A few months ago, ServiceNow held its annual global conference entitled “Knowledge18 (K18)” in Las Vegas. This event always produces exciting announcements about product direction and key areas of focus for the year, and K18 delivered several newsworthy items. Since so many of NPI’s clients are ServiceNow users we wanted to share some highlights.
Best Practices for Customers
ServiceNow outlined four high-level best practices they recommend for optimal usage:
- Commit to Out of the Box: Eliminate customizations so you can implement upgrades faster, and can immediately take advantage of the latest and greatest features.
- Establish clear ServiceNow product leadership: Have committed internal sponsorship that has the ability to drive the implementation of upgrades regularly.
- Invest in change management: Choose a partner that has certified ServiceNow professionals and enforces out-of-the-box implementation; establish a ServiceNow Center of Excellence.
- Drive business outcomes: Set clear goals, monitor and measure customer and employee experience, security incidents, time to market, and cost savings.
User Experience
With ServiceNow’s new focus on providing “Experience as a Service,” customers can expect enhancements to every type of role that utilizes the product. Here are some user experience improvement previews:
- Fulfiller (Agent WorkSpace – London release)
- Requester (Virtual Agent ServiceNow action via any chat interface – London release)
- Executive (MS Teams integration – no release announcement)
- Application Development Manager (Enterprise DevOps – Madrid release)
- Planner (Agile Framework for stories and sprint management – London release)
- HR (Employee Document Management – London release)
Additionally, ServiceNow customers can expect Mobility enhancements as they will finally integrate the platform with native iOS and Android operating systems (Madrid) and create mobile-ready custom apps for the enterprise.
Proactive and Personalized
Look for additional developments in London and Madrid that leverage ServiceNow’s AI and predictive learning capabilities for Security (Vulnerability Response), HR (providing information based on user’s role, location, and profile) and CSM (customer service that is easy, leveraged across the enterprise, predictive in nature).
Improving the Upgrade Experience
After years of consistently being the subject of criticism from customers, ServiceNow is taking steps to make a better upgrade experience in three key areas:
- Predictable Release Schedule: ServiceNow has unveiled the release schedule through 2020 to provide a more predictable release cycle so that customers can plan accordingly.
- Release Best Practices: ServiceNow has invested heavily in a Customer Success Center that will review your implementation for improved adoption and aid in streamlining the upgrade process so that customers can maintain an annual upgrade cadence.
- “Remove Friction from Upgrade Process”: ServiceNow is committing to providing a better upgrade planning experience. Pre-release previews on sub-prod, installing debugging tools for customers to test upgrades, providing detailed release notes, and improved release patch automation will provide a smoother upgrade process and minimize downtime. Look for these enhancements to roll out for London and Madrid.
These are the major highlights of coming attractions in the next two releases, and customers can expect more announcements to come as the Q3 release of London nears.
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