What are the best practices for customization?

What criteria should I use to determine whether to customize?

Questions addressed: Excess customization can build up technical debt and lengthen your upgrade cycle, inhibiting your ability to take advantage of new
Page 1: features. Evaluate demands for customization very carefully and only resort to customization where there is clear business value and
no alternative to satisfying demand. Your demand board can use a simple, three-step scoring framework to help your evaluation:
• What criteria should I
use to determine Step 1: Identify a “value score” for the proposed customization. Step 2: Identify a “complexity score” for the proposed
w hether to Use a simple scoring framework to assess the business value customization. Evaluate the type of customization proposed
customize? associated with the request. Your demand board should based on the potential risk it could have on performance
Page 2: review and approve this scoring framework. You can use the and/or your time to upgrade. You can use the example below
example below to get started. to get started.
• I f I do decide to
customize, w hat
technical best Value score Description Complexity What business value
Customization type
practices should I score do we need to see?
follow ? Customization is required for regulatory and
5 – Mandatory Extend an existing
• What best practices compliance purposes.
table in scope with Low to medium Medium
should I follow for Customization is a "must hav e" to realize a some scripting
custom integration
4 – Critical business v alue objective and/or adoption
requirements? Build a new scoped
requirements. Medium Medium
Page 3: application
Customization supports realization of a business
Build a new global
• How do I deal w ith 3 – Medium v alue objective and/or adoption, but Medium to high Critical
application
customizations when I w orkarounds are available.
upgrade? Change baseline
Customization supports service experience for High Critical or mandatory
business rules
serv ice consumers, process users, and/or
2 – Low
dev elopers but does not necessarily promote a Build complex,
If you have any questions High Critical or mandatory
business v alue objective or adoption. custom integration
on this topic or you would
like to be a contributor to Customization does not support improv ed
future ServiceNow best 1 – No v alue serv ice experience, v alue realization, or Step 3: Evaluate the return for the proposed customization.
practice content, please adoption. After you’ve identified your complexity score, you can
contact us. determine whether the business value of the proposed
*Note: Tables are deriv ed from our Success W orkbook on av oiding customization customization is sufficient to warrant implementation.
pitfalls.
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What are the best practices for customization? (Continued)
What technical best practices should I follow for customization?

1. Avoid copying objects. Instead, update objects in place wherever possible, except for Service Portal widgets and other items designed to be reused .

2. Default to “add before edit.” This means that you should, for example, add fields to forms rather than change the type of an existing field. When adding ,
avoid using the same names as out -of-the-box objects, methods, or classes. Keep the number of fields you add to a minimum – the more fields you have
on a form, the longer it may take to load.

3. Use the ServiceNow® no- and low-code capabilities wherever possible, including use of UI policies (before writ ing client script s), Flow Designer (over
business rule scripts), IntegrationHub (before writing custom integrations), and other capabilities.

4. Use scoped applications as your default for any new custom development.

5. Document all customizations. Add comments to explain why you customized (including business justification), and ensure you review all comments
prior to upgrading, to determine if you can revert to out -of-box.

6. Create tests for all customizations. You should ensure that you write Automated Test Framework (ATF) tests for all customizations where possible.

7. Use HealthScan regularly to identify unnecessary customizations.

What best practices should I follow for custom integration requirements?

For more details on integrations review our checklist on: Implement integrations with ServiceNow

Check to see if your required

integration is available with an Check to see if a ServiceNow Check to see if an integration
out-of-the-box (OOTB) plug-in. Check to see if an integration is integration is available on the is available from Share (on the
Consult your account team or available via the ServiceNow Store. If not, check Developer Portal). Build your
ServiceNow Product IntegrationHub. to see if a certified integration is own only if no other options
Documentation for guidance on available via Store. are available.
supported integration interfaces.
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What are the best practices for customization? (Continued)
How do I deal with customizations when I upgrade?

ServiceNow upgrades will not overwrite customizations you have made but will mark t hem as skipped records in t he ServiceNow Upgrade Monit or. To make
sure they’re successfully ported to the upgraded instance, you must manually process the skipped changes.

Assuming you’ve documented all your customizations—including business justification—take your documented inventory and compare it with the skipped
records identified in the Upgrade Monitor. After filtering out low-risk changes that have resulted in skipped records (e.g., field labels or form layouts), you’ll
need t o decide whether to:

• Retain each customization

• Revert to out -of-the-box
• Merge your customization with the base system to resolve conflict

For a det ailed overview of this process, see our Success Quick Answer, What’s the process to review and address skipped changes?

Related resources
• Customization best practices for ServiceNow

• Upgrade quickly and maintain platform health

• Success Quick Answer – How should citizen developers enhance their learning?

• No-Code Guide for the Now Platform®

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