To make the upgrading process easier, you should obtain as much information as you can from the ServiceNow Upgrade History module. This module tracks all upgrades applied to an instance. Each record analyzed during an upgrade is listed along with any corresponding actions taken on that record. Admins can use the Upgrade History module by navigating to System Diagnosis > Upgrade History.
Review your history of upgrades
Review the upgrade history records by checking the Inserted, Updated, Deleted, and Skipped columns. For example, the following screenshot shows that 34,842 records were inserted, 2383 were updated, and 82 were skipped.
Check the status of your upgrades
The Upgrade History module is also useful for confirming upgrades that are in progress and upgrades that are complete. Check the Upgrade Started and Upgrade Finished columns. If the Upgrade Started column contains information, but Upgrade Finished column is blank, an upgrade is in progress. If both columns contain information, the upgrade has completed. For example, the screenshot shows a completed upgrade.
Click the upgrade name in the From column to obtain more detailed information about that specific upgrade. Actions taken on records are listed in the Disposition column.
Confirm an instance has been upgraded
You can immediately confirm that an instance was upgraded by searching for the most recent upgrade.
Manage your customizations
The Upgrade History module identifies the base system (out of box or OOB) objects that were skipped during an upgrade. This is valuable information for managing your customizations efficiently. Customizing an object creates a record in the sys_update_xml table. The upgrade process skips objects with a current version in the sys_update_xml table. If an upgrade contains a feature you want, you can overwrite your customizations. For detailed steps, see Reverting Customizations in the product documentation.
If you have specific questions regarding upgrading and using the upgrade history module, look over these discussions on the community:
- gmbroth posted some specific questions about a strategy for upgrading to Eureka. b-rad and javier.gomez both gave helpful answers with information about upgrading a sub-production instance first and testing there before upgrading production.
- Aman Gulati asked for help with a scheduled file import issue after upgrading to Eureka. syaharruddin@hotmail.com provided an answer and gbernie pointed to a useful document on the community written by martin.wood titled Mid Server CVS Importer.
- elewis33 wanted more information about what happens to customized tables during an upgrade.Aaron was there with some excellent advice.
Hungry for more information about upgrading? Check out lroberts78 post on Upgrades and their relation to customizations: Updated for Geneva
ServiceNow offers more information about upgrading and the Upgrade History module in the product documentation:
