Dave Slusher
One of the most requested features of the Developer Program is the ability to choose the version of a developer instance that one gets assigned. The current state of affairs is that you request an instance, are assigned a random one from the available instances. If you choose you can upgrade from there but it is difficult to go downwards once you do that. Some people want specific versions of an instance to match the training documentation they have, or to match production at their workplace or a client.
Photo by Metassus, licensed CC BY 2.0
The Developer Program has grown steadily since it was announced at Knowledge15, and along with that growth has been a corresponding increase in developer instance usage. The ability to give these away for free use for the community of ServiceNow developers is a great benefit and has reaped benefits for the entire ecosystem. However, it does come at a cost. The program was granted a dedicated chunk of infrastructure, and then another chunk later.
One of the new features in Geneva is the ability to write Scripted REST APIs. These take the place where Processors were used previously but have a richer feature set and more flexibility.
Scripted Rest API basics When you create a new API inside the Studio environment, you define a name for it and an API ID (which will default to the name but can vary independently). Based on your currently selected application scope, it will automatically choose that application and namespace which corresponds to your scope identifier.
When we answer the feedback from the Developer portal, the biggest single topic are questions related to the developer instances. The bulk of these break down into one of two buckets:
1) My instance was reclaimed from inactivity - how can I get that restored?
2) I want to request an instance but it says none are available. Now what?
Let’s look at both of those situations with some tips on avoiding negative impact on your development experience.
