Instance Plugins FAQs - Support and Troubleshooting

Instance Plugins FAQs Issue The ServiceNow Enterprise platform offers enhanced application functionality via plugins with each release. Plugins are software components that add functionality to installed applications on ServiceNow instances. Below, you'll find answers to frequently asked questions regarding plugins.

Table of Contents 1. What's the difference between a plugin and an application? 2. Why is the plugin upgrade button grayed out, or why do I get a message that says no upgrade is available? 3. What plugins, subscriptions, and applications are included in our company's license? 4. How do I try, buy, and install apps from the ServiceNow store? 5. Do I have to pay for a plugin? 6. How do I activate plugins? 7. How do I activate plugins for my On-Premise Instance(s)? 8. Why are plugin requests automatically scheduled 2 days out when requested? 9. Are Store Applications the same as Plugins? 10. What plugins are available for my ServiceNow instance and its current Platform version? 11. Where can I locate new plugins within my current Platform version along with existing plugins that have been deprecated and/or renamed? 12. Why is acknowledgment required, for certain plugins, prior to activation? 13. Is a subscription required for all requested plugins? 14. How do I purchase a subscription to a plugin? 15. What are the useful tables related to plugin activation? 16. How do I verify that a plugin was successfully installed? 17. How to determine if a plugin was successfully activated and when it was activated? 18. How do I know who activated a plugin? 19. What do I do if my plugin activation failed? 20. Why can I see a plugin in a sub-production instance but not in production? 1. What's the difference between a plugin and an application? An application is a standalone piece of code, such as an accounting program, that implements a collection of features. A plugin is not standalone. It provides feature enhancements to installed applications. 2. Why is the plugin upgrade button grayed out, or why do I get a message that says no upgrade is available? Customers can't activate plugins on production instances. Instead, they have to request plugin activation by ServiceNow through NOW Support . For more information, see Requesting Plugin Activation . Customers can activate most plugins on their non-production instances. For more information, see Activate a Plugin . For evaluation, you can activate a plugin for an application that requires a purchased subscription on a non-production instance. To activate the plugin on production instances, you must purchase the subscription. To purchase a subscription, contact your ServiceNow account manager . Every company using ServiceNow has an internal account manager. Some plugins depend on other plugins being activated. In some cases, a plugin cannot work at all unless one or more other plugins are installed. When you ask to activate a plugin in this category, the system notifies you of the dependencies before it completes the activation. If you ask to continue, the system automatically activates all the plugins required. In some cases, the plugin works, but certain features that do not apply to your system are not installed. When you ask to activate a plugin in this category, the system notifies you of the dependencies before it completes the captivation. If you ask to continue, the system activates the requested plugin but does not include the features that depend on other plugins. 3. What plugins, subscriptions, and applications are included in our company's license? ServiceNow Customer Support does not have access to your company's licensing information. To find out what plugins, subscriptions, and applications are included in your licensing, contact the ServiceNow account manager in your company.

4. How do I try, buy, and install apps from the ServiceNow store? Here's information about installing applications found on the ServiceNow store . Watch this video: 5. Do I have to pay for a plugin? ServiceNow licensing agreements vary. To see if your company has to pay for a plugin, contact the ServiceNow account manager in your company. 6. How do I activate plugins? Plugin Activation Overview - KB0695388 Updates to the Now Support (HI) Plugin Store 7. How do I activate plugins for my On-Premise Instance(s)? If your instance(s) is an On-Premise (Self-Hosted) instance, we will need to have a meeting via Zoom, or at least a phone call in order to obtain the maintenance login credentials for doing this type of activation. Please paste a copy of the top portion of the stats.do page of the instance into this ticket. If the instance is not accessible from the internet, you can provide the following information, so that we can generate the login credentials as mentioned: Build Date Build Tag Instance ID Instance Name Also, please provide a date and time when you would be available for a Zoom meeting or phone call. 8. Why are plugin requests automatically scheduled 2 days out when requested? The system defaults the schedule out two days. Once the plugin has been verified for activation, you should be able to reschedule the planned start date to an earlier date and time. If the customer wants the plugin activated at a different date/time, they can use the 'Reschedule' button to select an available window once the plugin has been verified for activation. If the customer is not able to reschedule the CHG, ServiceNow Technical Support can do the reschedule as long as the plugin is already approved for activation. 9. Are Store Applications the same as Plugins? Applications purchased or obtained from the ServiceNow store are not plugins to be activated through a plugin activation request. If you are trying to install an application that requires a plugin to be activated, please submit a plugin activation request for the dependency plugin. ServiceNow Store How to Install Store Applications - Video 10. What plugins are available for my ServiceNow instance and its current Platform version? Please see this link for List of Plugins in your release. 11. Where can I locate new plugins within my current Platform version along with existing plugins that have been deprecated and/or renamed? Please see this link for Changes to Plugins in your release. 12. Why is acknowledgment required, for certain plugins, prior to activation? Some plugins that introduce a new feature, state, functions, etc... not active by default on a previous family releases may require acknowledgment prior to activation to inform you of any potential impact the plugin may have before activation. 13. Is a subscription required for all requested plugins? Plugins to be activated on a production instance will require contract validation. The Plugin Approval Managers will verify if the company contract contains the right subscription to activate the “requested” plugin. If the Plugin Approval Managers are unable to verify the subscription, they will notify you and reach out to your Account Team for more information. Plugins to be activated in a Sub-Prod do not generally require a subscription. This can vary with Limited Access or Deprecated plugins. 14. How do I purchase a subscription to a plugin? To purchase a subscription, customers can contact their ServiceNow account manager. In some cases, the account manager will arrange to have the plugin activated on your organization's production and non-production instances, generally within a few days. In other cases, customers can activate the plugin within the instance. 15. What are the useful tables related to plugin activation? The following tables are helpful to get information about plugins: sys_plugins v_plugin sys_plugin_log syslog_transaction sys_package sys_progress_worker 16. How do I verify that a plugin was successfully installed? To verify that a plugin was successfully installed: Go to the sys_progress_worker table. Provide the name of the plugin in the ‘Name’ column. The ‘Message’ column shows that the plugin is activated. If there is an error, it can be seen in the ‘Error message’ column. Also, the ‘State’ column displays the status of the plugin. 17. How to determine if a plugin was successfully activated and when it was activated? KB0678767 - 'How to Check if a plugin has been successfully activated in an Instance and when it was activated'. To determine when a plugin was installed, the ID of the plugin or Name of the plugin is needed. There are a few ways to determine when a plugin was installed: xmlstats.do will show all plugins installed: E.g. com.snc.vulnerability sys_plugin_log record sys_plugins record includes the install_date field: sys_package record via created field: sys_upgrade_history record via upgrade finished field: sys_progress_worker record

18. How do I know who activated a plugin? There are 2 ways to check who activated a plugin. Method1: Open sys_progress_worker table. In the table, filter with the name of the plugin in the ‘Name’ column. The ‘Created By’ field shows who activated the plugin. Method 2: Install a plugin (for example ‘Appointment Booking’ plugin). Go to the sys_plugins table and provide the name of the plugin in the ‘Name’ column. Note the ID which is unique to every plugin. The ‘Install date’ column shows the date when the plugin was installed. With the install date, the information about who installed the plugin can be found. For this purpose, go to the syslog_transaction table and provide the following filter criteria as seen in the screenshot below. As can be seen in the above screenshot, the URL is the ID of the plugin. For the ‘Created’, provide a duration of time. For example, the ‘Appointment Booking’ plugin was installed on 2018-11-07 10:28:33. So, a time duration of before and after the plugin was installed is provided. The ‘Type’ field is optional, but it is helpful to filter out other options like REST since the plugin is activated through the form. The following screenshot displays the results of the filter criteria that we supplied. Here, the ‘Created By’ column shows who installed the plugin. 19. What do I do if my plugin activation failed? Please open a Case to have this investigated further by ServiceNow Technical Support. 20. Why can I see a plugin in a sub-production instance but not in production? Customers can't activate plugins on production instances. Instead, they have to request plugin activation by ServiceNow through NOW Support . See Requesting Plugin Activation above. Customers can activate most plugins on their non-production instances. For additional, possible explanations, see the answer to question 2. Related Links Plugin Activation Overview How to Check if a plugin has been successfully activated in an Instance and when it was activated