we never get tired of sharing amazing success stories about service now developers in this episode we've got someone who made a transition in a few months from being a hard worker to a service now MVP and appearing on the big stage at knowledge twice welcome to breakpoint the service now developer [Music] podcast hello service now Edmonds Builders developers and curious individuals that I always say with the utmost love respect welcome to or welcome back to breakpoint the service non developer podcast where we bring you the latest tools tips and tradecraft to accelerate your career my name is Chuck tamasi senior developer Advocate and I am joined by the one the only the of course she sitting right here as always senior developer Advocate Lauren McManaman how are you today Lauren you know I have been a little bit better as most people know or at least maybe not when this is recording uh it's been raining for like 10 days straight in Dallas and so we are mostly underwater this is a this is a submarine podcast currently for me is your neighbor like out there building a giant Arc that we should be hurting animals to not yet but I maybe soon I mean honestly it's it's pretty wild so uh fingers crossed that nothing gets wet and that my internet stays intact today we hope you stay safe and dry out soon and in this episode the weather aside we are talking to service now developer at yansa labbs ay Anderson how are you today ay I'm doing so great I'm just excited to be here and we're excited to have you here well let's start out with some of our standard questions before we begin I always like to get to know our guest so why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself yeah let's see I um grew up in a little town in Idaho and if you know anything about Idaho um you probably know that they're famous for their potatoes my high school mascot was a potato and so that like if that doesn't perfectly encapsulate what Idaho is then I don't know what does was his nickname Spud uh Tater no it Boomer actually boom of the r not even a potato it's a specific potato yeah oh yeah yeah so that's that's where I grew up um and then I went to school got a degree in computer science um and then did web development for a little while after college um but it didn't take long before I transitioned over to service now um and I had had some exposure to it previously when I was in high school my dad worked for service now um and so he would have me like sign up for pdis and go through the developer trainings and um he would take me with him to snugs um and even had me present with him on one occasion at one of those those events I was getting job offers when I was like still in high school and I had to tell him I had to wait so it was a good time was he wasn't like reading you the wiki at bedtime stories was he right I mean I wouldn't be surprised so I did know a little bit about service now previously um and so after oh probably only a year or two in web development um I pivoted over to service now and have been loving it ever since very good you mentioned your dad I came this close to working for him at service now I've known about him since pretty much day one when I started in 2010 and there was an opportunity but at the last minute he shifted gears and I wound up with a different manager but it was it was within 30 days he he said hey you want to come over to my team I said sure well now you're on his team well we're on his team we'll get to that in just a [Laughter] minute uh another question we absolutely love is I don't know if You' you've been there long enough but uh we want to see if there's a story that you have where you did something that you just felt so bad you thought you were going to get fired for it you know luckily I haven't had too many of those in my career yet um but there was one instance where I was working um on a client project um and I was trying to figure out an issue I was having with some acl's on one of the tables that I was working on and um I flipped a system property in their instance that handled how the ACLS were being executed across the whole instance and definitely alerted their security team and caused some issues and they were freaking out um and I didn't realize that what I'd done had like impacted their whole system oh in my defense in my defense I was making it more secure not less secure so okay there's that at least but after it hey one is better than the other one is much better than the other it's true it's so true yeah after it happened uh my boss stepped in and worked with us to resolve the issue and um he was super understanding um and um afterwards told me about similar experiences experiences that he had had um oh that's nice starting out so it was it was great and just a good learning experience in the end but it was you know I was pretty nervous there for a minute lesson learned system properties they affect the whole system right yep yep or did you learn a different lesson oh I think I learned that customers like their instances the way they are I knew that I knew that it was a system property but in my mind I was like why wouldn't you want it to be more secure turns out there are reasons that you have your processes so and when you are not at work uh or working with assistant properties what do you you enjoy doing um I just like to spend a lot of time with family and friends um I moved after college I moved back um to my hometown and live just like five minutes down the road from my family so hang out with them a lot um we like board games love board games um super into Korean dramas right now so very nice and then I also just like I don't know I'm I'm a big fan of musicals and plays um so I just go to any and every play that the community offers you a favorite um right now I would say my favorite is probably daddy longlegs oh I heard that got mail meets and of Green Gables that sounds fun is it a play or musical it's both yeah it's a musical it's it's cute it's just Charming very cool do you have a favorite board game right now I really like Splendor we've been playing that a lot haven't played that one either describe that a little bit what's that like oh let's see it's always hard to explain board games on the spot but it's kind of like true it's like a resource management game where you just like buy different resources and build up points depending on how many okay resources you can buy for a minute I was my mind went to allocating resources on a project no do we have to fill out time sheets too that doesn't sound like a game sounds like a nightmare not it's too real dad it's too real ay you've been involved with service now for a little while U what are your thoughts on the platform at this point you know I've been really impressed with the platform um it's again coming from a little bit of a web developer background into service now I'm amazed at just how quick you can throw together an app that does really cool things um and it it's just I've seen service now handle pretty much any business problem or business use case that we've been able to throw at it um so it's I just have been really impressed with the you know the One-Stop shop model for businesses um I think it's really cool tool for that have you found any like personal use cases for it or or said I I could build an app on service now to solve this problem whether it's it's personal to your board games or uh possibly something within the yansa labs ecosystem oh yeah I mean there have been plenty of use cases I would say that for myself and I haven't built out all of these because you know pdis hibernate and so it's right to like actually have access to your instance all the time but I I didn't mention this earlier but one of my hobbies is like personal finance and budgeting and stuff like that and so I would put all of my investments financial planning all of that in service now if I could I think that would be so awesome very smart I know companies do it but like for my own personal benefit it would be fun like your own version of mint yeah yeah exactly yeah a better version of mint better version of mint however you want well mint shut down mint shut down so they're they're no longer right I believe they shut down or they they had some sort of data breach so or were acquired or something like that yeah they're new frontier you could call it Sage or fennel I love it I love it time t h ym e time yeah there you go you time time to save time to save now you've had this remarkably Banner like one to two years right like it started kind of last year with like all these successes you started to have at the knowledge you were the category winner and the hackathon you're the category winner again this year you became an MVP you've done the Debb's competition you were on P the stage knowledge is like all these crazy achievements which is so excit exciting but I wanted to kind of circle back to one that we talked about during the keynote panel obviously it was a very time booxed time that you got on the panel but I'd love to hear more about your experience as a first year as MVP and now now that you have the time to kind of wax poetic more about it yeah being an MVP this year has been a really incredible experience and um I said this in the keynote and I will say it again and I'll say it to anyone who asks but the best part for me about being an MVP is just the incredible people that you get to meet um there are just so many people out there in the community who have impacted my life both my career and my personal life um and being able to interact with them on a more personal level is just a really neat experience um so that's definitely at the top of um you know why I like being an MVP um but I also think it's really cool how much service now works with the MVPs to help them advocate for the community and to um and to be extra involved in different community events and activities um especially like you were saying Lauren at knowledge um it is crazy to see the difference between knowledge 2023 and knowledge 2024 for my own experience um and how much more fun and exciting it was this year to be just to have a purpose and to feel like I had something to offer you know um so I've I've thoroughly enjoyed so far my experience as an MVP any fellow MVPs you'd like to give a call out to you know I would definitely have to say jeline we've just clicked really well and it's nice to have just another female advocate for the community um heck yeah right alongside me so and she was on the Creator con keot as well with us um so she's been she's been great um but there are so many others too I mean like dreo and ashitosh and villum and just so many that I've been able to connect with over the last few months and one thing I want to ask too because this is a kind of a rare perspective I always wonder how easy it is for members of the community to feel connected in smaller uh like cities like obviously Idaho isn't like Dallas it's not like New York City or something like huge right where there is kind of this natural um local community as well like has it helped or has it been easy as to establish those connections definitely yeah I mean like you said it's there's not much of a service now community in Idaho um you know there are a few of us but the few in Mighty yep yep um but being able to like have our snev slack channel that we can communicate through or um not related to MVPs but the women now slack Channel um and even just you know the different community events and activities that happen throughout the year um and the YouTube live streams there's just so many different ways to get involved um even though you're not in person you can still have the opportunity to connect and um just to to to make friends in the community you already hit it at this a but tell us about your knowledge 24 experience yeah like I mentioned before it's just crazy to see the difference between k23 and K24 um and I really enjoyed K24 it was such a fun experience for me um I definitely enjoyed the the hackathon was definitely a highlight um last year and this year we had a yansa hackathon team um which was really cool because all of us work remote so we only get to see each other once a year at knowledge oh I didn't know that oh nice yeah it's way fun and like the hackathon is a fun like team building experience for us of course and this is what we do all day every day is build apps um so for us to get together in person at the hackathon and do a brain storming session and you know mock up the app and then to build it all together um is always a really cool experience so that was super fun and this year especially uh the category that we won was the four good category which is cool bragging rights in and of itself but the fact that it was the for good category just hits a little different because I don't know there's just something about being able to create something that is for the benefit of others of course um and so that was definitely experience for me um and then yeah the Creator K Kino was super fun super fun to get kind of that backstage look and to be just a part of it and to feel the energy in the room it's different being on stage and feeling the excitement that people oh yeah it's a drug well also this year too we had that big boom or not boom C what's the camera that was on like the big jib the big jib so it really felt like you were like on a television show this year because last year we just had the cameras at the back of the room but this year we had this one that's like flying around and getting closeups too so you're like oh my gosh it feels like I'm on TV it's wild yeah it it was awesome it was awesome and then I also got to be on stage uh for one of the they did like a preo interview yes um where they wanted me to talk about like my experience with my dad and and getting onto the platform that way and that was cool too because throughout the conference I would get people coming up to me and mentioning that interview and talking about how they're trying to introduce their and just like how that story was inspirational to them which blew my mind I'm just this random girl that lives in Idaho and works from home you know like I'm really not anything special stop you are that's why you're on this podcast it's because you're special yeah I are but you know like I don't know there's nothing Grand you know about my life um and yet these people were finding my story inspirational and just knowing that that impacted them and was just really neat for me to experience so those were probably oh you know and I failed to mention too the MVP dinner um was also a huge highlight being able to meet all the mvs in person and just feel just it's crazy walking into that room and I was so nervous beforehand because I didn't know any of them really um and being to walk in that room and just being surrounded by people and having them come up and be so excited that I was there and introducing me to each other and just like how much love and support I felt at the MVP dinner blew me away so those were probably the biggest highlights from knowledge I know that was a lot but it was just such a good experience oh man that makes me so happy to hear because I I I remember knowledge 16 like as my first knowledge experience like I remember it so fondly and so to see that like that amount of like energy and positive positivity still like stay consistent to like like nearly 10 years later oh it makes me so happy one thing that talk about a lot is like obviously the term service now developer is very vague there are so many parts of the platform that could be referring to do you happen to have like a comfort zone or a specific area on the platform that you spend the most time developing for yeah I I mean I get the opportunity through work to work in a lot of different parts of the platform which is kind of unique and a lot of fun um but I would definitely say that UI Builder and like C some workspace experiences has been my comfort zone um so I don't know I just think it's really fun how quick and easy it is to put together a workspace um and that you can really make a workspace that that works for whatever you want it to do and for any Persona um I know that service now usually promotes it for like fulfiller personas yeah but I've used all across the board I've used it for like configuration guides for a new app and things like that that you know are just just easy to whip up um and easy to maintain it's it's just such a fun tool and I like playing around with it so I've definitely spent more time there I take any project I can that involves UI builder at work so well good for you that's that's the important part is the experience that people have with that app or process up until this point ay I feel like we've been talking about a 1.0 maybe even 2.0 uh but I understand you've recently made a DEC decision to Pivot your career yes I have um so I'm actually moving to Norway for the next year and a half to serve and teach as a missionary for my church that is a pivot it's it's quite a change but you know I just have had a very blessed life and I thought a mission would be a a good way for me to give back and to show God my gratitude for all he's done for me so definitely a pivot um a temporary one but definitely a pivot uh and one that I'm super excited about I just think it'll be a really cool experience and kind of a once in a-lifetime Opportunity so absolutely and and it's that same uh giving back mentality that that you know elevated you to be an MVP as well so it's it's it's instead of giving back to the service now Community you're now giving back to the Norway Community yeah so very cool do you have anything in particular about Norway that you're most EXC I've never heard of someone moving to Norway so I've got to ask on a mission trip yeah usually you hear like Honduras or yeah uh you know the Philippines or something yeah so I mean it's kind of interesting because our the way that our church does it is you just submit an application saying that you want to go and then they place you where they have needs um so I didn't know I didn't pick Norway um I just received an assignment to go there and um honestly before that I don't even know if I could have pointed to Norway on a map um it's one of those three up in the Scandinavian area yeah big like long ones up there that's right that's right yeah but since then I've done some research and talked to some people um and I'm just so excited I think Norway seems like a beautiful country um I've been practicing learning Norwegian a little bit trying to get you know the language down and it's such a pretty language so I'm just excited to like be in a new place for a little while and dive into a new culture and meet people that you know I otherwise wouldn't really have the chance to get to know so I'm I'm super excited about that also make sure to pack some blackout curtains since you were going in the summer yes oh yeah good point good point I'm having the same issue with an upcoming Iceland trip here's a little pneumonic for the listener if you can't remember what order those countries are left to right it's Norway Sweden Finland I always remember it as the National Science Foundation so that's my initialization to help me remember what order those go in left or right NSF or need service now forever there you go why you're quick I like yours better you're in the perfect area nearby for our Zurich release so that'll be that's just a quick little flight to to Zurich I I know it's a a bit down the road but do you have any plans after your missionary work you know honestly the sky is the limit um I'm not actually sure yet what I want to do when I get back um I'm pretty sure that it will still have something to do with service now um but I've got 18 months to think about it so that's you know at least there's that um but you know if anybody listening has any ideas let me know I have no doubt there are people out there that will send you opportunities there you go now this is kind of putting like an interesting bookmark kind of in this first big chapter of your career um do you happen to have a highlight from it so far like anything in particular that stands out you know I not to beat a dead horse but definitely knowledge 2024 like let's not beat a dead horse just um yeah I don't know between the MVP dinner and the The Kino on stage interview and Creator con kyot and the hackathon and also um being being able to lead out on a session which I've never done before that also was super super fun um just all of it I don't know all of knowledge was definitely a highlight well you haven't touched on your session at all what specific topic did y'all cover in your session all right you know I did kind of a a Harry Potter parody um it was called welcoming Wizards the magical Pig warts onboarding experience very nice big work very nice skir around that copyright yep y that's right yeah it it was a yeah a Harry Potter themed um workspace experience um to help Wizarding students get onboarded every year and help the The Faculty at Pig warts to get their students all sorted and ready to go for the school year sort so cute I mean you're talking you're preaching to the Right audience I think both Chuck and I both skirted around the Lord of the Rings copyright last year for our top oh I went straight at it last year yeah I made no bones about it yeah I and Aly were in similar company I've been at this a little bit longer and I would still consider knowledge 24 the highlight of my career yeah it it was that great of an event for me ay what words of advice do you have for new developers that may be listening to this I would say just jump in um honestly I think getting some hands on a experience is the best way to learn um the developer portal developer. servicenow.com um is a great resource I would go there I would request a PDI um and then I would do the free training modules that they offer on the developer portal um also get involved in the community uh community. servicenow.com is great for any questions you have for blogs um things that you need help on um and then just like getting involved in the different activities and events um just it's such a great way to learn from other people and to learn just by getting your hands wet yeah and you don't need a lot of experience to get involved in fact we were at the Charlotte developer Meetup last fall and there were two women that had just finished the next gen program I mean days the two or three days before and we were going through something that you'd think was fairly mundane Dante hooker was leading it and he was going through catalog items like I've been building catalog items since 20 eight you how exciting can that be but we purposely picked this topic because he was doing things the way he learned know 10 12 years ago but the platform has changed and made things easier and these women who just finished a couple of days ago at hey how come you're not doing it this way like oh cuz know it was it was a broad enough topic that everybody could contribute so you're never too new to be able to add something because even us Old-Timers may be stuck in a rut and doing things the way we've known for ever and it's not always the most optimal but there may be different ways for different people uh just point being jump in and and even if you're just there to listen and observe uh you may still have an idea going what about and and get these people who have been at it for a while to think a little differently yeah well that's I mean that's exactly how I developed my nich and UI Builder because I was working on a team of people who had been in service now for forever and nobody knew the new stuff and so I came in and did the training and learned the new stuff and quickly became the UI Builder expert at our company so it's that's exactly right that's you're never never too new and I mean remember I was going through these trainings in high school I had no career experience I had no computer science experience um but as a you know a 16-year-old I was able to go through these training modules and and pick up on it so yeah definitely you know don't don't don't sell yourself short on it just jump in and play around with it and it'll come I have visions of your dad going homepages were good enough for me in 2008 you can't even build a homepage anymore oh thank you so much ay if somebody wants to reach out and get a hold of you what's the best way to do that you know that's a good question um I will have limited availability while I'm in Norway um but probably the best ways to reach out to me are through my website um ay anderson.com I have a get in touch button um there that will help you get in touch with me um and then I also have a Blog that I'm putting together um just to kind of help people stay in the loop on my Norway Adventures if they want to I'll post to it once every few months so nothing no big commitment there um but you through my personals um and are able to subscribe to it as well if you want through that website so Al anderson.com that is where I would go I'll put a link in the show notes awesome thank you ay so much thank you Lauren for helping out with all of this and thank you wonderful listener for joining us today don't forget you can check out many of the other service now podcasts you can find them on the community at servicenow.com commmunity the podcasts are hiding under under the events menu I still ponder that thought subscribe to this podcast for free and get it automatically delivered to you actually you can do that with any of the other podcasts as well subscribe get them for free this podcast is brought to you by service now executive producers would be me and Lauren and to find out more about the service now developer program ay tell them where they should go developer. servicenow.com absolutely right thank you so much once again Haley for sharing with us today yeah I'll have to add this as my new career highlight it's been a blast thanks for having me please let us know what you think about this podcast you can leave feedback or ask questions in the service now Community for more great information on service now development check out the service now developer portal at developer. servicenow.com thanks for listening we shall begin uh not yet not yet Chuck are you there I'm calling Ryan Reynolds now I'm the one skipping questions looks like we will have material for the bloopers oh it wouldn't be a podcast without it you know decide if that's sorry I'm GNA read you that answer could you ask the question again and you can skip it if you want why does this next prompt say Chuck Norris my little brother had access to my computer yesterday and had left it open and he was like who's Chuck then he like started typing things and I guess that's what he typed then I will read the question for Chuck Norris what country produces the most bananas and will weaton goes Norway according to Chuck it is oh now that's gonna be stuck in my head so that's funny Chuck you forgot to edit this one part out we keep it simple for a reason it does help it really does help um and that's a wrap nice job that perfect