In case you are new to the ServiceNow community, you should know that ServiceNow rolls out their major releases twice a year – generally in March and September. They also provide their support services for the current version of the release as well as one prior. The releases are typically named after global cities in alphabetical order. Following this trend, ServiceNow’s most recent release is out and is named “New York”, after its subsequent predecessors Madrid and London release. We have categorized the major features of ServiceNow New York Release to give everything to you in one shot.

Exploring ServiceNow New York Release

The New York release brings in 650+ new innovations to the table ranging right from mobile apps to upgraded Artificial Intelligence to enhance enterprise productivity. In this release, the Now Platform powers modern mobile applications that support and enable seamless workflow across an organization’s IT, HR or Financial operations. The update also aims to drive innovation across CSM, HR and IT professionals to help them deliver enriched user experience. Another major highlight of New York is the new workspaces that display a complete end-to-end view of your IT services.

This blog attempts to touch base on the major ServiceNow New York release upgrades/enhancements across the important IT workflows – IT Business Management (ITBM), IT Operations Management (ITOM), IT Services Management (ITSM), HR Service Delivery, Customer Service Management (CSM), Security Operations (SecOps), and Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC).

Major changes in ServiceNow ITBM

ServiceNow has included the following ITBM-related applications in this update to further reinforce their strong ITBM suite:

Innovation Management

The primary goal of this application is to drive IT innovation. The application aims to capture and evaluate different ideas gathered from the entire organization and implement the most value-adding ones. The Idea Portal in the application comes with an interface through which users can view, vote and submit ideas. The ideas with the greatest potential can be adopted and integrated into the product planning and development process.

Information Portfolio  

The Information Portfolio collects IT assets data and stores them as information objects. Hence, the users will have a central list of information including the different categories of information assets and their unique business applications. The Information Portfolio supports integration with the existing Now Platform data and favors information mapping.

Investment Funding

The Investment Funding application refines how you manage your IT investments by providing a flexible funding approach. It enables users to allocate funds across different funding entities based on priorities and business objectives. As a result, you will have a centralized investment planning process in place which can fund the various operations in an enterprise efficiently.

ServiceNow ITOM enhancements  

ServiceNow has inculcated the following new features to their ITOM suite in the New York release:

ITOM Health

ServiceNow ITOM health unites Event Management and Operational Intelligence applications. You can now use the powerful Mobile Agent application to monitor your ITOM health and business services performance easily. The update will help you respond to alerts instantly which will bring down your Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR).

ITOM Optimization

The ServiceNow ITOM Optimization product improvises on the capabilities of Cloud Management. The latter is an existing application that enables users to access and manage cloud resources through a single interface. You can couple ITOM Optimization with other ITOM applications to improve infrastructure visibility and minimize service outages.

GCP and IBM Cloud Support

To cope up with the rapid cloud adoption, ServiceNow has introduced three new connectors for cloud management – Google Cloud Connector, IBM Cloud Connector, and Terraform Connector. The new update allows managers to manage resources and enhance operations on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and IBM cloud.

Updates in IT Service Management

The following updates are new with respect to ServiceNow ITSM in the ServiceNow New York release:

ITSM Virtual Agent

Broaden your understanding on the end-user intent and facilitate your users to complete redundant tasks such as password resets, incidents creation etc. with ITSM Virtual Agent. Leverage Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to pre-train and pre-define intelligent conversations and optimize the user experience.

Other ITSM updates

The ServiceNow New York release has several other updates on the existing ITSM applications including improved onboarding experience with Asset Management and enhancements in the Now Mobile capabilities. The Change Management application is now more powerful with the addition of Granular Change Management and Business Stakeholder roles.

HR Service Delivery 

After the New York upgrade, employees can now use the new Now Mobile app to perform HR-related tasks such as requesting help, viewing and completing HR requests/tasks and so on. The introduction of e-signature is expected to alleviate the hassle of signing electronic documents. A few other noteworthy additions/enhancements to the HR Service Management include SAP SuccessFactors integration, Lifecycle Event Builder enhancements, HR service configuration enhancements, and multiple new quick start tests for HR operations.

Customer Service Management (CSM)

The major changes in ServiceNow CSM include the introduction of Machine Learning algorithms in case creation, and Agent Workspace for CSM landing pages and third-party data integration. Specifically, the Field Service Management of ServiceNow CSM has been tuned to support Dispatch Map and Scheduling enhancements along with Spare Parts management. Additionally, the update has brought enhancements to a number of CSM applications including Case Management, Knowledge Management, and Omni-channel experience.

Security Operations (SecOps)

The major improvement areas in SecOps are enhanced Risk Calculator framework and Vulnerability Solution Management. The former enhances risk assessment and prioritizes vulnerabilities based on several metrics to tweak according to the organization’s security policies. The latter correlates environment vulnerabilities with the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) solutions that could help in rectifying them. The Security Operations Efficiency Dashboard is another major highlight and it helps in monitoring and validating the performance of security analysts.

Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC)

From the GRC perspective, the GRC mobile now allows users to manage their task assignments and request approvals on the go from the mobile device. To help clear the ambiguity with some of the GRC terms, the update has made the core GRC terms conform to the common industry meanings. Some other notable changes include GRC Advanced Risk Application and Standardized Information Gathering (SIG) Questionnaire Integration.

As you can infer from this blog, ServiceNow New York release has definitely brought in some major capabilities and enhancements that add feathers to the already crowded ServiceNow cap. If you are considering adopting ServiceNow, or are already using it and considering migration to the next upgrade, our ServiceNow expert practitioners can help you out. You might also be interested in our webinar on ServiceNow New York release.

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