ServiceNow is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution, providing technical management support, such as IT service management, to large corporations. With ServiceNow, businesses have a single platform for various processes, enabling them to modernize their operations and optimize productivity, cost, and scalability.

The Need for ServiceNow Testing

ServiceNow is a single data model enterprise cloud platform, meaning that each customer gets their own copy – or instance – of ServiceNow in the Cloud. These are rarely built in the same way, so each organization has its own custom ServiceNow instance.

Businesses adapt and evolve over time. In order to keep up with business demands, instances need to be continuously changed or upgraded. To ensure smooth running, it is essential to test whenever a change is made to an application, no matter how minimal, as this may affect existing functionality.

Additionally, frequent updates from ServiceNow also lead to the same need: more testing to make sure that ServiceNow’s update didn’t affect any of your business-critical processes.

ServiceNow on average, releases new updates twice a year, with bug fixes, and functional and performance upgrades. Every time there’s an update, businesses should mitigate any possible risk by testing the modules.

ServiceNow Testing Types

1. Story/unit testing: A unit is the smallest testable software component (e.g., objects, components, modules). It is used to focus on programming errors; testing units in isolation to verify that the code unit works as required.
2. System testing: System testing assesses the system holistically and includes integration testing to make sure the units work together. It is used to verify that overall specifications are met and to validate the system works for its intended purpose.
3. User acceptance testing: User acceptance testing (UAT), completed by end users, is the final validation stage. It is conducted to get customer/business validation that the platform has been set up correctly to meet business outcomes.

ServiceNow Manual Versus Automated Testing

ServiceNow supports both automated and manual testing. Automated testing uses automation tools to execute test cases, while manual test cases are executed by a human tester.

Manual testing is usually used for:

Exploratory testing – Requires the tester’s knowledge, experience, analytical/logical skills, creativity, and intuition. Human skills are needed to execute the testing process due to limited specification documentation, and/or a short time for execution.

Usability testing – This measure how user friendly, efficient, or convenient the software or product is for end users. Here, human observation is the most important factor, so a manual approach is preferable.

Ad hoc testing – An unplanned method of testing where the understanding and insight of the tester is the only important factor

Automated testing should be used for:

Regression testing – Running tests that have been executed before, using a standardized, repeatable process. Automated testing reduces testing time and cost.

Repeated execution – Testing that requires the repeated execution of a task is best automated.

Advantages of Automation

• Accelerate ServiceNow deployments
• Track changes directly to the source
• Easy to customize and execute
• Easily integrated with CI/CD pipelines, so you can continue to test and innovate rapidly

ServiceNow Automated testing has many advantages. However, it requires professionals and the right tools such as Selenium, QTP, Silk Test etc. to successfully conduct automated testing.

Testers should have sound technical and programming knowledge to perform automation testing and to write automated test scripts.

At Zen Cloud, we have a large team of skilled resources that have expertise in ServiceNow and ServiceNow Testing. Our solutions result in shortened release cycles, centralized system, flexibility, and cost effectiveness.