ServiceNow is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud platform that helps businesses automate business processes and has transformed many organizations with innovative service delivery solutions, irrespective of industry. ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) has become the industry standard in cloud-based IT service management. Looking at the innovations ServiceNow ITSM has for businesses, for six consecutive years ServiceNow has been awarded  as the ITSM leader by Gartner. This clearly shows that for many businesses ServiceNow ITSM is the first choice to scale up their service delivery. Here we guide organizations on the process of how to test various ServiceNow ITSM modules.

Testing Various ServiceNow ITSM Modules

The ServiceNow ITSM offers various modules to improve business function. Here is the process of testing various ServiceNow ITSM modules:

Testing Incident Management Module

In the Incident Management module, to report an issue the user can contact the support team/ IT Team. The issue can be assigned to multiple users based on the situation. Here, the issue can be either network issues or mobile issues. The user must record the incident details to track it, if in case the issue is not resolved by IT Team. The user can create another new incident to work on it or to track it.

In Incident management, issues can be prioritized based on the seriousness of the issue. ServiceNow provides 4 types of priority levels:

• Critical
• High
• Medium
• Low

An incident is assigned critical priority level if it has a high impact on the timeline. If the impact of the incident is very little, it is then assigned low-level incident and so on. In the testing incident management module, we create a new incident and process them at each state, step-by-step starting with assignment group, work in progress, pending state, resolved state, closed and cancelled state. The incident can be recorded until the service is restored and issue is resolved. Incidents will have various tasks, when the issue is resolved the incident will be closed.

Testing Problem Management Module

This is the process of identifying and fixing issues that results in incidents. We recorded all the problems and all these problems are managed in the problem management life cycle.

In ServiceNow Problem Management module, we identify the root cause of all the incidents and the problems are resolved accordingly. 

For each problem a group is assigned from knowledge base, request changes and assign the groups, through resolution and reporting. If the problem is resolved, the incidents related to the problem is set to an 'On Hold' state and the state will be closed immediately.

• We must identify and log the problem then create the record manually and make a note of the problem.
• Users can log or update the incidents. It can be generated using email and will have the inbound email to configure and achieve this.
• The problem will be resolved and when the problem is resolved the incidents will be closed automatically.

Testing is the process where we have to close problems from 'Pending State' after the change request is closed. If the problem is closed, then the state sets the state to 'Resolved'. If all the incidents associated with the problem state is 'On Hold', then it is termed as 'Awaiting Problem'. Once the problem is identified the issues are fixed from the problem.

Testing Change Management Module

ServiceNow Change management enables users to make changes to any details of a ticket related to IT environment. In simple words, we can add, delete or modify anything under IT services. While creating an incident, details of a problem are provided based on the current problem and one is made eligible to create one more problem.

The testing of the change management module involves the process of creating the change request and types of changes. We can select the assignment groups and select the impact of the change, like, Large, Moderate and Minor. Once the change request is approved, an email will be triggered to the user. The tester can view all the awaiting approvals items. Change requests are then defined as Standard Change and Emergency Change types.

• Standard Change: It is defined by low risk and low impact changes for pre-approved.
• Emergency Change: It is defined by unexpected delay to be resolved as early as possible. If it is major incident, we can consider as the high priority to understand the impact and to handle approvals can be authorized by CAB approval group.

Testing Knowledge Management Module

ServiceNow Knowledge management is aimed at sharing the information of knowledge bases for employees. Customers can get access to it easily. Users are allowed access to portals that facilitate the functionalities such as: Create, Review and Approving articles. Knowledge management can have multiple groups and can be assigned to individual managers. Knowledge management has facility to publish articles so that users can search the relevant information from knowledge repository can quickly resolve the issues. Knowledge base article Segment has two facilities:

• Approval Publish: It enters the Draft state and it is forwarded to the review for it be either approved or rejected.
• Instant Publish: This article is published immediately and appears on the knowledge base. From this user can view all the knowledge articles from the knowledge base who are retired.

About Author

Sneha works as a Test Engineer at V-Soft consulting and has a Software Testing career of 4 years. As a test engineer, she gained testing knowledge in testing Web & Mobile Apps (Android & iOS), GUI, Functional, Integration, System, Ad-hoc, Usability, Database, Smoke Regression and Retesting. Also, she is very proficient knowledge in Agile methodology and AI domains.