Governing Release Template Creations

[onedapaone]

Dear ServiceNow Team,

I understand that a Release Manager or Central Release Team within any group of product teams can own the creation of Release Templates through the Release Admin role.

However, I seek guidance on a scenario where a central/global process team defines and governs the Release Management process across the organization. In this scenario, different types of applications, products, and platform teams adhere to the global high-level process but have their own variations of Release Process phases and tasks.

Given this diversity, global Release Templates might not suit all types of product/platform teams. Conversely, allowing each product/platform team to create their own Release Templates could pose governance challenges and lead to inconsistencies in adhering to the central/global process.

What guidance can you provide based on your design principles and experiences with clients in similar situations?

Is it feasible to implement a Service Request/Approval flow for the central/global process team to review and approve each Release Template upon creation? While this could ensure governance and consistency, it might also become an overhead for the central team and result in a large number of templates in the Digital Product Release (DPR) system.

Any other better alternatives or suggestions you can share please.

Thank you.

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @onedapaone 

I’m also new to DPR, and I think we need to check if we can build a flow, as DPR is currently completely WS-driven and feels like a black box where we don’t have much access to the backend. If we can build a flow, then yes, we can involve the team for the approval.

[onedapaone]

@gregholevas @Balaji39 @Colin OBrien : Appreciate if you can share your insights on this.

[Balaji39]

Hi @onedapaone, are you looking for an approval workflow to publish the release templates? In the current flow, the release admin creates and publishes the template. I'll add the requirement to backlog, we'll need to evaluate if it is a wider requirement.

We've had customers ask to conditionally create tasks instead of creating template for various permutation and combinations. We have a backlog item to support that, Is that something that'd be useful for your use case? 

Happy to connect over a call if possible.

[onedapaone]

Thank you for the discussion @Balaji39 .