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Are you still developing in the global scope?

Chuck Tomasi
ServiceNow Employee
ServiceNow Employee

I'm hearing more and more that a lot of people are still developing their solutions in the global scope despite all the great development advancements we've built in to the platform (e.g. Git integration, Studio, delegated development, publish/install, etc.). Our platform business unit has the vision that we should all be building using scoped apps. This includes new apps as well as extensions to existing applications (even in the global scope.) I'd like to know what's keeping you from realizing that vision. Examples may include:

  • There is a scripting API that is not available to scoped apps
  • Our requirements force us to use synchronous Ajax
  • We are still on Eureka
  • I love update sets!
  • I just don't know enough about creating scoped apps (and that's OK.)

Specifics are always appreciated. Thanks!

52 REPLIES 52

Sashi K1
Kilo Guru

Just for my clarification, is your strategic direction to convert al global apps that includes Incident, Change, Problem etc? OR start with independent apps that extends from Task but have no direct dependencies? I also heard about new scoped HR app releasing soon.



Do you recommend everyone to start converting existing custom apps to scoped initially while ServiceNow works on shared components like Incident/Change/Problem etc? I believe due to their dependency they all have to be converted at once, right? Please provide little more details about your vision. that helps us to better understand and could provide a concrete feedback that benefits mutually.


Hi Ajay,



Good questions. At this point, I have not heard any indication to convert the existing ITSM applications to scoped applications. That being the case, that should not preclude people from using scoped apps to extend existing applications (adding fields, form layouts, business rules, etc.)



As for HR being redone as a scoped application, I cannot say one way or another at this point. Istanbul release information should be out soon so keep your eyes open for that. If such a thing happened, it would be a benefit to data security for that application - which is a big deal in the HR space.



Converting an existing application means rebuilding the application from the ground up. It is up to your organization to determine of the benefits of scoped applications are great enough to investment in rebuilding the application. That being said, you can extend your own global apps in the same manner as OOB apps described above. I have heard rumors of a conversion utility, but have not seen anything concrete. To me, it doesn't exist until I can start clicking icons and links.



I hope that answers all of them.


We at our company strictly decided to convert all newly developed custom apps as scoped after PAC meeting at K16. However our fingers crossed on converting existing apps to Scoped. We don't want to reinvest if ServiceNow is working on a utility that could transpose globally scoped custom apps to a locally scoped. May be worth waiting until Istanbul.



I will post you updates on our findings soon.


greg54
Tera Expert

I am starting to use scoped applications more, but from my experience so far, my complaints/notes are:



1. Ugly object names. The application scope variable should be editable. Especially if you are using a developer instance. Who wants x_24909 before every object name?



2. The unknown of what is and isn't available to scoped applications. Don't want to get so far into development and realize something isn't available.



3. ServiceNow has not locked down the glide.app.creator.global variable, so that indicates to me that it is still considered OK to develop NEW apps in the global scope



4. Comfort level of doing it like it has always been done.



5. ServiceNow versions coming out too fast and frequently, making it difficult to keep up with all the new features of application creation.



Other than that, I love them.