First posted August 13, 2023

Updated May 15, 2024

Major code update February 03, 2025 archived old version is available.

Extremely minor code tweak April 30, 2026

Avoid the pain without this script​

If you use the Upgrade Console in your instance you can update all of your apps as part of any upgrade (patch or family). I don't love everything about the process, but it is a very nice way to update all of your apps without running a script or doing them 1 by 1. As a bonus it captures the updates as part of an upgrade plan, so the app version you tested on Dev will be the same one that gets installed on Prod.

You can read more on the Docs page about it (scroll down to number 6).

If you need to update things between patches or otherwise want to ad-hoc update your apps read on...

The Pain​

Every quarter or so, ServiceNow released updates to Store apps. This is usually a good thing. The bad part is that you also have to update them in your instance.

One...

At...

A...

Time...

In...

Each...

Instance...

It's painful.

Knowledge 26​

Knowledge 26 is almost upon us. I will be speaking a few times (and would have posted about it earlier, but every session was at capacity the day that the agenda builder went live before I even knew the days and times for things). In case you want to show up and see if you can get in I will be doing "Ask the Expert" on Developer Sandboxes "Want to Play in the Sandbox?" twice on Tuesday and once on Thursday. A Lab on Build Agent "Enterprise Vibe Coding" Tuesday afternoon (if you can't make it to this you should make sure to go by the Vibe Coding Lounge on the Expo floor, Build Agent has gotten really good recently). And finally a Lab on Stream Connect Wednesday afternoon "You want me to Stream HOW Many Messages?". I will also be staffing "Destination Success" on the Expo floor on Tuesday morning.

There are also some "Exchange Roundtables" that the Customer Excellence Group is hosting that I will be helping out with.

If you work for a customer with a particularly large investment in Workflow Data Products you can also get a meeting scheduled with me to talk about it pretty much anytime I am not actively busy with something else (including Monday afternoon).

It is possible I will be a bit busy at Knowledge...

You can also always message me on the SNDevs slack as well if you want to chat or meet up for fun.

This is Part 9. You should start with Part 1.

CSS Specificity​

I read a lot... and some of what I read is very random, and sometimes that comes in handy. One of the RSS feeds I subscribe to recently had an article on CSS Cascade Layers Vs. BEM Vs. Utility Classes: Specificity Control. Reading it gave me some nicely grounded insight into some things I had sorta figured out but didn't have names for. You dont need to go and read it unless you want a better understanding of how CSS specificity works and different ways of dealing with it (without resorting to just adding !important everywhere).

What does this have to do with ServiceNow theming? Read on and find out...

This is Part 8. You should start with Part 1.

Yokohama updates​

The Yokohama release is out (and has been for a while, sorry this edition is coming out way late). There are some generally minor, but interesting theme updates

Knowledge 25​

If you are reading this because you subscribed to my RSS feed, and will be at Knowledge, you can find me at the Platform Ask the Expert area Tuesday morning, Wednesday all day, and Thursday Morning. Feel free to reach out to me on the SNDevs slack as well.

This is your chance to hire Eric (Update: I got an internal transfer to a new position at ServiceNow and am no longer looking for something new)​

A few weeks ago I got news that my position at ServiceNow is being eliminated. At this point it is looking very unlikely that I am going to find something internal to transfer to. So I am using Knowledge 25 as the perfect chance to network.

This is Part 7. You should start with Part 1.

Xanadu updates​

The Xanadu release is out (in EA and available on PDIs at the time of writing) and has some interesting theme changes.

This is Part 6. You should start with Part 1.

Washington DC updates​

This post is really late, sorry.

The big news in the W release is themable illustrations. But there are some issues I found with them.

The setup​

I no longer work with end users very often, but this came across my desk (errr... I got a message on the SNDevs Slack). There was a person in the NextGen program who was working on a project. They had created a custom table and could not get to a next step because half of the fields on the form weren't showing up.

The instructor had checked the usual suspects... The fields were part of the form view, there weren't any UI policies, Data Policies, or Client Scripts hiding them. All the ACLs were passed so that wasn't the issue either.

And... this issue was only happening to a single user account. When the instructor logged in as a different user, they could see the fields just fine.

Any guesses what the problem was?

This is Part 5. You should start with Part 1.

Here are some of the best properties I have found to set​

There are obviously a lot of properties available. I have found that setting some have much more impact than others. Here are the top ones that I think can make a difference.

First posted August 13, 2023

Updated May 15, 2024

Retired February 03, 2025, see the new version

The Pain​

Every quarter or so, ServiceNow released updates to Store apps. This is usually a good thing. The bad part is that you also have to update them in your instance.

One...

At...

A...

Time...

In...

Each...

Instance...

It's painful.