You built on a developer instance: get it converted, then certify

• You have a working prototype on a personal developer instance.
• You’re about to apply to ServiceNow’s Build Program, or you just have.

• Licensing depends on what you’re building, not where you started. If you came through the questions, your target plan is shown above.

• Apply to the Build Program early, and name the developer instance you want converted in your application.
• Freeze features on the developer instance, but sign in to it directly every few days until it’s converted: ServiceNow can reclaim a personal developer instance after 10 consecutive days without a login to the instance itself, and a reclaimed instance is wiped. Signing in to the developer site doesn’t count.
• Keep your work in source control as a backup while the conversion happens.

Certification reviews your documents as well as your app, and in our experience it’s the part most teams miss. ServiceNow’s certification guide says “Certification has two tracks”: an app review and a listing review.

• For the app review, ServiceNow asks for a “Design Document (for certification team only)”, a “Test Plan with results (for certification team only)” and an “Installation Guide (customer facing)”. Write the design document and test plan on ServiceNow’s templates; it provides a recommended template for the installation guide too.
• For the listing review, your Store listing “consists of marketing documentation, demo videos, and other resources”, and the team inspects it for “Accuracy” and “Adherence to branding guidelines”.

ServiceNow lists “How well you documented your architecture in your Design Documentation” among the things that decide how long certification takes. The calendar gives the documents a week of their own.

Plan on roughly 5–12 weeks once you’ve joined the Build Program: the rest of the build, the documents and ServiceNow’s review.

Not in ServiceNow’s Build Program yet? Add admission first: in our experience it takes 2–6 weeks, because ServiceNow reviews each application.

Weeks for design, build, documents and any programme steps come from our own projects. The review range is ServiceNow’s: certification “typically requires 3-5 weeks”, and no service level is published.

• Copying the app into a new vendor instance instead of converting the developer instance, which leaves it under a prefix you don’t own. ServiceNow’s KB0725012 says “We don’t support changing the Company Code / Vendor Prefix”, because “Any existing development of Scoped Applications will be broken”.
• Records created in the global scope while prototyping.
• Test data and development values, such as endpoints and properties, left in the app.
• Dependencies you couldn’t test on the developer instance, such as licensed products or Store apps it can’t install: test them on a vendor instance before you submit.

• Once you’re on vendor instances, keep building there. You get two, and KB0794197 says “Partners can publish an app from one vendor instance to another to simulate the experience of a customer downloading their app from the Store.”
• Maintenance is a release certification for each family release: retest on the new release and submit a revised test plan. ServiceNow’s Upgrade Policy says it “generally releases two new release families per year”. Any change to the app is a recertification, planned as new work.

• The same questions as your target plan: credentials, data leaving their instance, and the service account.