Understanding Business Rules & Their Types

Think of the ServiceNow platform as a busy highway without rules. Total chaos! To avoid this, ServiceNow instances have automated tools that run on tables known as Business rules. 

Whether a critical ticket is to be assigned to the right team or manage due dates, business rules can do it without you even starting to search for it. 

This topic focuses on the business rule introduction and the different types that are used in a ServiceNow instance. 

What is business rule in ServiceNow?

ServiceNow business rules are server-side scripts that run when a record is displayed, inserted, updated, or deleted, or when a table is searched. These business rules are run when server-side conditions are met. 

Business rule conditions are used to determine when to run a business rule in relation to database operations and on what record operations the business rules are applied.

How to create business rules?

 To create a ServiceNow business rule:

1. Choose Business Rules from System Definition. 
2. Click New. 
3. Fill in the appropriate fields and click Submit. 

Types of Business Rules

There are four different types of ServiceNow business rules, and they differ in how they run in the database operations: 

1. Before Business Rules ServiceNow: When a user submits a form but before any action is taken on the database record, the before business rule is executed.

2. After Business Rules ServiceNow: After a user submits a form and any action is taken on the record, the after business rule is executed.

3. Async Business Rules ServiceNow: When someone runs a scheduled job from business rules. The scheduled job is created via the system, form business rules after the user submits the form and any action is taken on the record in the database. This triggers the async business rule.

4. Display Business Rules ServiceNow: These rules are executed right before the form is presented to the user and right after the data is read from the database.

What’s Next? 

Now that we understand the basics of ServiceNow business rules, in the next topic we will be focusing on the business rule actions and how business rule scripts are written and executed.