How to keep up with Plugin maintenance

[Matthew Hinton]

We have quite a few plug-ins (~175) in our Washington, DC instance.  There's not a sort plugin by update available in application manager.  It can be time-consuming keeping them all up-to-date.   This even scheduling the installation.  How is everyone keeping up with updating their plugins? 

[Dr Atul G- LNG · Accepted solution]

Hi @Matthew Hinton 

Currently, plugins need to be updated one at a time. However, you can also use the batch option. Keep in mind that if you schedule a plugin for one hour and it takes longer, it will affect other scheduled tasks. Here are some tips for updating plugins.

https://www.servicenow.com/community/upgrades-and-patching-forum/updating-outdated-plugins-in-servic...

https://www.servicenow.com/community/developer-forum/best-practice-for-updating-plugins/m-p/3143381/...

[Matthew Hinton]

Thanks @Dr Atul G- LNG I think your "old-school" method is a decent manual approach.  I'm reading over the below link you shared.  Thanks for pointing it out!

Creating a batch installer for Store updates - ServiceNow Community

Regards,

MH

P.S.  I found this in reading as well.  This script looks promising.

Updating Store Apps Sucks | Eric's  

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @Matthew Hinton 

Agree its manual,  might be scripting can help.

[alexcha]

Not sure if this will be of interest as it's not OOB, we created a custom solution to manage applications.  Similar to your scenario, we have several hundred activated and has been a pain-point to know when new versions are available (especially when it seems like they are released more frequently).  

Here's a screen-shot to see if it's something worth exploring.  We have columns representing instances as part of our core stack along with application-specific information.  The red dots indicate when a newer version is available (listed under the Latest version column).  The orange dot represent those not installed on all instances (may have just been installed on sandbox-type instances to test & explore).  We also have a column to represent Product streams, this is represented by a separate table containing contact information.  A job runs in the background to send an email to those listed so they are alerted when new versions are available. 

[AndersBGS]

Hi @alexcha ,

Your solution actually look quite interesting. Do you have the possibility to share some more insight to how you have created your solution?