Executive Summary
ServiceNow is the backbone of enterprise workflows, enabling digital transformation across IT, HR, and business operations. As organisations scale, maintaining platform health becomes critical to ensure performance, security, and upgrade readiness. This white paper explains what platform health means, why monitoring it matters, and how ServiceNow Health Assessment provides a structured, data-driven approach to optimise your instance. It also outlines practical steps for requesting assessments, key roles involved, remediation processes, and the implications of neglecting platform health.
1. What is Platform Health?
Think of your ServiceNow platform like the human body. Just as human health determines how effectively we perform day-to-day activities, platform health determines how efficiently your ServiceNow instance supports business processes. If left unchecked, small issues can escalate into major problems, similar to untreated health conditions.
ServiceNow Best Practices
Platform health is measured against ServiceNow’s best practice framework, which includes:
Performance – Speed and responsiveness of workflows, dashboards, and UI.
Security – Proper access controls, encryption, and vulnerability management.
Upgradeability – Ability to adopt new releases without disruption.
Manageability – Ease of administration and governance.
Usability – End-user experience and adherence to best practices.
HealthScan is built on these best practices, using thousands of automated checks to ensure your instance aligns with ServiceNow’s recommended architecture and configuration standards. This guarantees consistency and reduces technical debt over time.
2. Why is Monitoring Platform Health Important?
Monitoring platform health is essential for maintaining the stability and efficiency of your ServiceNow environment. It is not just about resolving current issues; it provides early visibility into potential risks and predicts problems before they disrupt operations. A proactive health assessment helps organisations avoid costly downtime, security vulnerabilities, and upgrade failures. From a business perspective, the return on investment is significant: companies that implement structured health programs experience up to 40% faster upgrades, a 30% reduction in technical debt, and improved compliance that reduces audit costs. By continuously monitoring platform health, organisations can lower operational expenses, enhance user experience, and accelerate innovation, ensuring that the platform remains a reliable foundation for digital transformation.
3. Why ServiceNow Health Assessment Outperforms External Tools
External tools often fail to capture the complexity of ServiceNow’s architecture because:
- They lack native integration with ServiceNow’s configuration model.
- They cannot access ServiceNow-specific best practices or benchmark data.
- They provide generic metrics, not actionable insights tailored to ServiceNow.
HealthScan, on the other hand, is purpose-built by ServiceNow experts, ensuring accuracy, relevance, and prescriptive guidance.
4. How to Request a Health Assessment
Requesting a health assessment is a straightforward process, but it requires coordination between the customer and ServiceNow teams. The first step is to engage your Customer Success Manager (CSM), who acts as the primary point of contact for scheduling and managing the assessment. Customers with ServiceNow Impact packages can also initiate scans directly through the Impact Portal, providing a convenient self-service option. Before the assessment begins, ServiceNow requires consent and secure access to your instance. This involves granting SNC access, confirming the scope of data transfer, which is limited to configuration metadata and excludes transactional data and ensuring compliance with your organisation’s security policies. Once access is established, key roles come into play: the Platform Architect leads technical analysis and remediation planning, System Administrators facilitate access and implement recommendations, and Service Owners ensure alignment with business objectives. This collaborative approach guarantees that the health assessment is executed efficiently and delivers actionable insights tailored to your organisation’s goals.
5. Customer Instance Access and Data Handling
HealthScan requires read-only access to your instance. ServiceNow transfers:
- Configuration metadata (scripts, ACLs, workflows).
- No transactional or sensitive business data.
All data is processed securely within ServiceNow’s infrastructure, adhering to strict compliance standards.
6. Types of Scans and When to Use Them
Sprint Scan: Focused on development cycles to catch issues early. Use before completing a sprint or releasing new features, or to validate code quality and configuration compliance during development.
Instance Scan: On-demand, rule-based checks for targeted areas. Use when investigating specific performance or security concerns.
Configuration Review: Manual deep-dive by ServiceNow experts. Use when dealing with complex environments or after major customisations.
Impact Scan: Part of the ServiceNow Impact subscription, providing proactive health insights and benchmarking. Available to customers subscribed to ServiceNow Impact packages. Used to continuously monitor health and receive predictive alerts also provides benchmarking against industry peers, and ROI-driven recommendations are needed.
7. Implications of Leaving Platform Health Unchecked
Neglecting platform health can have serious consequences for your ServiceNow environment. When upgrades are attempted without prior health checks, organisations often face failures that lead to costly downtime and extended remediation efforts. Security vulnerabilities may remain undetected, increasing the risk of breaches and compliance violations. Performance degradation is another common outcome, resulting in slow workflows and poor user experience that can hinder productivity. Additionally, unchecked health issues can cause compliance risks, making audits more challenging and potentially leading to penalties. Over time, these problems accumulate into significant technical debt, escalating maintenance costs and reducing the overall efficiency and scalability of the platform.
8. Remediation Process and Customer Effort
After a health assessment, ServiceNow provides detailed results along with a prioritised remediation plan tailored to your instance. The findings are delivered in a spreadsheet that references specific objects, which do not align with ServiceNow best practices. Each finding includes prescriptive guidance on how to resolve the issue, ensuring clarity and actionable steps for remediation.
To help customers manage and prioritise effectively, every finding is categorised into one of three ratings:
Act: Issues that require immediate attention because they pose a significant risk to performance, security, or upgradeability.
Recommend: Items that should be addressed soon to improve efficiency and maintain best practices, but are not critical.
Discuss: Findings that may need further evaluation or alignment with business objectives before deciding on remediation.
This structured approach enables better prioritisation and resource allocation. Additionally, the ServiceNow Platform Architect works closely with the customer to devise a remediation strategy that aligns with the organisation’s desired objectives, timelines, and operational constraints. This ensures that remediation activities are not only technically sound but also strategically aligned with business goals.
9. When Should a Health Assessment Be Requested?
Health assessments should be scheduled strategically to maximise their value. The most critical time to request an assessment is before major upgrades, as this ensures your instance is fully prepared and minimises the risk of upgrade failures. It is also highly recommended to conduct an assessment after large customisations or integrations, as these changes can introduce complexity and potential misalignments with best practices. Additionally, incorporating health assessments into your annual governance cycle helps maintain long-term platform stability, reduce technical debt, and support continuous improvement. By making health assessments a recurring part of your ServiceNow strategy, organisations can proactively manage risks and maintain optimal performance.
Conclusion
ServiceNow Health Assessment is not a one-time activity but a continuous improvement journey. By leveraging HealthScan and expert guidance, organisations can ensure their platform remains secure, performant, and future-ready.
