BCM Configurable Workspace

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of BCM Configurable Workspace

    The BCM Configurable Workspace, introduced in Business Continuity Management (BCM) version 5.x.x and enhanced in the Xanadu release, provides an intuitive and role-driven interface that streamlines business continuity tasks. It replaces the older BCM Classic Workspace, offering a modernized, configurable user experience tailored to various BCM roles such as administrators, managers, planners, contributors, and viewers, as well as business users and IT application owners.

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    Transitioning to BCM Configurable Workspace is recommended for ServiceNow customers to access the latest features and avoid compatibility issues, as the Classic Workspace is deprecated and will be hidden post-Xanadu release.

    Key Features

    • Interactive Dashboard: The Home page consolidates crisis events, business impact analysis, planning, and exercises into a single, actionable view.
    • Task Management: The My tasks page allows users to monitor and quickly act on individual and team tasks.
    • Crisis Map Integration: Real-time threat alerts can be viewed and managed via the Crisis map, enabling effective crisis response and recovery task management.
    • 360-Degree Relationship Visualization: Provides comprehensive visibility into dependencies across business impact analyses, plans, exercises, and crisis events.
    • Role-Driven Configuration: Workspace views and access are customized based on user roles, enhancing relevance and usability.
    • Functional Components Managed:
      • Business Impact Analysis (BIA): Identify high-risk assets and estimate recovery times.
      • Business Continuity Planning (BCP): Develop continuity and recovery plans for critical processes and IT functions.
      • Exercise Management: Simulate crisis events to validate and improve plans.
      • Crisis Management: Mitigate disruptions by prioritizing actions during actual crisis events.

    Practical Navigation and Usage

    • Access the workspace via Workspaces > Business Continuity Workspace or All > Business Continuity > Business Continuity Workspace in your ServiceNow instance.
    • Sidebar icons provide quick access to the Home page, My tasks, Lists of BCM records, and Crisis map if installed.
    • The List view offers an overview of all BCM functional components and their statuses.

    Key Outcomes

    By adopting BCM Configurable Workspace, ServiceNow customers can expect a streamlined, modernized, and role-specific environment that enhances management of business continuity activities. This workspace improves visibility, simplifies task management, and integrates crisis alerting to support timely and effective responses to disruptions, ultimately strengthening organizational resilience.

    Starting with version 5.x.x, the Business Continuity Management application supports BCM Configurable Workspace. You can perform your business continuity tasks with an intuitive functionality in BCM Configurable Workspace.

    Enhancements in BCM Configurable Workspace

    BCM Configurable Workspace (also known as Business Continuity Workspace) offers an enhanced and simplified user experience for its users. The BCM application users can take advantage of the following enhancements in BCM Configurable Workspace over BCM classic Workspace:
    1. Manage the crisis events, business impact analysis, planning, and exercises from an interactive dashboard in the Home page.
    2. Monitor your individual and team tasks in the My tasks page and act on your pending tasks quickly.
    3. Respond to the alerts in Crisis map and manage the recovery tasks effectively.
    4. Visualize 360-degree relationship data for your business impact analysis, planning, exercises, and crisis events records and get a complete overview of all dependencies.

    The Business Continuity Workspace in the classic Workspace is automatically updated to point to BCM Configurable Workspace. For information on BCM classic Workspace, see Using BCM Classic Workspace.

    Configurable and role-driven Workspace

    The BCM Configurable Workspace is configurable and role-driven, offering a unique experience tailored to each user or role in your organization. Logging in with specific user roles provides access to different functions and corresponding user interface views.

    For more information on the user roles in the BCM application, see Components installed with Business Continuity Management.

    For more information on the store apps, see Business Continuity Management and ServiceNow Store.

    Support for BCM Classic Workspace

    Starting with the Vancouver release, the BCM Configurable Workspace provides the latest user experience. Post Xanadu release, the BCM Classic Workspace is being prepared for future deprecation. Although the BCM Classic Workspace can still be used post Xanadu release via URLs, it will be hidden from the navigation. Using the BCM Configurable Workspace will ensure a smooth transition post Xanadu release.

    The BCM Classic Workspace is an obsolete user interface that will not be compatible with the new features and enhancements introduced with the Xanadu release. If you continue to use the BCM Classic Workspace after the upgrade, you may encounter issues and errors that will not be supported by ServiceNow®.

    To avoid any disruptions, transitioning to the BCM Configurable Workspace before or immediately following the Xanadu release offers the latest functionality and best user experience.

    Users of the BCM application

    The BCM application is the central workbench for the following types of users:
    • BCM administrators
    • BCM managers
    • BCM planners
    • BCM contributors
    • BCM viewers
    • Business users
    • IT application owners

    Navigating to BCM Configurable Workspace

    When you log in to the Business Continuity Management application with a specific user role, you can navigate to the Business Continuity Workspace by using one of the following options:

    • First option: Navigate to Workspaces > Business Continuity Workspace in the application instance as shown in the following example.

      Workspaces menu for Business Continuity Workspace.

    • Second option: Navigate to All > Business Continuity > Business Continuity Workspace in the application instance as shown in the following example.

      Application navigator menu for Business Continuity Workspace.

    Note:
    The Business Continuity Workspace in the classic Workspace view is automatically updated to navigate to BCM Configurable Workspace.

    Icons in Business Continuity Workspace

    When you launch Business Continuity Workspace, you can view the following icons in the side bar of the Workspace view.
    • Home page: Displays your business continuity tasks in a single pane view.
    • Tasks page: Displays an overview of the tasks for the logged-in user. For more information, see My tasks page view.
    • Lists: Displays the count and status of the business impact analysis, planning, exercise, and crisis event records. For more information, see List view.
    • Crisis map: Displays the real-time threat alerts from different locations in a map view. For more information, see Crisis map view.

    Managing functional components in BCM Configurable Workspace

    You can manage the following functional components of the BCM application in BCM Configurable Workspace:

    Business impact analysis

    Performing a business impact analysis helps you to identify high risk assets and determine the impact of disruption on your critical business functions or services. By analyzing the impact, you can estimate the time of recovery to resume business and also focus on the consequences of incidents and disruptions.

    For information on creating a business impact analysis, see Business impact analysis. For information on the structured workflow tasks for business impact analysis, see Structured workflows for BIAs.

    Business continuity planning

    Planning your business continuity tasks enables you to develop continuity and recovery plans for critical business processes and IT functions. Disaster recovery enables you to protect, recover, and restore the organizational critical data and its technology systems. You can also develop a business continuity strategy for each activity.

    For information on creating a business continuity plan, see Business continuity planning. For information on the structured workflow tasks for business continuity planning, see Structured workflows for BCPs.

    Exercise management

    Creating an event to exercise the plan in a simulated crisis helps you to validate your business continuity plans by continuous testing. You can then improve the effectiveness of the plans and usability during a simulated crisis.

    For information on the exercise events, see Exercises. For information on the structured workflow tasks for exercise management, see Structured workflows for exercises.

    Crisis management

    Managing an actual crisis event helps you to mitigate the negative impact of a disruption to the business system. You can then prioritize the actions and apply the right strategy to minimize the downtime.

    For information on the crisis events, see Crisis events. For information on the structured workflow tasks for crisis management, see Structured workflows for crisis events.

    Note:
    For setting up Business Continuity Management, see General administration setup for BCM.