External Content Connectors Application Suite release notes

  • Release version: Store
  • Updated July 9, 2026
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of External Content Connectors Application Suite release notes

    The External Content Connectors (XCC) Application Suite enables ServiceNow customers to unify external data repositories with AI Search, providing a seamless and secure search experience across multiple content sources. It supports popular platforms such as ServiceNow documentation, Atlassian Confluence Cloud, Microsoft SharePoint Online, and other external systems. The application offers a user-friendly administrative interface to configure connections, manage crawls, monitor performance, and control access permissions, ensuring authorized data access and improved productivity.

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    Key Features

    • Wide Connector Support: Includes connectors for platforms like Google Drive, SAP SuccessFactors, Adobe Sign, Aha! Roadmap, Cornerstone, Fluid Topics, Workvivo, Adobe Experience Manager, Asana, DocuSign, Dropbox, GitHub, HubSpot, Lucidchart, Miro, monday.com, Notion, SAP DMS, Smartsheet, Trello, Wordpress, Workday, and Zoom.
    • Enhanced Crawling Capabilities: Increased crawl depth for Webcrawler up to 1,000 and scalable indexing supporting up to 10 million documents per connector. Features automatic crawl resumption to handle temporary interruptions.
    • Improved Reliability and Performance: Implementation of global retry strategies with exponential backoff for HTTP errors (50x, 429, 408), stability and performance improvements for Webcrawler, and fixes for authentication and encoding issues.
    • Administrative Enhancements: Support for managing multiple connector instances of the same type, linking external content connector search sources to AI Search profiles, customizable user mapping for permission crawls, and validation of mTLS connections with warning messages.
    • User Experience Improvements: More responsive UI, improved timeout handling for long-running crawls, consistent user discovery counts across connectors, and suppression of quota consumption for certain connectors.
    • Content Management Features: Ability to filter by labels (e.g., Google Drive), define crawl schedules, refine inclusion/exclusion rules, and map user permissions efficiently to ensure secure and relevant content access.

    Key Outcomes

    • Centralizes content from diverse external sources into a unified AI Search experience, enhancing search accuracy and accessibility.
    • Improves administrator control and visibility over content crawling and indexing processes through robust monitoring and analytics.
    • Ensures secure, authorized access to external content via customizable user permission mappings and certificate validation.
    • Enhances overall system reliability and user satisfaction by addressing performance bottlenecks, error handling, and connector stability.

    Version history for the External Content Connectors Application Suite application on the ServiceNow Store.

    Important:
    For details on system requirements and family compatibility, view the application listing on the ServiceNow Store website.

    Version history

    Version 8.1.0 - July 2026
    • Changed:
      • Filter by labels for Google Drive connector
      • Crawl depth for Webcrawler has been increased to 1,000
    • Fixed:
      • UTF-8 encoding issue of ZIP file is fixed for SAP SuccessFactors connector
      • Authentication related certificate failures
      • Custom metadata fields related issues for Custom Connector Gateway connector
    Version 8.0.10 - June 2026
    • New:
      • SAP SuccessFactors external content connector
      • Multimodal caption generation for retrieved attachments and files
    • Changed: Global Retry Strategy — exponential backoff implemented for 50x, 429, and 408 HTTP errors across connectors
    • Fixed:
      • WebCrawler stability, performance, error handling, and quality improvements
      • Source system improvements for connector reliability and data handling
    Version 7.0.5 - April 2026
    • New:
      • Added predefined web sources for servicenow.com, developer.servicenow.com, community.servicenow.com, support.servicenow.com, horizon.servicenow.com, and Copilot
      • Webcrawler now supports extraction of all results from the ServiceNow developer blog
      • Added user.countrycrawl filter option for the Microsoft SharePoint Online connector
      • Added support for multiple ServiceNow Product Docs connector instances
      • Suppress quota consumption for ServiceNow instance and ServiceNow product documentation connector transactions
      • Added label tag to schema for Google Drive connector
    • Changed:
      • Improved admin experience with more responsive UI
      • Improved timeout handling for Webcrawler on long running webcrawls
      • Consistent user discovery count enforced across all external content connectors
    • Fixed:
      • Connectors loading very slowly due to recrawl required state processing
      • Microsoft SharePoint Online user mappings failing to run; crawl failing with multiple errors
      • OutOfMemory exceptions when crawling Microsoft SharePoint Online lists
      • Table link in crawl report details view not filtering the target table correctly
      • Crawl history for start points scan not showing the number of start points discovered
    Version 6.0.8 - March 2026
    • New:
      • New External Content Connectors (XCC):​
        • Adobe Sign
        • Aha! Roadmap
        • Cornerstone
        • Fluid Topics
        • Workvivo
      • Add/Delete linking search sources/search profiles from the "Index Management" settings > "Connected search profile" interface of XCC Admin UI.
      • Validate mTLS connections before setting up XCC and provide warning messages.
    • Changed:
      • Scalable indexing: Crawl and index up to 10 million documents per connector.
      • Unique names will be enforced for connectors.
      • Crawls are automatically resumed to mitigate interruptions caused by temporary crawling issues.
    • Fixed: Defect fixes across the connectors improving the XCC Admin experience
    Version 6.0.6 - March 2026
    • New:
      • New External Content Connectors (XCC):​
        • Adobe Sign
        • Aha! Roadmap
        • Cornerstone
        • Fluid Topics
        • Workvivo
      • Add/Delete linking search sources/search profiles from the "Index Management" settings > "Connected search profile" interface of XCC Admin UI.
      • Validate mTLS connections before setting up XCC and provide warning messages.
    • Changed:
      • Scalable indexing: Crawl and index up to 10 million documents per connector.
      • Unique names will be enforced for connectors.
      • Crawls are automatically resumed to mitigate interruptions caused by temporary crawling issues.
    • Fixed: Defect fixes across the connectors improving the XCC Admin experience
    Version 5.0.33 - February 2026
    • Fixed:
      • Fixes in ServiceNow product documentation connector, Webcrawler predefined sources
      • Minor fixes
    Version 5.0.26 - December 2025
    • New:
      • New external content connectors:​
        • Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service
        • Asana
        • Docusign
        • Dropbox
        • GitHub
        • HubSpot
        • Lucidchart
        • Miro
        • monday.com
        • Notion
        • SAP DMS
        • Smartsheet
        • Trello
        • Wordpress
        • Workday
        • Zoom
        • Link external content connector search sources to search profiles in AI Search
        • Validate connection permissions​ during connector creation
        • Connector analytics
    • Changed:
      • Customizable user mapping​ settings for user permission crawls
      • Improved management of recrawl status, force refeed​ Enhancements in metrics, error reporting
    Version 4.1.7 - September 2025
    New: Support for creating multiple connectors of the same type.
    Version 4.0.27 - August 2025
    • Changed:
      • Fixed bugs
      • UI improvements based on feedback
    Version 3.0.25 - May 2025
    • The External Content Connectors application helps organizations bring external data repositories into AI Search, offering a seamless and secure way to unify content across systems. With support for ServiceNow documentation and external platforms like Atlassian Confluence Cloud, Microsoft SharePoint Online and more, users can access both internal and external data in one cohesive search experience.
    • A dedicated, user-friendly UI makes it easy for administrators to manage the entire process from configuring connections and setting up crawls to monitoring performance and reviewing results. Flexible options allow you to define crawl schedules, refine content inclusion and exclusion rules, and map user permissions effortlessly, ensuring only authorized access to data.
    • By centralizing content from multiple sources and integrating it with AI Search, External Content Connectors improves productivity, improves search accuracy, and makes it simpler for organizations to access the information they need.