Why ServiceNow pushing us to our limits is good for you.

I am an addicted runner. I have always been fascinated by the effort it requires to run a marathon. But more importantly, I enjoy the journey you have to go through during the preparation phase that will make the difference on D-Day. You have to push yourself during training so that you can enjoy the long awaited 42km race.

It takes discipline, courage and a good dose of craziness to accept to go out and run when it's dark, rainy and miserable 2, 3 or even 4 times a week.

It might look plainly stupid to your neighbours and relatives to watch you doing reps and be on the verge of passing out when comes the 9th or 10th 400 meters sprint on a Sunday Morning when you could be lying in bed instead!

In the end, this hard work is meant to ensure that you will be ready and safe when comes the day you'll be on the starting line.

All I can say is that the last 6 months trying to get OnSiteFile certified on the ServiceNow store looked very much like a pretty hellish preparation before a marathon to me.

And I am going to tell you why it's a good thing that ServiceNow pushes us - technological partners - to our limits.

Preparation is everything!

Creating a stand alone application in ServiceNow is easy on paper but requires discipline and a lot of preparation work. ServiceNow to ensure that we, partners, don't put the horses before the cart, demand that we produce an extensive set of technical documentation:

• A very comprehensive design document
• A detailed test plan with all relevant scenarios (functional, security, capacity, etc..)
• A ServiceNow customer's oriented installation and configuration guide

Then the ServiceNow certifier's team review these documents and ask us to modify/adjust as appropriate. They do so until they are satisfied that we've reached the required level of quality that demonstrates that we prepared our app in the best way possible, that it will match best practice, that we did not underestimate the security requirements, etc... If they consider that a document must be adjusted 15 times then we'll have to do it...

No Pain no Gain!

Once the documentation has been produced and the code submitted for review, the certifier's team ask us to demo the application. They then perform offline reviews and send feedback. If they spot the tiniest issue with our app they will ask us to fix and resubmit.

In truth, this can be very frustrating for us as there are no real limits or deadline. ServiceNow will only be satisfied when they are absolutely convinced that, as a partner, you can deliver the same level of quality and service to customers as they do.

For instance, OnSiteFile that looks simple from the outside but is actually technically quite complex has been reviewed, corrected, challenged and modified at least 20 times between the moment we submitted it to the day it was technically certified.

Safety first!

In parallel to documenting and ensuring that our app is aligned to the certifier's expectations, we also need to go through an extensive ServiceNow security review.

As you probably know, ServiceNow takes security very (VERY) seriously. With our app that requires external components such as node.js, they tried to identify any weakness, any crack in our app that could be exploited by a hacker. They asked all the questions, checked and validated the answers and asked us to fix time and time again...

We hit quite a few lows during this phase and at some point even wondered if it was worth it... But in the end, we are now in a better position to demonstrate that OnSiteFile can be deployed in organisations with extremely high I.T security standards.

Ready to compete!

The result of ServiceNow pushing us so hard is that OnSiteFile does now so much more than it was supposed to do a year ago. It is more robust, stable and it delivers impressive value to customers.

The "Now certified" logo is definitely not a fake marketing badge but truly a recognition by ServiceNow that apps have gone trough a grueling journey to be ready to be deployed safely on your instance.

And you know what? That's fine by us, as in the end we want to be the best to compete for our customers.

At Atlantic Puffin we believe that building apps is all about delivering exceptional quality products that bring significant added value to our customers. We just love what we do! As a team made of Service Management experts, engineers, designers and ServiceNow gurus, we’re aiming at stirring the app market towards innovation and customer centric approach.

Based in mainland Europe, APAC, Oceania and soon NA, we address a global market where we can deliver our global vision and help our customers grow their operations.

At Atlantic Puffin, we build Great Apps for the ServiceNow platform.

Credits:

Photo by Francesco Gallarotti on Unsplash

Photo by Clique Images on Unsplash