Best Practices for the ServiceNow Helsinki to Jakarta Upgrade

The ServiceNow releases come with two new versions every year due to security issues and will give support to the current versions, as well as to the last two versions. The Kingston version is expected to release in January, after which support for ServiceNow Helsinki update will be withdrawn and automatically upgraded to the latest version. All Helsinki non-productions instances are going to be updated to Kingston on April 23, 2018, and production instances on May 12, 2018.

It is advisable to have the current version minus one version, as it will be more stable. Kingston is going to release in January and it’s better to upgrade it to Jakarta, as the new Kingston upgrade may not be fully stabilized.

The ServiceNow automatic upgrade will break the existing environment customization. The version upgrade is always done at the non-production instance and requires performing of an end to end testing to make sure everything is migrated. So, prior to auto-upgrade, it’s better to manually make the upgrade process by following best practices. Also, by automating the end-to-end, testing would save a lot of resource's time. V-Soft suggests having an end to end test cases in the ATF ServiceNow framework. That will help to reduce end to end testing for each version upgrade.

(To learn about expert’s implementation guide to ServiceNow's Project Portfolio Suite(PPS), click here for in-depth insights!)

Steps to Update From ServiceNow Helsinki to Jakarta

To enable smooth migration of ServiceNow Helsinki to Jakarta, we present you with the steps to follow upon version upgrade:

• Login to Dev environment and make sure all “In progress” update sets are moved to production or have a backup
• Inform development team to stop working until the upgrade process is completed
• Go to the new version release notes and understand the new functionality and plugin changes
• Schedule clone from Production to Dev Instance
• Once Production is cloned to DEV, Disable email notifications and SMS
• Login to HI portal and request DEV instance upgrade
• The ServiceNow will raise a change request and let you know once the upgrade is completed
• Once the upgrade is completed, verify skipped changes and capture necessary changes in update set
• Perform end to end test in DEV environment
• Once QA is 100 percent completed, we need to perform upgrade activity in test activity
• Schedule clone from Production to TEST Instance
• Once Production is cloned to TEST, disable email notifications and SMS
• Login to HI portal and request TEST instance upgrade
• ServiceNow will raise a change request and let you know once the upgrade is completed
• Once the upgrade is completed, move updated set from Dev to test and mark skipped changes as ignored
• Perform smoke testing in test environments
• Once the smoke test is completed in a test environment, we need to perform upgrade activity in production activity
• Please inform stakeholders about production downtime
• Login to HI portal and request production instance upgrade
• ServiceNow will raise a change request and let you know once the upgrade is completed
• Inform stakeholders about update completion

Are you wanting help in upgrading ServiceNow? V-Soft is here to offer you a unique blend of experiences in the developing ServiceNow applications. Whether you are looking to implement a new instance of ServiceNow to your organization, or have a new feature custom-made to your specifications, we can help!