Migrating from the legacy Ideas application to Idea Portal
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Summary of Migrating from the legacy Ideas application to Idea Portal
When upgrading to the Xanadu release, ServiceNow customers must perform specific migration tasks to transition from the legacy Ideas application to the new Idea Portal. This migration enables you to leverage enhanced features and a more structured approach for managing ideas within your organization.
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Idea States
The new Idea Portal introduces updated idea states such as Completed, Under Review, and In Backlog, which correspond to legacy idea states but provide clearer workflow stages. The states are now stored and retrieved from the Idea [imideacore] table.
You can continue using both legacy and new states during the transition. However, to fully adopt the new states, you should delete the old states from the Choice [syschoice] table. This streamlines idea management using the new standardized state values.
Idea Categories
To better organize ideas, the new Idea Portal supports categorization by product, department, or business unit. If your existing ideas lack categories, you need to create or select appropriate categories, including using the new default categories installed with the Ideas application.
If you already have categories, map your existing categories to the new ones and use scripts to establish many-to-many (m2m) relationships between ideas and categories. Proper category mapping is essential for ideas to appear correctly in the Idea Portal.
Converting Ideas to Work Entities
The new Idea Portal allows conversion of ideas not only into demands but also into projects, epics, and stories via the Create Task button on the Idea form. To enable these options, you must have the Agile Development 2.0, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), and Continual Improvement Management plugins installed.
If you prefer limiting conversions to demands only, you can disable the Create Task button and continue using the Accept button, or adjust button availability through form design configurations.
Business Rules
Review existing business rules on the idea table and disable any that you do not want to apply in the new Idea Portal by setting them to False. This ensures that legacy rules do not interfere with the updated workflow.
Navigation and User Experience
To encourage adoption of the new Idea Portal, remove navigation links to the legacy Ideas application from the application menu. Additionally, deactivate the Submit an Idea option in the Service Catalog to prevent users from submitting ideas through the old interface.
This helps drive user engagement with the new portal and ensures a consistent experience.
If you are upgrading to the Xanadu release, complete the migration tasks after the upgrade to start using the new Idea Portal.
Review the following information and make any necessary changes to your configuration:
Idea States
| Idea State | Value |
|---|---|
| Draft | -5 |
| Submitted | 1 |
| NA | NA |
| NA | NA |
| Accepted | 2 |
| NA | NA |
| NA | NA |
| Closed complete | 3 |
| Closed skipped | 7 |
| NA | NA |
| NA | NA |
| Idea State | Value |
|---|---|
| Draft | -5 |
| Submitted | 1 |
| Under Review | -1 |
| Need more information | -2 |
| In Backlog | 2 |
| Planned | 4 |
| In Development | 5 |
| Completed | 3 |
| Unlikely to Implement | 7 |
| Duplicate | 8 |
| Already Exists | 9 |
Starting with the Xanadu release, idea states are stored in and retrieved from the Idea [im_idea_core] table. You can continue to use your existing idea states along with the new idea states. However, if you want to use only these new states for managing your ideas, navigate to the Choice [sys_choice] table and delete the old idea states.
Idea categories
Organize your ideas using categories, for example, to group ideas that are relevant to a particular product, department, or business unit. If your existing ideas are not associated with any category, create new categories or select an existing table to define categories to which you can map your ideas. The Ideas application also installs a set of default new categories to which you can associate your existing ideas.
Converting ideas to demands or project, stories, initiatives, and epics
You can convert an idea into work entities other than demands. The Create Task button enables you to convert an idea into a project, epic, or story as well as a demand becomes available in the Idea form.
You must have the required Agile plugins Agile Development 2.0 and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and Continual Improvement Management installed to view these options.
If you want to allow conversion of ideas only to a demand, disable the Create Task button and continue using the Accept button or disable the Accept and Defer buttons to use other options. For more information see, Using the form designer.
Business rules
Review the existing business rules in the idea table. Set the business rules that you don't want to apply as False.
Navigation for legacy Idea application
To encourage your users to submit ideas through the new Idea Portal, remove navigation for old Idea application from the application menu and deactivate the Submit an Idea option from the Service Catalog. For more information see, Enable or disable an application menu or module.