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Understanding the ServiceNow URL schemes

Looking at the URL in your browser's address bar can tell you a lot about what's going on at the current page in ServiceNow. Before covering the specifics of a URL that ServiceNow generates, let's first understand it generically.

What is a URL?​

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. A URL is nothing more than the address of a given unique resource on the Internet.

The anatomy of a URL​

A URL is composed of different parts, some mandatory and others optional.

  1. Protocol - typically https or http
  2. Subdomain - optional, but common to be www
  3. Domain - the web server serving the page or resource
  4. Port - optional and usually excluded, in particular when it's 80 or 443.
  5. Path to file or resource - what will be served by the web server. Could be a static file (e.g., .html, css) or could be a program (e.g., file.asp, file.do).
  6. Parameters - often call a query string, this is data passed to the server like filters to apply to data to be returned from the resource.

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For more information, see Mozilla's more detailed explanation of What's a URL?.