Disaster Recovery Documentation

[BrookeB]

Hi all,

I'm currently looking to redesign my company's disaster recovery documents and would appreciate examples of how other organisations structure theirs. Specifically, I'm interested in:

• Document Organisation:
• How are they organised within ServiceNow (SN) knowledge libraries?
• Are the documents duplicated externally to SN?
• If held externally to SN, what is the rationale?
• What knowledge features are utilised?
• Approval Process:
• What approval process do the documents undergo prior to publishing?
• What type of approval is used (e.g., approval groups linked to ownership groups)?
• Templating:
• Is a specific template used?
• Is it beneficial to have multiple different templates?
• Best Practices:
• What is considered best practice for these types of documents?

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @BrookeB 

I am not 100% sure, but it is worth exploring BCM module of ServiceNow.

[BCM Pros]

Hey Brooke, having implemented ServiceNow BCM many times as a partner, here’s what I’ve seen other organizations do in response to each of your questions:

• Document Organisations
  
  • Within ServiceNow BCM all there are two areas where a plan documentation data is stored. They are the Plan Documentation (sn_bcp_document) table and Documentation Section (sn_bcm_document) table. The distinction here is that documentation sections are copies of your existing documentation (usually living in word) broken out into separate records (usually based on sections), that can be referenced by the plan template. When they are referenced by the plan template, these documentation sections will be created in the order you set them up when the plan is first created.
  • As for the Plan Documentation table, these are all either copies of documentation sections that are specific to the plan they were created for (via the plan template) OR brand new plan documentation sections that were created for just that plan.
  • The use case here is that you want to make sure process/app owners have the boiler plate documentation sections ready for them to fill out when they are start to do their DRPs but you also want to provide enough flexibility to create new ones if they need to.
  • There are no knowledge features currently utilized as of 2025 version and no indications that they will be based on 2025 feature roadmap.
• Approval Process:
• ServiceNow BCM relies on the Approval Configuration feature and it is very flexible and easy to use. That being said, the OOB installation of the BCM apps does not support this use case, but rather expects the BCM/DRP team to review documentation sections at the same time that the entire plan is being reviewed. So all, the creation and alteration of a plan's documentation section is not subject to any approval, and additionally neither are the documentation sections created for plan templates to refer to. One other detail I will mention is that typically BCM Managers or someone with a more privileged roles are allowed to update documentation sections and plan templates.
• Templating:
• In our many implementations, it is beneficial to have at least 2 templates and thats because most organizations have certain areas the process/app owner need to document based on the type of plan they are doing. The main two being DRP's & BCP's. When you setup a plan template for each, you determine which documentation sections and in which order does the process or app owner have to update when they go to make their plans.
• Best Practices:
• We recommend getting all documentation sections from your current word/pdf plans into the plans documentation sections table. I would pay careful attention to the name of these records when you go to create them as you will mainly need to rely on this to determine which overall document your newly created section should belong to. For example, if you are getting all the documentation sections into ServiceNow for a DRP, the prefix the name with DRP 1.1 - NAME OF SECTION, DRP 1.2 - NAME OF SECTION, etc. The main reason for this is when you go to setup your plan templates, you'll then want to pull in these documentation sections and they are referred to by name, so this will make it easy to do so.

If you found this helpful don't forget to mark it as resolved so other people will see it when they go to look up the same questions.

BCM Pros - Devin Valencia