FrankenInstance

IT'S ALIVE!!! IT'S ALIVE!!!

We are coming down to the last couple of articles of our ServiceNow Halloween Spectacular Article Extravaganza! Hopefully this series has been more treat than trick!

Follow me to the lab and let's take a look at…FrankenInstance!!! ((thunder and lightning crash))

The Origin Story

In Mary Shelley’s classic, Dr. Frankenstein doesn’t set out to build a monster — he just wants to create something better. Something brilliant. 

Because that always works out and there's never any terrible repercussions…

But piece by piece, he assembles his creation from scraps, mismatched parts, and raw ambition. And one stormy night, lightning strikes…

“It’s alive!” he cries — and so is your ServiceNow instance.

Over time, well-intentioned teams often create their own FrankenInstance: a stitched-together mix of custom scripts, cloned workflows, and forgotten tables that somehow, miraculously, still works.
Until it doesn’t.

Soon, your upgrades fail. Dependencies snap. Integrations scream. And your instance, like Frankenstein’s creature, becomes misunderstood — unpredictable, powerful, and a little scary.

The Monster Evolves...

Like Gene Wilder’s wild-eyed Dr. Frankenstein (“That’s Fronkensteen!”) in Young Frankenstein, we often start with noble intentions. A quick fix here, a clever workaround there — and before you know it, your instance is tap-dancing to “Puttin’ on the Ritz” while your dev team hides behind the curtains.

But just like in Young Frankenstein, the real horror isn’t the monster — it’s what happens when no one knows what’s been stitched together, or why.

You’ve got:

• A catalog item that only works on Tuesdays at midnight while your fingers are crossed.
• A business rule that references a table no one remembers creating.
• A UI policy that’s been duplicated so many times it’s now self-aware and has become powerful beyond comprehension.

And somewhere, deep in the shadows of your update set history, a lonely script includes whispers:

“I was once OOTB…”

Best Practices (Because Fire is Not a Strategy)

1. Build with governance — not guesswork.
2. Use App Engine Studio or Scoped Apps to contain experiments.
3. Regularly audit custom code and UI policies for redundancy.
4. Stay as close to out-of-the-box as possible.
5. Document your experiments — if you’re going to play with lightning, at least leave a note.
6. Name things clearly — “ScriptInclude42” is not a legacy. It’s a curse.
7. Clean up after yourself — retired features should be buried, not left to roam the platform.
8. Use update sets responsibly — just because you can bring something back from the dead doesn’t mean you should.

🧟‍♂️ Don’t Be the Villain in Your Own Horror Story

Mary Shelley warned us: unchecked ambition and a lack of foresight lead to chaos. And in the ServiceNow world, chaos looks like:

• Broken upgrades,
• Untraceable bugs,
• And a backlog full of “mystery logic.”

So how do you avoid becoming the next mad scientist of your platform?

Final Thought: Who’s Really in Control?

In the end, Dr. Frankenstein lost control of his creation. Don’t let your instance do the same. With a little discipline, a dash of governance, and maybe a torch-wielding CAB meeting, you can keep your platform from becoming a monster.

So this Halloween, ask yourself:

“Am I building a better future… or just reanimating old mistakes?”