Upgrade platform from brazil directly from Zurich

vcmohan
Tera Contributor

25m ago

When an instance is directly upgraded from Zurich to Brazil, how do we get to know new features, enhancements introduced in both Australia and Brazil.

Also I would like to understand the risks, challenges and issues that commonly occurs when we do upgrade platform skipping major release in between Zurich and Brazil. Thank you

0 Helpfuls
  • 26 Views
1 REPLY 1

HasanM
Tera Expert

7m ago

Hi @vcmohan , skipping a family (Zurich to Brazil) is a supported path as far as I know, but you inherit two releases’ worth of change in one go, so plan for it accordingly. Please confirm the supported upgrade path for your exact patch levels in the Brazil upgrade documentation or Now Support before you start.

1. Finding what’s new in both Australia and Brazil

  • Read the release notes for both families on docs.servicenow.com, not just Brazil. Pay most attention to the “Changes”, “Deprecated” and “Upgrade information” sections for the applications you actually use.
  • Check the Product Documentation’s upgrade guidance for Brazil. It usually covers known issues when coming from earlier families.
  • Use Upgrade Center on a sub-prod instance (Upgrade Preview / Upgrade Plan) to see which apps and plugins will change on your instance specifically.
  • Look at the Store app compatibility for Brazil. Many Store apps need updating alongside the platform.
  • The Community release guides (e.g. “Kickstart Your ServiceNow Brazil Release Guide”) and the Australia equivalents are a useful summary.

2. Common risks when skipping a family

  • Larger volume of skipped records. Customised OOB records will be skipped across two releases, so the review effort roughly doubles.
  • Deprecated or retired features. Something deprecated in Australia may be removed or changed in Brazil, and you won’t have seen the warning on a live instance.
  • UI changes. Next Experience / workspace changes across two releases can land at once and affect users and training.
  • Store app and plugin compatibility. Older app versions may not be supported on Brazil.
  • Integrations and scripted APIs. Behaviour changes (security, ACLs, API defaults) can break integrations.
  • Less community experience with your exact path, so fewer known-issue write-ups.

3. How to reduce the risk

  • Clone prod to a sub-prod instance and upgrade that first.
  • Run Instance Scan and fix findings before upgrading.
  • Review every skipped record (Upgrade History > Skipped changes) and decide to keep, revert or merge.
  • Run your ATF suites plus manual regression of critical processes, integrations and catalog items.
  • Update Store apps to Brazil-compatible versions.
  • Plan for at least one extra test cycle compared with a normal single-family upgrade.
  • Raise a case with ServiceNow Support if you hit anything unusual on the path.

Hope this helps. If this answers your question, please mark it as Accept as Solution and Helpful so others with the same question can find it.

0 Helpfuls