The Batch API provides endpoints to send a single request containing multiple REST API calls, and returns a stream of response payloads.

This REST API enables integrators to:

  • Decrease the amount of time required to send API requests by batching them together, and reduce overhead by narrowing authentication, session setup, and round-trip traffic to a single step.
  • Create more efficient code for client-side integrations.
  • Mix batch item formats and include them in single batch request. For example, one batch can include a Bases64-encoded request in XML format to send to one endpoint and a Base64 encoded request in JSON format to send to a different endpoint.
  • Receive a stream of response payloads in return.
  • Apply existing ACLs to each API call in the batch.

You can include any API available on the instance in a Batch API call. For performance reasons, avoid including long-running requests and requests that retrieve large amounts of data.

Important: The Batch API has the same performance characteristics as individual API requests but avoids the overhead of multiple client-server requests. The Batch API is not intended for parallel transaction processing and long-running API requests may cause the API request to exceed the maximum transaction time and return a failure.

Size and processing limits

Payloads adhere to these size limits:

  • Each item in the request: 5 MB​. You can change this default by updating the glide.rest.batch.max.inputSize​ system property. Maximum value: 10 MB.
  • Each item in the response: 10 MB. You can change this default by updating the glide.rest.batch.max.outputSize​ system property or adding the X-BATCHREQUEST-MAX-OUTPUT-SIZE​ header to your request. The X-BATCHREQUEST-MAX-OUTPUT-SIZE​ header value cannot exceed the value of the system property.
Note: If a request runs longer than 30 seconds, the REST Batch API request timeout transaction quota rule ends the transaction. Increasing the value of this transaction quota rule may result in performance issues.

When a batch request reaches a size or processing limit, the system cancels the transaction and returns unprocessed requests in the unserviced JSON array in the response.

Batch - POST /now/batch

Sends multiple REST API requests in a single call.

You can include any API available on the instance in a Batch API call. For performance reasons, avoid including long-running requests and requests that retrieve large amounts of data.

URL format

Versioned URL: /api/now/{api_version}/batch

Supported request parameters

Table 1. Path parameters
Name Description
api_version Version of the endpoint to access. For example, v1 or v2.

Data type: String
Table 2. Query parameters
Name Description
None

Headers

The following request and response headers apply to this HTTP action only, or apply to this action in a distinct way. For a list of general headers used in the REST API, see Supported REST API headers.

Table 4. Request headers
Header Description
Accept Data format of the response body. Only supports application/json.
Content-Type Data format of the request body. Only supports application/json.
X-BATCHREQUEST-MAX-OUTPUT-SIZE​ Size limit for each item in the batch response. Add this header to provide a lower size limit than the default set by the ​glide.rest.batch.max.outputSize​ system property. You cannot set a value higher than the value in the system property.

Default: 10 MB.
Table 5. Response headers
Header Description
None

Status codes

The following status codes apply to this HTTP action. For a list of possible status codes used in the REST API, see REST API HTTP response codes.

Table 6. Status codes
Status code Description
200 Successful. The request was successfully processed.
401 Unauthorized. The user credentials are incorrect or have not been passed.
500 Internal server error. An unexpected error occurred while processing the request. The response contains additional information about the error.

Response body parameters (JSON)

Example: cURL request

This batch request sends two GET requests to the instance and one POST request to the incident table. The body of the POST request is Base64 encoded.

curl "https://instance.servicenow.com/api/now/v1/batch" \
--request POST \
--header "Accept:application/json" \
--header "Content-Type:application/json" \
--user "username":"password"\
--data "{
   \"batch_request_id\":\"1\",
   \"rest_requests\":[
      {
         \"id\":\"11\",
         \"headers\":[
            {
               \"name\":\"Content-Type\",
               \"value\":\"application/xml\"
            },
            {
               \"name\":\"Accept\",
               \"value\":\"application/xml\"
            }
         ],
         \"url\":\"/api/global/user_role_inheritance\",
         \"method\":\"GET\"
      },
      {
         \"id\":\"12\",
         \"exclude_response_headers\":true,
         \"headers\":[
            {
               \"name\":\"Content-Type\",
               \"value\":\"application/json\"
            },
            {
               \"name\":\"Accept\",
               \"value\":\"application/json\"
            }
         ],
         \"url\":\"/api/now/table/incident?sysparm_limit=1\",
         \"method\":\"GET\"
      },
      {
         \"id\":\"13\",
         \"exclude_response_headers\":true,
         \"headers\":[
            {
               \"name\":\"Content-Type\",
               \"value\":\"application/json\"
            },
            {
               \"name\":\"Accept\",
               \"value\":\"application/json\"
            }
         ],
         \"url\": \"/api/now/table/incident\",
         \"method\":\"POST\",
         \"body\": \"eyd1cmdlbmN5JzonMScsICdzaG9ydF9kZXNjcmlwdGlvbic6J015IGNvbXB1dGVyIG
          Jyb2tlJywgJ2NvbW1lbnRzJzonRWxldmF0aW5nIHVyZ2VuY3ksIHRoaXMgaXMgYSBibG9ja2luZyBpc3N1ZSd9\"
      }
   ]
}" \
{
    "batch_request_id": "1",
    "serviced_requests": [
        {
            "id": "11",
            "body": "PD94bWwgdmVyc2lvbj0iMS4wIiBlbmNvZGluZz0iVVRGLTgiPz48cmVzcG9uc2U+PHJlc3VsdD48dX
            Nlcl9uYW1lLz48L3Jlc3VsdD48L3Jlc3BvbnNlPg==",
            "status_code": 200,
            "status_text": "OK",
            "headers": [
                {
                    "name": "Pragma",
                    "value": "no-store,no-cache"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Expires",
                    "value": "0"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Content-Length",
                    "value": "88"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Content-Type",
                    "value": "application/xml; charset=UTF-8"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Cache-control",
                    "value": "no-cache,no-store,must-revalidate,max-age=-1"
                }
            ],
            "execution_time": 5
        },
        {
            "id": "12",
            "body": "eyJyZXN1bHQiOlt7InBhcmVudCI6IiIsIm1hZGVfc2xhIjoidHJ1ZSIsImNhdXNlZF9
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            "status_code": 200,
            "status_text": "OK",
            "headers": [],
            "execution_time": 8
        },
        {
            "id": "13",
            "body": "eyJyZXN1bHQiOnsicGFyZW50IjoiIiwibWFkZV9zbGEiOiJ0cnVlIiwiY2F1c2VkX2J
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            "status_code": 201,
            "status_text": "Created",
            "headers": [],
            "execution_time": 2638
        }
    ],
    "unserviced_requests": []
}