SNOW-CSA Self-Service and Automation Practice Question
You are the ServiceNow administrator for a large enterprise with over 10,000 users. The company uses the Employee Center portal for self-service. Recently, users have reported that when they submit a catalog item, the confirmation page takes over 30 seconds to load, and sometimes they receive a timeout error. The issue only occurs for catalog items that have a workflow attached. The workflows are complex with multiple approval stages and notifications. The server logs show no errors, but the average response time for catalog item submissions with workflows is 45 seconds, compared to 5 seconds for items without workflows. The instance is running on a medium-sized node with default settings. You need to resolve the performance issue without changing the workflow logic or the user interface. What should you do?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently assume performance issues are always solved by scaling up infrastructure (Option C) or by removing features (Option A), rather than recognizing that the default synchronous execution model is the bottleneck.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Configure the workflows to run asynchronously
Configuring workflows to run asynchronously decouples the workflow execution from the synchronous HTTP request-response cycle. This means the catalog item submission completes immediately (within seconds), while the workflow runs in the background. This directly addresses the 45-second response time for items with workflows without altering the workflow logic or UI.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Disable all approval stages in the workflows
Why it's wrong here
This would break process compliance.
- ✓
Configure the workflows to run asynchronously
Why this is correct
Asynchronous execution prevents the user interface from waiting for the workflow to complete.
- ✗
Upgrade the instance to a larger node size
Why it's wrong here
This may help but is not a targeted solution and may not resolve the issue.
- ✗
Move the workflows to a separate instance
Why it's wrong here
This is impractical and not a standard approach.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SNOW-CSA practice question is part of Courseiva's free ServiceNow certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the SNOW-CSA exam.