Create and publish a specification version

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated April 15, 2026
  • 3 minutes to read

    • Create and publish a version of an existing specification in a Published state so that you can offer an improved version of it to your customers in your product catalog.

    Before you begin

    Before you can create a version of a specification, an initial base version of the specification must exist and already be published. The information that you supply for a new version is the same as what you entered for an initial base version, but with some important differences. To learn more, see .

    Role required: sn_prd_pm.product-catalog_manager

    About this task

    You create versions of service and resource specifications in the same manner as you do a resource specification.

    Procedure

    1. Navigate to All > Product Catalog Management > Product Specifications.
    2. In the Product Specifications list, select the product specification that you want to create a version for.
    3. On the form, select Create New Version and then fill in the fields.
      The manner in which you create a version of a specification is similar to how you created its initial version, with the differences that are explained in the following table.
      Table 1. Product specification form
      Field Description
      Name Name of the new product specification. If the name of the item for the new version differs from the previous version, you can enter a new name.
      Version
      Version number that is assigned to a specification:
      • When you create the initial version, 1 appears in this field, and can't be changed.
      • When you create subsequent versions of the specification, the next incremental number appears in this field after you select Create New Version. For example, 4 appears in this field if 3 was the previous version number.
      Display Name
      Displayed name that appears for the specification in the ServiceNow AI Platform when this version of the specification is in effect.
      • When you create the initial, or base version of the specification (for example, version 1), you must enter free-form text, which is usually the name of the specification, into the field.
      • When you create versions of the specification, a system-assigned concatenation of the specification name and its current version number appears, but can be overwritten.
      Initial Version

      Name of the base version of the specification that appears but can't be changed.
      Previous Version
      Name of the previous version of the specification. For example:
      • When you create the initial version of the specification (for example, version 1), this field is empty.
      • When you create a version (version 2) with a slightly different name, the name of the specification at its initial creation appears here.
      • When you create a subsequent version (version 3), the name of the specification as it was at version 2 appears here.
      You can't change this field.
      Note:
      For information about the remaining field descriptions, see Field descriptions for product catalog forms in Order Management for Telecommunications, Media, and Technology.
    4. To reflect the engineering changes that were made to the physical product, update the specification relationships, decomposition rules, quantity mappings, and attribute propagation rules as follows:
      1. To update the characteristics and characteristic options that are associated with your specification, use the Specification Characteristics related list. To learn more, see Create specification relationships, quantity mapping, and decomposition rules for Order Management.
      2. To update the specification relationships and accompanying decomposition rules, use the Specification Relationships related list. To learn more, see Create specification relationships, quantity mapping, and decomposition rules for Order Management.
      3. To update attribute mappings, use the Attribute Mappings related list. To learn more, see .
      4. To create a product offering from the specification, navigate to the Product Offerings related
    5. When you finish creating the specification version, do one of the following actions.
      ActionDescription
      Publish Publish the draft specification so that you can use it in a product catalog as follows:
      • When you publish it, its state changes from Draft to Published.
      • After you publish a specification, you can't change or delete it, unless you create a version for it.
      Update Update the specification with the new data that you added, but do not publish it for use in a product catalog.
      Copy Copy the data in this specification so that you can create a specification from it.
      When you use the Copy function, it creates a base version specification, and sets the values in these fields:
      • Version: 1 (base version)
      • Initial Version:
      • Previous Version: blank
      Note:
      To learn more about the validations that are performed when you publish a new specification version, and how to resolve any reported errors, see the section about validations in Create and publish a specification version.