Release Overview dashboard
Summarize
Summary of Release Overview dashboard
The Release Overview dashboard in ServiceNow provides a comprehensive view of all key information related to a software release, helping product teams evaluate the release’s readiness. It is accessible via the Digital Product Release Workspace and requires specific ServiceNow AI Platform roles such as product manager, release admin, release coordinator, or release user.
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Accessing the Dashboard
Navigate to Workspaces > Digital Product Release Workspace, select the releases icon, and choose a release from the list to open the dashboard.
Key Features
- Release Dates: Displays planned and actual start and end dates of the release.
- Release Target Date: Shows the readiness target date for the release.
- Risk Score: Calculates and displays the risk level of the release based on overdue tasks and policy failures.
- Release Tasks: Number and state of tasks within the release.
- Change Requests: Total change requests categorized by their phase and state.
- Enhancements: Product enhancements grouped by state.
- Work Items: Work items by type and state.
- Related Tasks: Tasks linked to the release, grouped by type and state.
- Policies: Lists all policies associated with release phases.
- Approvals: Displays all approval tasks by approval status.
Risk Score Calculation
The risk score quantifies release risk by combining overdue task scores and policy failure scores, weighted by their importance and adjusted by the elapsed duration of the release.
- Overdue Task Score:
- 0 if less than 10% of tasks are overdue
- 1 if 10-40% are overdue
- 2 if more than 40% are overdue
- Policy Failure Score:
- 0 if less than 10% of policies fail
- 1 if 10-40% fail
- 2 if more than 40% fail
The final risk score is calculated by weighting these scores and factoring in the proportion of the release duration elapsed, categorizing releases into Low, Medium, High, or Very High risk levels. This allows teams to identify and mitigate risks proactively.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
This dashboard enables product teams to monitor release progress comprehensively, identify potential risks early through a quantified risk score, and make informed decisions to enhance release quality and timeliness. It supports efficient management of tasks, change requests, policies, and approvals all in one place, ensuring a streamlined release readiness assessment.
The Release Overview dashboard provides an overview of all the information about a release, which the product team can use to assess its readiness.
Required ServiceNow AI Platform roles
sn_dpr_model.product_manager, sn_dpr_model.release_admin, sn_dpr_model.release_coordinator, or sn_dpr_model.release_user, needed to see the dashboard.
Access the Release Overview dashboard
To open the dashboard, navigate to . Select the releases icon (
) and then select a release from the Releases list.
Widgets
| Widget | Description |
|---|---|
| Release start date | Start date of the release. If the release isn’t started, the planned start date is shown. After the release starts, the actual start date is shown. |
| Release end date | End date of the release. If the release isn’t closed, the planned end date is shown. After the release is closed, the actual end date is shown. |
| Release target date | Readiness target date of the release. |
| Risk score | Risk level of a release. This score is calculated based on the overdue tasks and policy failures. For more information, see the calculation of the risk score in the following section. |
| Release tasks | Number of tasks in the release, grouped by their state. |
| Change requests | Total number of change requests in different phases of the release, grouped by their state. |
| Enhancements | Product enhancements in the release, grouped by their state. |
| Work items | Work items in the release, grouped by their type, and stacked by their state. |
| Related tasks | Related tasks linked to the release, grouped by their type, and stacked by their state. |
| Policies | List of all policies, grouped by the phases they’re mapped to. |
| Approvals | List of all approval tasks, grouped by their approval status. |
Calculation of risk score of a release
The risk score of a release combines overdue task scores and policy failure scores, weighted by their respective importance. The weight or priority to overdue tasks and policy failure determines their urgency or impact on a release. The overdue task score is categorized based on the percentage of overdue tasks. The policy failure score is determined by the percentage of failed policies.
Given overdue_weight + policy_failure_weight = 1, the risk score of a release is calculated according to the following formula:
Risk score = Round((Overdue task score * overdue_weight + Policy failure score * policy_failure_weight) * (Number of days elapsed in release / Total number of days in release))
- Overdue task score:
-
- If <10% of tasks are overdue, the overdue task score is 0.
- If 10-40% of tasks are overdue, the overdue task score is 1.
- If >40% of tasks are overdue, the overdue task score is 2.
If a task has no end date, the phase's end date is used as the task's due date.
- Policy failure score:
-
- If <10% of policies fail, the policy failure score is 0.
- If 10-40% of policies fail, the policy failure score is 1.
- If >40% of policies fail, the policy failure score is 2.
- Low, if the value is 0 or 1
- Medium, if the value is 2
- High, if the value is 3
- Very high, if the value is 4