Upgrade tools and resources
Summarize
Summary of Upgrade tools and resources
ServiceNow provides a suite of products, tools, and resources designed to streamline and enhance the upgrade experience. These offerings help you automate testing, plan and manage upgrades, and access best practices to ensure your instance remains current and healthy.
Show less
Key Products
- Automated Test Framework (ATF): Enables creation and execution of automated tests to verify instance functionality after changes such as upgrades or application development. It helps identify failures and pinpoint changes requiring review. Note that automated tests should only run on non-production instances to avoid risks.
- Upgrade Center: Centralizes upgrade planning and management. Features include:
- Upgrade Preview module to explore available release versions and gain upgrade insights without performing an actual upgrade.
- Upgrade Monitor module to track ongoing upgrade status and summarize recent upgrades.
- Visual Task Board (VTB) to manage post-upgrade skips.
- Upgrade History module to review past upgrades.
Upgrade Tools
- Now Support Upgrade Assist: Automates upgrade scheduling to keep your instance current with minimal manual effort.
- Known Error Portal: Lists known issues in selected patch releases to help anticipate and avoid potential problems during upgrades.
- Sample Upgrade Project Plans: Provides downloadable templates in PDF, Excel, and Microsoft Project formats to help plan and track upgrade progress effectively.
Best Practices and Resources
- ServiceNow Customer Success Center: Offers prescriptive content such as playbooks, checklists, and quick answers to maximize the value of your upgrade.
- Upgrade Value Calculator: Helps determine the potential business benefits of staying current with ServiceNow upgrades.
- Upgrade Playbook: Guides you through upgrade processes, platform health maintenance, and how to manage baseline system changes.
- Customization Guidance: Advises on balancing customization benefits with minimizing upgrade impacts.
- Expert Services: Connects you with ServiceNow specialists to apply best practices and tools for upgrading to the latest innovations.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
By leveraging these products, tools, and resources, you can automate critical parts of your upgrade lifecycle, gain visibility into upgrade readiness and progress, mitigate risks with known error insights, and follow proven best practices. This approach helps ensure smoother upgrades, sustained platform health, and maximized business value from staying current with ServiceNow releases.
Learn about ServiceNow products and tools that can improve your upgrade experience.
Products
Use these ServiceNow products to automate parts of your upgrade testing and manage your upgrades from one central place.
- Automated Test Framework
- The Automated Test Framework (ATF) enables you to create and run automated tests to confirm that your instance works after making a change. For example, after an upgrade, during application development, or when deploying instance configurations with update sets. Review failed test results to identify the changes that caused the failure and the changes that you should review.Note:By default, the system property to run automated tests is disabled to prevent you from accidentally running them on a production system. Run tests only on development, test, and other non-production instances to avoid data corruption and outage.
- Upgrade Center
Use ServiceNow® Upgrade Center to plan and manage your upgrades. Use the Upgrade Preview module to explore different release versions available to you and gain insights about the experience of an upgrade without actually upgrading your instance. You can also monitor the status of any ongoing upgrade and view the summary of your latest upgrade with the new Upgrade Monitor module. The Upgrade Center also features an Upgrade visual task board (VTB) to manage post-upgrade skips. A separate Upgrade History module can be used to view all your past upgrades.
Upgrade tools
In addition to upgrade-related products, you can also use ServiceNow's upgrade tools.
- Now Support upgrade assist
- Stay current by automating your ServiceNow upgrades. Use an automated service to offload upgrade scheduling tasks.
- Known Error portal
- Review a list of known issues in selected patch release versions.
- Sample upgrade project plans
- The Upgrade planning checklist provides a quick look at the steps in an upgrade. If you'd like to track your upgrade progress in Excel, PDF, or Microsoft Project, you can download these sample project plans to get started.
Best practices
Visit the ServiceNow Customer Success Center website for information on upgrade value and best practices.
- Upgrade value calculator
- Determine the potential business value of staying current with ServiceNow upgrades.
- Playbook: Upgrade quickly and maintain platform health
- Use upgrade processes and tools to conduct your upgrades, and learn how to make changes to your baseline system when required.
- Balance value and risk with platform customizations
Learn when and how to customize your instance to maximize value and minimize upgrade impact.
Resources
- ServiceNow Customer Success Center
- Browse prescriptive content and tools such as playbooks, checklists, and quick answers to gain more value from your ServiceNow implementation.
- Expert services
- Connect with a ServiceNow expert who will help you apply best practices and tools to upgrade to the most recent ServiceNow innovations.