All Learners

What is a lab instance?
A lab instance is a real Service Now platform 'practice' instance that you can request with certain courses to perform some of the labs (practice exercises) associated with the course.

ServiceNow University lab instances are provided to students for a specific amount of time in order for them to carry out Labs and Simulator Tasks (practice exercises that are checked for correctness) as outlined in the course materials.

Please note, a lab instance will 'hibernate' after a period of inactivity, if you see the hibernate page when you attempt to go to your instance, click the wake up instance link and your instance will be accessible after approximate 15 minutes, if after 15-20 minutes the instance has not woken up, please log a case in the help center portal for the team to check the instance manually.

Quick Links

How do I request a lab instance?
Once you have enrolled in a course and started it, you will see a button just below the course header which says 'Request a Lab Instance',

You will then receive details of the url and login details via email and after a few moments, the page will refresh with the instance status and if it is running, a button to automatically be logged into the new instance in a new browser tab.

If the instance is hibernating, you can use the wake up button to begin the wake up process which normally takes about 15 minutes.

This is also where you can Extend the instance expiration(termination) date or terminate the instance when finished with it.

We have defined a reasonable amount of Lab Instances per student per course enrolment, along with a reasonable amount of allowed expiry extensions, allowing a student plenty of time to complete the labs and tasks associated with a course, with some extensions if necessary if needed due to time constraints, illness, etc.

IT IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU USE 1 SINGLE LAB INSTANCE TO COMPLETE ALL OF YOUR LAB EXERCISES IN ONE GO IN THE SAME INSTANCE, TO AVOID LOSING DATA AND HAVING TO REPEAT WORK.

The reason for this is because a lot of the labs are dependent on one another, if you choose to use a new lab instance after already performing some labs, you may need to re-perform that work again because NEW LAB INSTANCES DO NOT CARRY OVER YOUR PREVIOUS LAB WORK, they are a brand new instance with NONE of the customisations you may have performed in the old instance.

If you require extra time to complete the labs, beyond the expiration date, we have a catalog item located here which will allow you to request an extra extension on top of the two we already give you, which will extend the lab instance expiry for 2 more weeks, this can be requested here: Request a Lab Instance Extension

If you require another lab instance over and above the limit we have already set, we have a catalog item where you can request one more lab instance along with some justification for this here: Request Extra Lab Instance

How long do i get a Lab Instance for?

You can see how long you have left with your current instance where it says 'your instance will expire in....' this is in the style of a countdown clock.

It is highly recommended to only use the one lab instance for the duration of the course in order to avoid having to repeat work in a new lab instance, as some labs are very dependent on previous labs and new instances will not carry over any configuration work from one instance to the next.

How do I terminate my instance?

If you need to terminate your instance before the expiration date which is shown as a countdown clock to expiration/termination, then you can click the 'terminate instance' link which is shown just below the instance state, see below:

Please use the lab instances considerately to ensure we can continue to provide these for all students free of charge, only use them for the purposes of the course and labs or tasks associated with the course, if you require a long term personal ServiceNow instance, you can request them at developer.servicenow.com.