Alignment Planner Workspace release notes

  • Release version: Store
  • Updated June 11, 2026
  • 6 minutes to read
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    Summary of Alignment Planner Workspace release notes

    The Alignment Planner Workspace (APW) is a comprehensive ServiceNow application designed to help IT Business Management (ITBM) planning personas effectively plan, prioritize, and manage organizational roadmaps. It integrates portfolio, project, demand, and resource planning in a unified workspace, supporting strategic alignment and efficient decision-making. The release notes detail continuous enhancements, new features, fixes, and usability improvements from its initial release through June 2026.

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    Key Features

    • Planning Item Lens (v8.15.0): Enables planning and prioritizing work directly on planning items without configuring organizational structures or portfolios, simplifying workflow setup.
    • Portfolio Planning Enhancements: Added partition support for project and demand tables, expanded status attributes (cost, resource, schedule, scope) visibility synced from project status reports, and ability to share portfolio plans via public links without individual invitations.
    • Demand Workspace Improvements: Redesigned UI with AI-powered Demand Playbook integration, priority-based sorting, dynamic loading, and new demand form fields for better demand management.
    • Financial Management: Supports multicurrency financial baselines and automates labor cost updates based on resource effort changes at breakdown level.
    • Roadmaps: Support for admin-defined custom color themes, improved roadmap item dependencies, enhanced expand/collapse views, and shareable free-form roadmaps.
    • Backlog and Prioritization: Inline editing of backlog items, rank visibility, and renaming for clarity (Backlog page to Prioritization).
    • Integration and Import: Capability to import epics from Azure DevOps, support for scrum/SAFe epics, and integration with Project Portfolio Management for milestone tracking.
    • Security and Access Controls: Improved permission handling ensuring users only see portfolios and manage access within their permission levels.
    • Guided Setup and Admin Roles: Added guided setup for admins, new roles for value stream management, and enhanced admin capabilities for app settings.

    Fixes and Improvements

    • Resolved issues with Kanban filters, roadmap rendering, and default demand types.
    • Fixed access control bugs preventing unauthorized visibility or control over portfolios and plans.
    • Corrected navigation and UI glitches such as pane collapsing, tab redirection, and saved view persistence.
    • Restored quick edit functionality and made URL fields clickable for better navigation.
    • Enhanced roadmap usability with improved milestone management and resource rescheduling updates.

    What ServiceNow Customers Can Expect

    ServiceNow customers using Alignment Planner Workspace will benefit from a more intuitive, efficient, and integrated planning environment that supports strategic portfolio management, demand prioritization, and resource allocation. The continued enhancements ensure better data visibility, smoother user experience, and stronger control over planning artifacts. Customers can share portfolio plans easily, leverage AI capabilities for demand management, and maintain alignment between projects, demands, and financials across multiple currencies and organizational structures.

    This release trajectory reflects a commitment to improving planning workflows, governance, and collaboration within the ServiceNow ecosystem, helping organizations drive business value and operational excellence.

    Version history for the Alignment Planner Workspace application on the ServiceNow Store.

    Important:
    For details on system requirements and family compatibility, view the application listing on the ServiceNow Store website.

    Version history

    Version 8.15.0 - June 2026
    • New:
      • Use the Planning item lens to plan, prioritize, and roadmap work directly with planning items, without configuring organization structure, programs, portfolios, or products.
      • Added partition support for project and demand planning item tables.
      • View additional status attributes — cost, resource, schedule, and scope — for planning items in Portfolio Planning Workspace. For project planning items, these attributes are synced automatically from the latest published project status report.
      • Make a portfolio plan public and share the copied link with Portfolio Planning Workspace users, without inviting them individually or as a group.
    • Fixed:
      • Fixed an issue where the Kanban filter stopped working after upgrading to Zurich.
      • Fixed an issue where Demand Type incorrectly defaulted to "Project" when the Category was set to "Operational."
      • Fixed an issue that caused a roadmap bar to fail to render when the work item's owner was an inactive user.
      • Fixed an issue where the roadmap appeared empty when navigating to Portfolio Planning via "View Roadmap" from the EA Workspace.
      • Fixed an issue where the Select Lens option was missing in Hierarchy when the project portfolio lens was set to inactiv
      • Fixed an issue where users could see a Portfolio's name without having access to that Portfolio.
      • Fixed an issue where a Portfolio Plan viewer was able to manage access, which exceeded their permission level.
      • Fixed an issue where an Admin was unable to access the playbook in the Demand Workspace.
      • Fixed an issue where using the "Move" option to reschedule a resource or task to another date did not update the CPAAM Effort table.
    Version 8.14.0 - May 2026
    • New:
      • Added expand and collapse functionality for Portfolio Planning views.
      • Added the Category, Type, and Description fields to the new demand form view in Demand Workspace.
      • Added the NACM component for portfolio insights on the planning page.
      • Added the Demand AI Specialist side panel UX for agent activity visibility on demand records.
      • Added the ability to copy the link for a portfolio plan via the Share Actions button and Manage Access modal.
    • Changed: Updated project and demand demo data deadlines and milestones to the key type.
    • Fixed:
      • Resolved an issue where collapsing the resizable pane hid the expand button beneath the L1 menu.
      • Resolved an issue where editing a planned target redirected users to an incorrect tab in the related list.
      • Resolved an issue in the Free Form Roadmap (Kanban tab) where saved view changes were not retained after a page refresh
    Version 8.13.0 - March 2026
    • Demands:
      • Unified and streamlined demand management experience with AI-powered demand Playbook, integrated with the AI Control Tower.Note: To use Playbooks in Portfolio Planning, you need at least Playbook version 28.4.1 and ServiceNow Platform version Zurich Patch 7.
      • Demand Workspace is accessible from the Portfolio Planning Workspace, featuring a redesigned UI and improved navigation.
      • Key enhancements include priority-based sorting in hierarchy views and dynamic loading of target breakdowns for better performance.
    • Financials:
      • Financial baselines support multicurrency.
      • Labor costs are automatocally generated when there is a change in resource effort allocation at breakdown level without any change to the total requested efforts.
    Version 8.11.3 - January 2026
    • Fixed:
      • URL fields are now clickable and support direct navigation.
      • Quick edit functionality is restored in Level 1 list views.
      • Approving a portfolio plan scenario no longer removes unapproved scenarios from other portfolio plans.
      • Fixed few additional issues related to the Portfolio Planning application.
    Version 8.11.1 - December 2025
    • Roadmaps now support admin-defined custom colour themes for better visual alignment with organisational standards.
    • Portfolio plans shared with the Viewer setting are now viewable regardless of the user’s read/write access to the associated work.Note: Record pages remain read/write or read-only based on the user’s permissions.
    • SPW Lists have been uplifted to use the ServiceNow presentation list component for a more consistent user experience.
    • Guided setup is now available to SPW admins (apw_admin role). Previously, only system admins could access this functionality.
    • Added the sn_value_stream.value_stream_admin role, which includes the value_stream_user role. This new role provides create, write, and delete access to the cmn_value_stream_category table.
    • Added capability for the sn_align_core.apw_admin role to update app-specific system properties in app-alignment-planner-core.
    Version 5.0.1 - November 2022
    • New:
      • Lenses: Lens indicate the perspective by which planning managers can plan, prioritize, and fund work. For example, depending on your role, you can plan work from the perspective of a delivery organization, strategic investment, or product.
      • Portfolio plans: Portfolio plans are shareable personalized plans that a planning manager can build using lenses.
      • Portfolio Prioritization: Rank and analyze the work pipeline for a portfolio plan, to prioritize them into roadmaps.
      • (For SPM Pro licensed users) Automate the actual value of your targets for the goals by collecting the actuals from the tables such as benefit plans, cost plans, surveys/assessments, and PA Indicators.
    • Changed:
      • The Backlog page is renamed to Prioritization
      • Ad Hoc Roadmap is renamed to Free-form roadmaps
      • The main menu navigation in the workspace is updated to include the following:
        • Home: Contains navigation to Portfolio Plans, Free-form roadmaps, Goals, Prioritization and Portfolio Roadmap
        • Lists: Contains lists of entities and planning items associated with all the lenses.
      • Roadmap preferences are now saved per portfolio plan and not per user. Any personalization settings are applicable to all the users and user groups that a portfolio plan is shared with.
    • Removed: Planning Hierarchy and Planning Organizations are no longer supported.
    Version 4.1.1 - August 2022

    New:

    • Backlog changes
      • Edit the backlog items inline.
      • View the Rank as a separate column.
    • Roadmap side panel UX improvements
    Version 4.0.0 - May 2022
    • New:
      • Goals (OKRs): Define and manage your goals in APW to accomplish your organizational plans and drive business outcomes. Note: Accessing the Goals module from the workspace requires a Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM, formerly ITBM) Pro license.
      • APW Backlog:
        • Understand the work pipeline for your organization from a single consolidated view.
        • Organize the backlog list using the features such as grouping and sorting.
        • Use data points such as planned cost, planned benefit, and associated goal to review backlog items.
      • Roadmap item dependencies: Create and manage direct and indirect dependencies at the planning item level on the roadmap.
      • Apply custom filters to planning hierarchy-based roadmaps.
    • Fixed: If the planning organization for a work or planning item (that is associated with a goal already) is changed to an unsupported planning organization, the application now notifies this as an error.
    Version 3.1.0 - February 2022
    • New:
      • Guided setup for configuring APW.
      • Ability to import work items (epics) from Azure Devops into APW, provided the necessary integration app is installed and configured.
      • Support scrum and SAFe epics using single table in APW.
      • Next experience modern UI for Alignment Planner Workspace and roadmap component.
    Version 3.0.1 - November 2021
    • New:
      • Planning hierarchy: Work on same planning item at two different organisation levels.

      • Roadmap Planning:
        • Track planning items by creating milestones directly from the roadmap view, except for projects.
        • Update or delete the milestones that you added to your planning items (except for projects) so that they reflect any change of plans.
        • For projects, it is recommended to create or edit milestones from the Project workspace because they may impact the associated project plans. However, these project milestones can be accessed (read-only mode) in APW roadmaps when you integrate APW with Project Portfolio Management.
    • Changed:
      • Planning item's details are editable in side panel
      • Converted demands are hidden from the roadmap view
      • View names used by different entities are changed:
        • Workspace Preview is now APW Preview
        • Workspace New is now APW new
        • Workspace Default is now APW Default
    Version 2.0.0 - August 2021
    • New:
      • New module 'Alignment Planner Workspace'.
      • Organizational planning hierarchy.Roadmaps integrated with planning hierarchy.
      • Roadmap-level (planning organization-level) milestones.
      • Tracking mode in roadmaps.
      • Share Ad Hoc roadmaps with users
      • Ability to zoom in/out on roadmaps to adjust the timescale
    • Changed: Module to navigate to Adhoc roadmaps is renamed from 'Roadmap Planning' to 'Ad Hoc Roadmaps'.
    Version 1.0.1 - February 2021
    New: Alignment Planner Workspace provides an end-end integrated experience for the ITBM planning personas to plan the organization roadmap and manage it.