Problem Management – Upgrade path for existing customers

[mattlloyd]

We previously looked at the feedback that led to the Madrid baseline and what’s new in Madrid for problem management. We’ll wrap up this 3-part series by taking a look at the upgrade options for existing customers.

Updated in May 2020 for the Problem Management Migration Utility.

The problem state model was introduced as part of the Problem Management Best Practice — Madrid — State Model plugin (com.snc.best_practice.problem.madrid.state_model), it also applies to later releases.

Minimal changes when you upgrade to Madrid

In case you have a modified version of problem management we minimized the changes that will be applied when you upgrade to Madrid (or a later release). The Post News related link will only be available to your problem team if you are still using the older Knowledge Management version 2 and you have not activated the Madrid problem management best practices plugin.
Note: Post News was deprecated starting with Knowledge Management version 3.

Upgrade options

The new best practice state model states and guided actions are not compatible with the previous version of problem management and require verification using the migration utility before this plugin can be activated.

You can read more about how to adopt the problem state model with the Problem Management Migration Utility (blog).

Next steps

Thanks for joining me for this 3-part series on problem management for the Madrid or later release. You can read more about the Madrid problem management release in the documentation and release notes.

[janelleeckert]

Any progress on the migration utility?   We have several years' worth of problem cases and use PTASKS heavily.  Clearing those tables to adopt a new state model is not an option. 

[mattlloyd]

It will be via the ServiceNow app store when it is released.

No more news as yet, I hope to have more news to share in the coming weeks as we align with the ITSM app store release schedule.

Regards
Matt

[jeffyt]

Is the migration utility ready for prime time?

[mattlloyd]

The migration utility is in development, we are still working towards early Q2 2020, any updates to that will be made in the above blog.

Regards

Matt

[AB43]

Hello Matt,

So we are helping out a customer to migrate from pre-madrid Problem mgmt to Post madrid. They have a lot of custom fields in the current problem management and were looking to move to the OOTB model.

I work for a partner and do have the migration utility. So my question is how should be customizations be mapped with the ootb fields if they currently don't exist on the instance.

For example , they have a custom cateogry and sub category fields that need to be mapped to the ootb category / sub category fields. I see the migration scripts are available for field mapping but the category & subcategory fields don't exist in the new problem mgmt table . So how will the migration script will work when the fields category and subcategory don't exist in the table.

Any thoughts?

[mattlloyd]

Hi AB,

You might want to post your question on the partner portal where you got the migration utility as that is different to the one we (product) will be releasing and others in that portal who are using the same migration approach may have an answer for you already.

The migration utility (product) we are working on for Q2 on the app store checks for blocking issues before you activate the problem state model plugin. It helps you map your old states to the new best practice states and helps to clean up other modifications you have made to help get you close to the base version of problem.

The best practice life cycle relies on those new best practice states which is why we provide mapping for those, it will not help you map over other custom fields, that is something you'd have to take care of in your own migration scripts for now.

Regards

Matt

[mcconnellsj]

Hi Matt

We are battling with HI to migrate to the Madrid state model (we are on Madrid but started with Istanbul).

We have no problem records, and are unaware of any customisations (I checked and cannot see any, we don't use Problem record yet so no need to).

However Customer Outcomes told us to raise the request with HI - who ran their script which came up "Customisations = TRUE", and told us to work with a partner or Customer Outcomes.  Our partner had said they can't do anything until we speak to HI - and Customer Outcomes says we need to speak to HI.

Basically we are going round in circles.

My question (that is being avoided) is, what "customisations" are they talking about?  Given that we haven't touched Problem management (perhaps form layouts but thats it) - what is it likely to be?

It is hard to revert some elements back to OOTB when the only update set showing is our amendment.

I can wait (and wait and wait ...) for the migration tool ... my fear is it tells me exactly the same thing and we are back at square one "speak to partner / Customer Outcomes".

If I sit it out and wait for the migration tool - will it actually help by identifying the customisations that need to be undone?

Thanks.

[chuckn]

Just an idea...if you're curious: check your Script Execution History and you'll probably find the script that HI ran.

[pellesnurr]

Hi! Are there any news of when in Q2 we can get hold of the migration utility? 

/Per

[mattlloyd]

The migration utility passed store certification so it should be released onto the store later this month (May).

I'll be updating this blog with a link to a new blog about the migration utility (and the modifications it detects) later this week as well.

Stay tuned...