Skipped records reconciliations missing after applying upgrade plan.

[Christopher Sik]

We have been using upgrade plans for the last few months to manage our scheduled upgrades.
1) We create the upgrade plan in DEV.

2) We reconcile any skipped records in DEV using the Upgrade Monitor.

3) We refresh the upgrade plan and publish it. 

4) We go to our TEST instance and retrieve the upgrade plan.

5) In TEST we install the upgrade plan.

6) In TEST we review the Upgrade Monitor. (This is where we run into the problem.)

We're noticing that most of the skipped records we reconciled in DEV still show up as unreconciled after we apply the Upgrade Plan in TEST. The same thing happens when we apply the Upgrade Plan to PROD.

I thought the point of the Upgrade Plan was to avoid the need to manually re-reconcile the same skipped records in each instance.

I expect some variation in the count of skipped record between instances due to development in the platform and the time span between clone downs. And from patch to patch or hotfix to hotfix, there aren't usually that many records to review. So having to re-reconcile 20-30 records isn't such a big deal.

But this month we opted to jump from Tokyo to Vancouver and had close to 200 skipped records to work through. That took a couple of weeks to get through. We added detailed notes to each record, merged a large number of them, reverted a good chunk of them too. But all that reconciliation is not showing up in TEST after applying the upgrade plan.

Is anyone else encountering the same issue? Is there a setting or step that we're missing?

[chetanb · Accepted solution]

@Christopher Sik 

Just wanted to assist here, did you capture the actions in update sets. which you have taken in DEV env.

Generally, same updates can be imported here in the next environment.

Note:- Make sure, all the configurations on the instances must be same.

https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0541128

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/vancouver-platform-administration/page/administer/upgrade-center/...

if my answer has helped with your question, please mark my answer as accepted solution and give a thumb up.

Regards,

CB

[Christopher Sik]

Thanks @chetanb !  We did not create an update set for the skipped records. Our understanding is that by using upgrade plans that step is not necessary. Just wondering why a handful of the skipped records got passed along by the upgrade plan, but vast majority did not. Even after several refreshes of the upgrade plan.

At this point, we can't wait for a fix/fully baked solution from ServiceNow. So I'll have to go through the skipped records again in DEV and force them to an update set. We did a clone down from PROD to alI sub instances, so everything should be in sync configuration-wise.

I did see some related posts recommending not using update plans at all. I'm guessing this is why.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I appreciate you steering us down the right track.

Be well!

--Chris 

[Christophe_E]

Hello Chris,

I encounter the same issue (first time for me using upgrade plan).

After the Upgrade on Test, Upgrade plan is installed, but I have only some "Resolved" skipped record, "Reviewed and Retained" "Auto Resolved by Upgrade plan".

and many "To review".

Resolution on Dev where "Reviewed and Retained", "Always Retain", "Reviewed"

I will open a case on the support.

I would be interested to know other people impacted by this issue.

As Chris. explained, workaround would be to create an updateset afterward.

Regards,

Christophe

[Christophe_E]

More and more, and even it is not clear on the documentation, I have the impression that Upgrade plan should not be used for instances where you use updatesets, and not application repository.

Can anyone confirm my asumption?