Pre- and post-upgrade tasks for various products

In preparation for your upgrade, review the upgrade and migration tasks for various applications and features. Plan to complete these tasks, when applicable, before or after the upgrade is complete.

Prepare your instance for a smooth upgrade

Pre-upgrade tasks, upgrade, post-upgrade tasks

Some applications or features require that some tasks are completed before and after your upgrade to a new release version. In some cases, products migrations also require additional steps. Complete the upgrade tasks where necessary to prepare for an upgrade, and complete appropriate migration tasks after the upgrade to protect your data and customizations from changes to the system.

Upgrade and migration tasks

Note:

In Jakarta and later, Internet Explorer versions prior to IE11 are no longer supported.


Application or feature	Details
Advanced Work Assignment	If you are using Connect Support and want to move to Advanced Work Assignment and Agent Chat, see Migrate from Connect Support to Advanced Work Assignment and Agent Chat.
Agent Workspace	For the New York release, you can use the Declarative Actions framework to exclude New UI actions, instead of adding tables to the New Button List Exclusions [sys_aw_crud_exclusions] table. A migration script runs when you upgrade your instance, so any tables in the New Button List Exclusions [sys_aw_crud_exclusions] table migrate to the new framework. If you want to exclude additional tables, use the Action Assignment module. If your instance partially upgrades from the Madrid release to the New York release, your instance runs Agent Workspace on the Madrid release.
Antivirus Scanning	Antivirus Scanning scans all the document types that are supported by the Now Platform® in New York. Some attachments might be unavailable for downloading if the security scan fails, or if the attachment is vulnerable.
Asset Management	In-flight transfer orders created to fulfill IT equipment requests are upgraded to include the following fulfillment tasks: Ready for fulfillment, Prepare for shipment, Ship, Receive, and Deliver. These in-flight transfer orders are created as part of the HR Onboarding flow. Stages of the fulfillment tasks that were completed before the transfer orders were upgraded are closed. For example, if a transfer order line is in the Shipment Preparation stage, then the Ready for fulfillment and Prepare for shipment stages are closed because the tasks were completed before the upgrade. Note: Once you upgrade, you see that new open fulfillment tasks appear in the transfer order. Close these tasks to move the transfer order through the fulfillment process.
Authentication	If you are upgrading an instance that uses the Multi-SSO plugin for SAML, you should reference KB0756504 before you upgrade.
Automated Test Framework	Copy and customize ServiceNow platform-provided quick start tests to validate that your instance works after you make any configuration changes. For example, if you apply an upgrade or develop an application. The tests can only produce a pass result when you run them with the default demo data that's provided with the application or feature plugin. To apply a quick start test to your instance-specific data, copy the quick start test and add your custom data. See Available quick start tests by application or feature.
Cloud Management	Upgrade from any version of Cloud Management version 2 (starting in the Kingston release) is supported. Catalog items created from cloud-native templates in releases prior to the Madrid release are treated as blueprint-based catalog items. As a result, you cannot modify the underlying template. There is no workaround.
Configuration Compliance	Version 9.0: Adding or deleting test results from test result groups is not immediately available upon upgrade and must be added manually. See KB0539771 for instructions to add this feature. Version 9.0: The Assigned to and Assignment group fields are not added to the Test Results form and list view during upgrade and must be added manually. See KB0539883 for instructions to add this feature. Version 8.0: If you are upgrading Configuration Compliance, the initial New York version is available immediately in your instance. All updates to Configuration Compliance are only available in the ServiceNow Store. Version 8.0: If you have previously installed Configuration Compliance, and want an update from the ServiceNow Store, you no longer need to activate the Configuration Compliance Dependencies (com.snc.vulc_dep) plugin prior to installing the Configuration Compliance update.
Configuration Management Database (CMDB)	For pre-existing duplicate CIs, the master CI is unknown. The discovery data source is also unknown because the discovery_source attribute was set to ‘Duplicate’. After the upgrade, the duplicate_of attribute for those duplicate CIs is set to ‘Unknown’ and the discovery_source attribute remains ‘Duplicate’. After the upgrade, some pre-existing identification inclusion rules that are configured for the duplicate metric, might conflict with newly created health inclusion rules for the duplicate metric. After the upgrade, create new corresponding health inclusion rules to replace any pre-existing identification inclusion rules that you used exclusively with the CMDB Health dashboards.
Dashboards	Responsive dashboards enabled by default on upgrade to New York Responsive dashboards are now enabled automatically upon upgrade to New York. Responsive dashboards have a more intuitive interface and are easier to share and edit than non-responsive dashboards. For more information, see the following topics: Differences between homepages and responsive and non-responsive dashboards Working with responsive dashboards If your instance requires non-responsive dashboard functionality, you can disable responsive dashboards.
Discovery	During upgrade to the New York release, the April 2019 (1.0.39) release of Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns is automatically installed for Discovery customers. Important: It may make the upgrade time longer depending on your CMDB size. To decrease the upgrade time, install the Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns from ServiceNow Store before upgrading to the New York release. The process of upgrading from Madrid to New York deactivates all Discovery schedules for cloud resources (VM). Schedules deactivated during the upgrade appear in the list view of the Discovery Schedule [discovery_schedule] table with a Run status of undefined. These schedules cannot be used to discover cloud resources either when run immediately or on the day and time configured. After upgrade, open your cloud schedules in the Discovery Manager and re-activate them.
Event Management	The upgrade process moves your instance to a new ServiceNow® release version. Upgrading and patching your instance requires planning, testing, and validation. To ensure a safe and effective upgrade, create upgrade plans and test your upgrade on non-production instances before upgrading your production instance.
Field Service Management	When you upgrade your mobile application, you may have to migrate customizations from earlier releases manually or using ServiceNow Studio. The CMS portal plugin (com.snc.work_management.cms) is planned for deprecation.
Flow Designer	During upgrade, a fix script converts the system property com.snc.process_flow.reporting.enabled to com.snc.process_flow.reporting.level. The former system property value of `false` is converted to the new value of `Off`. The former system property value `true` is converted to the new value `Flows Actions and Steps`. Record-based flows created before the Madrid release continue to run as the System user after upgrade. To change how upgraded flows run, edit the flow properties. By default, new flows you create run as the user who triggers the flow. Flows created before the Madrid release that use the Always trigger option instead use the Only if not currently running trigger option after upgrade. To change when upgraded flows run, edit the flow trigger options.
ITOM Health	The upgrade process moves your instance to a new ServiceNow® release version. Upgrading and patching your instance requires planning, testing, and validation. To ensure a safe and effective upgrade, create upgrade plans and test your upgrade on non-production instances before upgrading your production instance.
Knowledge Management	The Knowledge Management Service Portal plugin (com.snc.knowledge_serviceportal) is active by default for new or upgrade customers. The Knowledge Management Core plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge) is active by default for new or upgrade customers. The Knowledge Management with KCS plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge2) is planned for deprecation. This plugin contains Knowledge Management V2 features only. KCS features are not being deprecated and are available in Knowledge Management V3 or Service Portal.
MID Server	If you have installed your own Java Runtime Environment (JRE), the upgrade process takes the following actions to ensure that the MID Server is using a supported JRE: If an unsupported version of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is running on a MID Server when it is upgraded, the upgrade process replaces that JRE with the OpenJDK that is bundled with the MID Server installer. If a supported JRE is running on the MID Server host, the upgraded MID Server uses that Java version. The auto-upgrade process for MID Servers in New York has changed. The MID Server no longer receives its upgrade through the instance, as it did in previous releases. All MID Server host machines now require access to the download site at install.service-now.com to enable auto-upgrades. For additional details about how MID Server upgrades are managed and where to look for errors, see MID Server upgrade. In the New York release, only one Windows MID Server service is permitted per executable path. Upgraded Windows MID Servers that have multiple services pointing to the same installation folder are prevented from starting. See MID Server fails to start for more information. For more information about MID Server upgrades, see: MID Server pre-upgrade check: Describes how the AutoUpgrade monitor tests the MID Server's ability to upgrade on your system before the actual upgrade. Upgrade the MID Server manually: Describes how to upgrade your MID Servers manually.
Mobile platform	During the upgrade to the New York release, the instance is updated to use the new mobile hierarchy, which includes new features such as application launchers and a configurable navigation bar. Any unmodified base system mobile applications that are installed on your instance are automatically updated to work with the new design and can be used with Studio right away. For more details on the mobile hierarchy, see ServiceNow mobile app configuration. Modified base system applications and applications that you have created in Studio will continue to work after the upgrade, but they will not be configurable in Studio until after you run the mobile migration script. For additional details on the migration script, see Mobile migration script.
Now Platform User Interface	Starting with the New York release, ServiceNow encodes the URIs associated with the modules in the navigation pane. When upgrading to New York, existing URIs for custom modules might break if you used arguments with non-URL-encoded characters, for example, an equals (=) sign. Arguments and filter conditions become part of the URI. If an argument started with an ampersand (&), or if you used a conditional filter and an argument but did not prepend the argument with a caret (^), the module URIs may break. A simple revision can prevent that from happening. For more information, see Encoding module URIs.
Operational Intelligence	After you upgrade all the Operational Intelligence ServiceNow® MID Servers in the MID Server distributed cluster to New York, restart the MID Servers in the cluster: Stop all the MID Servers in the MID Server distributed cluster. Wait for all the MID Servers in the MID Server distributed cluster to be stopped. Start all the Operational Intelligence MID Servers, one MID Server at a time. Some data might be lost between the time that the MID Servers upgrade starts and until the completion of the MID Servers restart after upgrade. If you are using connectors, then you can minimize this data loss by disabling the metric connectors before starting the upgrade. After the upgrade completes: Set the max_fetch_interval_min parameter to the time length that the connectors were down. Enable the connectors to pull the missing data.
Password Reset	The Password Reset application is a platform feature and is upgraded by default. The new Password Reset Spoke plugin [com.sn.password_reset.ah] is activated by default. The Password Reset application is not available during the upgrade process. If you are using the Local ServiceNow credential store: For new installations and updates to instances that are not domain-separated and where Password Reset workflows have not been modified: The instance will use IntegrationHub subflows to perform Password Reset operations. The Password Reset workflows that were used in earlier releases are no longer used. If you are using an Active Directory (AD) credential store: For new installations and updates to instances where: The instance is not domain-separated and Password Reset workflows have not been modified and The Microsoft AD spoke is activated on the instance The instance will use IntegrationHub subflows to perform Password Reset operations. The Password Reset workflows that were used in earlier releases are no longer used. For updates to instances where Password Reset workflows have been modified or where the instance is domain-separated, IntegrationHub subflows are not implemented. Password Reset operations continue to use workflows by default. To implement IntegrationHub subflows to perform operations (recommended), follow this procedure: Navigate to Password Reset > Extensions > Credential Store Types. Select the instance. On the Password Reset Credential Store Types form, select Use Flow. Modify the subflows as needed. See Create IntegrationHub subflows to customize password reset processes.
Platform security	Starting with the Madrid release, if you do not have the Security Jump Start (ACL Rules) plugin activated, you must add explicit create/write ACLs on the sys_dictionary table to allow admin access to that table.
Predictive Intelligence	The quick start tests for Predictive Intelligence are recommended for any upgrades.
Problem Management	If you are an existing customer who wants to use the sn_problem_read or sn_problem_write roles, you need to perform some steps to view the Problem modules. For more information, refer to Problem Management upgrade information.
Project Portfolio Management	Ideas: Convert an idea directly to a story, epic, or project instead of just creating a demand. Upon upgrade, the Create Task button enables you to directly create a task from the idea or you can just click Accept. After the upgrade, migrate from the legacy Ideas feature to the new Idea portal. For more information, see Migrate from legacy Ideas to the new Idea Portal. Project Management: If you are upgrading to New York, your existing projects are migrated as follows: Your existing Hybrid, Agile, or custom projects remain unchanged. If there are only stories associated with the project, then existing projects with the Null or Waterfall execution type are migrated to the Agile execution type. If there are only tasks associated with the project, then existing projects with the Null execution type are migrated to the Waterfall execution type. If there are tasks and stories associated with the project, then existing projects with the Null or Waterfall execution type are migrated to the Hybrid execution type. After the migration of existing projects upon upgrade, the related lists and links on the Project form and widgets in the Analytics tab of the Planning Console also change based on the updated project execution type.
Security Incident Response	If you are upgrading directly from the Jakarta or Kingston releases to the New York release (skipping the London release), navigate to System Definition > Fix Scripts, and run the Update integrations to multi domain fix script. Run this script to enable certain integrations to define multiple configurations. For example, if you have multiple Splunk instances, you can create connections and queries that run sightings searches across multiple Splunk instances. After you run the fix script, navigate to System Definition > Fix Scripts and deactivate the fix script. Do not run the script more than one time.
Service Level Management	After you upgrade, you can activate the Service Portfolio Management SLA Commitments plugin (com.snc.service_portfolio.sla_commitment) to use the Service Commitment flag in the SLA Definition record. With this flag, you can differentiate between an SLA definition tied to a Service Offering commitment and an SLA definition that is not tied to a Service Offering commitment.
Service Mapping	During upgrade to the New York release, the April 2019 (1.0.39) release of Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns is automatically installed for Discovery customers. Important: It may make the upgrade time longer depending on your CMDB size. To decrease the upgrade time, install the Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns from ServiceNow Store before upgrading to the New York release.
Service Portal	By creating an Agent Chat portal configuration, your end users can initiate and maintain an Agent Chat conversation in any portal page. This feature replaces the Virtual Agent Service Portal widget. If your portal includes this widget, remove Virtual Agent Service Portal widget instances and configure Agent Chat support for a portal instead. See Configure Agent Chat in Service Portal. The Now Platform collects search data and analytics that generate search suggestions. If you are upgrading from a previous release, the search analytics do not contain any data yet. To immediately provide suggestions to your users, you can populate the search suggestions using data from either the Text Searches [text_search] table or the Service Portal Log Entries [sp_log] table. For more information, see Populate search suggestions in Service Portal. If you have custom search widgets, they do not automatically collect search data and analytics to generate suggestions. To benefit from this new feature, you can either migrate search to use the base system Faceted Search widget, or configure your search widget to collect search data using the GlideSPSearchAnalytics API. For API reference, see GlideSPSearchAnalytics. For more information about the Now Platform search analytics and suggestions feature, see Search analytics and suggestions. Take advantage of the latest article view features such as including links and images in article feedback and article versioning by activating the Knowledge Article View page route map. This map routes the kb_article page to the kb_article_view page. See Page route maps.
Service Portfolio Management	If you are an existing Service Portfolio Management user on a release prior to New York, you are using the legacy application. Upgrading to New York retains your Service Portfolio Management legacy data, while adding new features and functionality. If you want to access all available Service Portfolio Management features and functionality, consult your service manager to migrate to the Service Owner Workspace application.
Software Asset Management	Revert customizations after installing Software Asset Management for the first time, or upgrading from Software Asset Management Foundation plugin, for all features to function as intended. The Revert Customizations module in Software Asset Management administration reverts customizations of files related to Software Asset Management to base configuration that were skipped during the installation or upgrade process. For more information, see Revert Software Asset Management customizations. Warning: If you upgrade to the Software Asset Management Professional plugin (com.snc.samp) from the Software Asset Management plugin (com.snc.software_asset_management), you cannot revert to the Software Asset Management plugin(com.snc.software_asset_management). For more upgrade information, see Software Asset Management upgrade information.
Time Card	When you upgrade to the New York release, enable the State field of the Time Card [time_card] table for auditing time card activities. You can view these activities in the Activities section of the Time Card and Time Sheet forms. For more information, see Include a table field in auditing.
Virtual Agent	Migrating Virtual Agent topics: Conversation topics created in the Madrid release are fully supported in this release and do not change during upgrade. After upgrade, you can continue to develop and use keyword-based topics as in previous releases. Or, you can enable new features, such as applying a Natural Language Understanding (NLU) model to your Virtual Agent conversations. NLU models provide your virtual agent with the information it needs to understand and process user statements in a conversation. The CSM, HR Service Delivery, and ITSM applications provide prebuilt ServiceNow NLU models, along with predefined conversation topics. To learn more, see Get started with NLU in Virtual Agent. Defining a Service Portal Agent Chat Configuration: After upgrading, if you define a Service Portal Agent Chat configuration, you must remove any previously installed Virtual Agent Service Portal widgets from portal pages. The Service Portal Agent Chat configuration enables users to run Virtual Agent and Live Agent on all pages of selected service portals. This means you no longer need to retain the legacy Virtual Agent Service Portal widget on individual portal pages. For details, see Migrate from the Virtual Agent Service Portal widget.
Vulnerability Response	If you are upgrading from a previous version of Vulnerability Response, the initial New York version is available immediately in your instance. All production updates to Vulnerability Response are only available in the ServiceNow® Store. Note: This process applies only to applications downloaded to production instances. If you are downloading applications to sub-production or development instances, it is not necessary to get entitlements. Proceed to Activate a ServiceNow Store application. If you've previously installed Vulnerability Response, you don't need to install the Vulnerability Response Dependencies (com.snc.vul_dep) plugin prior to installing the Vulnerability Response update. If you update from Vulnerability Response v7.0 or v8.0 to Vulnerability Response v9.0, you must install all the plugins listed under Dependencies & Licensing > App Dependency in the ServiceNow Store prior to installing Vulnerability Response. For detailed information on upgrade from Kingston or London to Vulnerability Response, see Vulnerability Response upgrade information. New columns added to the Vulnerable Item [sn_vul_vulnerable_item] table, to support new features, can result in longer upgrade times. Starting with Vulnerability Responsev9.0, you can ignore some configuration item (CI) classes by setting the ignoreCIClass [sn_sec_cmn.ignoreCIClass] system property. While this property is present after upgrade it does not work automatically. For upgrade instructions on how to enable this functionality, see KB0788209.

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