Web applications in ServiceNow

The process of developing and deploying web applications includes just 3 steps and remains the same for any of the JavaScript frameworks:

1. Develop an application in a local dev environment — create components, logic, interfaces etc., there might be dozens or even hundreds of development files (javascript, css, assets etc.)
2. Build the application — create a deployment package, combine all of the files into a small deployment set (can be just two files: index.html and bundle.js)
3. Deploy to the hosting platform — upload files to the server, so users can run the app by accessing index.html

This 3-step process is a kind of standard for a web development industry, and there are multiple tools and services to help you with each step. When it comes to building ServiceNow applications with javascript frameworks, the most concerning step would be #3 (deployment).

We definitely can deploy and host web apps in ServiceNow (simple and advanced approach), but someone may say that it is not ideal. There are multiple platform limitations and constraints which prevent us from hosting and running web applications in ServiceNow in the most effective and efficient way.

What if we could have a real hosting platform inside of ServiceNow?

ServiceNow as a hosting platform for web applications

ServiceNow is a great data and process management platform, but it is not a hosting platform. We can store html and javascript files in ServiceNow, but in order to serve them and run as web apps resources, we need to use Scripted REST API and other workarounds, which sometimes may be painful.

So what would be the ideal solution then? It is obvious — a custom hosting service, which built under ServiceNow security umbrella and closely integrated with the platform.

Something like this:

We are building that service on a secure AWS infrastructure.

Here is how it works — there is a scoped ServiceNow application, where you define and manage all of your web projects:

To deploy a web app to ServiceNow all you need to do is to provide a name of the project, ServiceNow path, and drag’n’drop the package files:

The moment you dropped the files, your application is available in ServiceNow:

The following are the key features of the solution design:

• fully featured hosting service inside of ServiceNow
• completely shielded and covered by ServiceNow platform security
• drag’n’drop deployment
• interactive file management
• technology agnostic, you can host applications built with React, Angular, Vue, Svelte etc.
• enterprise level scalability, performance and SLA

More updates coming soon…