What it is (plain English)
The basic setup every ServiceNow instance needs before any application can go live: getting your people into the system, deciding who can do what, connecting your company login, and making the instance look and behave like yours (branding, time zones, currencies, languages).
Think of it as moving into a new office building — before any team can start working, the doors need keycards, the directory needs names, and the lights need to be on.
Problems it solves
- Nobody can use anything in ServiceNow until users, groups, and roles exist.
- Without single sign-on, people juggle another password and adoption suffers.
- Without core data loaded (departments, locations, companies), every later module has empty dropdowns and broken assignment rules.
What must exist first
Nothing in ServiceNow — this is the starting point. Everything else in this wiki, directly or indirectly, builds on it.
What the customer needs to provide
- A source of truth for your people: an HR export or a directory service (Active Directory, Azure AD/Entra, Okta) we can connect to.
- A decision-maker for access: who approves who-can-see-what.
- Your identity team's time to set up single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication.
- Basics about your organization: departments, locations, cost centers, working hours, time zones, languages in use.
- Logo and brand colors if you want the instance to look like your company.
Where it can go next
Once the platform core is live, the natural next steps are CMDB Foundation (so the system knows what you own and run) and Integration Foundation (so it can talk to your other tools).