Keeping customizations in sub-prod instance after clone and upgrade

[Kirk4]

Here is a high-level overview of our standard upgrade process for context, and then my question is at the end:

Our high-level process for upgrades is as follows:

• First, we try to ensure that all users testing functionality in our sub-prod instances have completed their work before we start the upgrade process
• We then commit any modifications we have made in Dev and tested in Test to our Production instance
• After all work being performed has been tested and committed to production, we initiate a clone from production to Dev and Test
• After the clone is complete, we upgrade Dev and Test
• From there, we have multiple teams from our organization test out ServiceNow functionality, identify any issues or changes that may require training and share their findings
• We then implement fixes, develop training, or send communication regarding expected changes in the upcoming upgrade
• We continue with remediation until we are comfortable with the state of Dev and Test
• Then we upgrade production and commit any update sets that we created to resolve issues in Dev and Test to our production instance

Issue:

While we try to ensure that all testing is completed in Dev and Test before upgrades are performed, this is not always possible. This means we need to export XMLs from our Dev instance, and then import them back into Dev post-upgrade.

Question:

What are the best practices for retaining specific customizations in Dev when going through the full clone/upgrade process? Should we perform steps in this order?

• Export XMLs
• Clone over Dev and Test
• Import XMLs
• Upgrade Dev and Test

Has anybody followed similar processes? What issues did you face?

Thank you 😊

[Bert_c1 · Accepted solution]

Hi Kirk4,

I would import after the clone and before an upgrade, if you want to test the changes on the new version.  But I guess you don't plan to promote all changes prior to the clone. Upgrading dev after the clone allows you to evaluate the Upgrade impact on an instance that is a copy of the source instance. Once done, import 'in-progress' development and evaluate that combination.