have come in this version.
Reduced Performance Issues
It may seem that Washington DC is not bringing any significant UI changes but you may feel the difference after you upgrade. ServiceNow is bringing 2 changes regarding instance’s nodes. For those of you who are not familiar with detailed technical architecture: A ServiceNow node is an application server within ServiceNow infrastructure which is handling requests sent to a ServiceNow instance. When too many requests are coming into ServiceNow instances, performance may be affected. The Washington release comes with a new version of Centralized Scheduler Job Delegation and memory pressure remediation. A scheduler can help alleviate memory pressure by minimizing the worker thread pool size, allowing for a reduction of up to 50% and subsequently decreasing its memory footprint. How may it impact your instance? Your instance performance will be increased, especially on large or very busy instances of ServiceNow.
Background script Monaco JavaScript editor
ServiceNow is introducing a few options that developers will love. First of them is Monaco JavaScript editor in background script. Developers have probably been using browser plugins for years to get all of those features. Now you can finally switch it off and enjoy a new first-class code editor with all of the features you can dream of - like color coded keywords, search, comments, error indicators and formatting. Saving is still not possible, and there are no changes about the scope - you can run scripts in global or custom applications scope.
Workflow Studio
Next significant feature you will notice is the new automation experience with Workflow Studio. Finally ServiceNow introduces one consolidated interface where you can create and operate with all of your automations - playbooks, flows, subflows, actions, data streams, integration hub integrations and decision tables.
If you’d like to explore it more you can join live development YouTube session organized by ServiceNow Workflow Studio & Flow Designer - Live Coding Hour Hour - ServiceNow Developer Program
Workflow Studio is also available at ServiceNow Store Application Click here to get Workflow Studio
Another automation feature you can use within Workflow Studio is Remote Table Query action - so if you’re using remote tables capability now, you can use flows instead of custom scripts to refresh your data.
GraphQL Explorer
Next feature is regarding GraphQL. If you’ve been reading some of the previous TCP blog post you know that GraphQL is a query language for APIs and a runtime environment for executing those queries with existing data. It was developed by Facebook in 2012 and later released as an open-source project. GraphQL provides a more efficient, powerful, and flexible alternative to traditional REST APIs. Now ServiceNow is getting even more powerful with GraphQL Explorer.
GraphQL offers efficient data retrieval by allowing clients to request only the needed information, reducing over-fetching. Its single endpoint, hierarchical structure, and strong typing system lead to streamlined development, faster iterations, and improved real-time capabilities, making it a preferred choice for modern API development.
NowLearning Content for GraphQL
Clone Admin Console
New streamline clone experience where you can modify or create new clone configurations and definitions, including clone profiles and clone instances, schedule clones and prevent conflicts, view the status of current clone activity, cancel a clone, request backup on-demand, roll back once completed.
Clone dashboard is introduced on top of the existing clone engine.
If you can’t wait until you can test it - Clone Admin console is available as a free ServiceNow store application (from Utah Patch 2) Click here to get Clone Admin Console.
Performance testing with ATFs
Performance profiling allows you to do performance testing on your instances. You can reuse existing test scenarios or create targeted performance tests suits.
In addition to serving as a functional testing tool to guarantee the stability of an instance post changes, ServiceNow's ATF (Automated Test Framework) also excels at identifying performance degradation during upgrades. This capability allows users to pinpoint, investigate, and address any performance issues that may arise.
Conducting performance profiling is straightforward with ATF, allowing users to execute tests or suites with a default run count of 10. Within a suite, each test runs sequentially 10 times, with the initial run serving as a warmup to optimize cache values, not factored into the 10-test count for a test or suite.
Want to upgrade? Check out our 6 steps to secure a successful Washington upgrade! (LINK TIL POST TO)
To see all new changes and new features please refer to Washington DC release notes.