Batch committing multiple update sets under a parent — does sequential order matter?

[Madhan27]

Hi Community,

We are in the process of cloning our instance and as part of that exercise, we need to back up and commit multiple update sets in batch. We have several update sets — each corresponding to different catalog items — and we'd like to group them all under a single parent update set for a cleaner, consolidated commit.

Would love to hear from the community — especially anyone who has handled similar batch migrations with inter-dependent catalog update sets:

• Does ServiceNow handle the commit sequence intelligently based on record timestamps, or is manual ordering always required?

TIA
# Platform # BatchUpdateSets #updateSets

[Mark Manders]

You can simply create one update set ("TO PUT BACK AFTER CLONE") and make that the parent of all your update sets. If you already have batched update sets in there, only add that one to the parents, the other ones will follow. You can export it and after the clone commit it all.
Assuming you have checked the update sets so they are clean, after committing that 'to put back' update set, everything is the same as before (and in case of errors, you know what to fix before moving to the next instance). 

The best part is that you can remove the parent update set so you have all your individual sets (or batched sets) back as they were, only they are now committed. So create new ones, make those the parent of your old ones and continue developing. On commit, the latest version of the objects you are moving will be committed, no matter in what set they are (as long as they are in the batch). 

If your update sets are not clean (that flow that you have updated while in the wrong set), you could get into trouble when moving the update sets, but that has nothing to do with batching. That's just governance.