Developer Sandboxes release notes
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Summary of Developer Sandboxes release notes
The ServiceNow Developer Sandboxes application allows administrators and delegated developers to request, access, and manage individual sandboxes on a shared development instance. The Australia release introduces enhancements that improve sandbox management, administration, AI integration, and upgrade processes to streamline development workflows and ensure consistency across environments.
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Key Features
- Granular Roles: New roles enable developers to perform administrative and configuration tasks without requiring full admin privileges, enhancing security and delegation.
- AI Search Support: AI Search now maintains separate indices for each sandbox, ensuring development activities relying on AI Search function correctly in sandbox environments (supported only on non-production instances).
- Sandbox Initialization UI Enhancements: Clear error status messages appear on the instance home page if sandbox initialization fails, and the Developer Sandboxes home page is hidden when the product is inactive.
- Upgrade Enhancements: Sandboxes are automatically recreated after upgrades with backup of update sets to the base instance. Queuing is implemented to optimize performance when creating multiple sandboxes successively.
- SSO Support: Instances using vanity URLs now support Single Sign-On for improved authentication workflows.
- Schema Isolation for Shared Tables: Schema changes made in a sandbox isolate the affected shared table in that sandbox to maintain configuration consistency.
- Vibe Coding Documentation: New documentation introduces vibe coding, a natural language approach to app development on the ServiceNow platform, complementing AI-powered development tools.
- Plugin for Clone Preservation: The new Dev Sandboxes CC plugin supports preserving settings when cloning an instance with sandboxes.
Deprecated Features and Changes
- Data generation profiles and templates are deprecated and removed starting with the Brazil release. Upgrade processes automatically delete related metadata and records, and sandbox initialization no longer depends on data generation logic.
- Now Assist Data Kit is recommended as a replacement for data generation profiles.
Activation and Related Tools
To enable Developer Sandboxes, contact your ServiceNow account manager for installation. The new Dev Sandboxes CC plugin supports clone preservation.
Developer Sandboxes integrate with other ServiceNow development tools:
- ServiceNow IDE: Enables source code development of scoped applications with enhanced team collaboration on the AI Platform.
- ServiceNow SDK: Underpins application packaging and API development used by the IDE.
- ServiceNow Studio: Provides a unified environment for all development activities, including extending system solutions and creating custom apps.
- Workflow Studio: Offers integrated workflow authoring, configuration, and monitoring in a single interface.
The ServiceNow® Developer Sandboxes application enables your administrators and delegated developers to request, access, and manage the individual sandboxes on top of the same underlying development instance. Developer Sandboxes was enhanced and updated in the Australia release.
Developer Sandboxes highlights for the Australia release
- Upgrading an instance recreates sandboxes and backs up any update sets.
- A new plugin supports clone preservation when cloning an instance with sandboxes.
See Developer Sandboxes for more information.
New in the Australia release
- New granular roles for administration
- Several new granular roles enable developers to complete administrative and configuration tasks without requiring the full admin role.
- Support for separate indices for AI Search
- AI Search (AIS) now maintains separate indices for each sandbox environment, ensuring development activities that rely on AIS are correctly supported.Note:The AIS integration with Developer Sandboxes is supported only on non-production environments.
UI changes
- Clarified sandbox initialization status
- An error status message now appears on the instance home page when there’s an initialization error when allocating a sandbox.
- Developer Sandboxes home page hidden when product is inactive
- The Developer Sandboxes home page is unavailable when Developer Sandboxes is inactive on an instance.
Changed in this release
- Australia Patch 3
- Upgrade enhancements
- Automatic backups for upgrades are now working correctly. This issue is related to PRB2017438.
- Australia Early Availability
- Upgrade enhancements
- After an upgrade, Developer Sandboxes now recreates the sandboxes on an instance and automatically backs up update sets to the base instance.
- Queuing for successive sandbox creation
- To improve performance, Developer Sandboxes has implemented queuing when multiple sandboxes are created in succession.
- SSO support for vanity URLs
- Instances with vanity URLs can now support Single Sign-On (SSO).
- Schema change for shared tables isolates the table
- To ensure configuration consistency, if you make a schema change, such as adding a column, to a shared table, the table now becomes an isolated table on the sandbox that initiated the schema change.
- New vibe coding documentation
- Documentation is now available that introduces vibe coding, which is a natural language approach to application development in ServiceNow, including how to get started, when to use it, and how it fits within the broader suite of AI-powered development tools.
Deprecated features
Data generation profiles and templates will no longer available in Developer Sandboxes as of the Brazil release. When you upgrade, the following will happen:
- All data generation metadata and non-metadata records are automatically deleted.
- The data generation plugin is no longer discoverable.
- All references to data generation will be removed from sandbox templates.
- Sandbox initialization will operate independently of data generation logic.
Note:
You can use the Now Assist Data Kit instead of data generation profiles.
Activation information
Contact your ServiceNow account manager to install Developer Sandboxes.
Plugin information
- New plugin
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The following plugin is new in Australia:
Dev Sandboxes CC (com.glide.dsb.cc): A new plugin is available for clone preservers, which preserve settings when you clone an instance.