Holiday schedules in a release

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated February 18, 2025
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of Holiday schedules in a release

    This content explains how to incorporate holiday schedules into release planning within ServiceNow, ensuring that release phases and key dates are calculated based on working days rather than calendar days. Associating a holiday schedule with a release adjusts phase start and end dates to skip non-working days such as weekends and federal holidays, preserving the fixed duration of each phase in working days.

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    How Holiday Schedules Affect Release Planning

    • The total release duration is measured in working days, excluding weekends and specified holidays.
    • Phases—Planning, Development, Testing, and Implementation—retain their fixed working-day durations.
    • Phase start and end dates, as well as key milestone dates, are adjusted to the nearest prior working day if they fall on a weekend or holiday.
    • The release readiness target date is usually a working day and serves as the anchor for backward calculation of phase dates.
    • Calendar spans extend beyond the sum of working days to accommodate non-working days, lengthening the overall release timeline.

    Practical Application with Example

    Using a release with a 60-working-day duration ending on September 5, 2025, and a holiday schedule that includes U.S. Federal holidays and weekends, the adjusted start dates for each phase are earlier than their original calendar-based calculations. For example:

    • Implementation Phase: Fixed 10 working days but spans 15 calendar days to account for weekends and Labor Day (Sep 1).
    • Testing Phase: 15 working days extended to 21 calendar days due to weekends.
    • Development Phase: 25 working days extended to 36 calendar days, including Independence Day and weekends.
    • Planning Phase: 10 working days extended to 15 calendar days, including Juneteenth and weekends.

    This adjustment results in an overall release calendar span from June 11 to September 5, 2025, rather than July 8 to September 5, preserving working-day durations while excluding non-working days.

    Key Considerations for ServiceNow Customers

    • When associating holiday schedules, understand that release and phase durations remain in working days, but calendar timelines extend to exclude non-working days.
    • All phase and key dates are shifted to ensure they fall on valid working days, maintaining compliance with organizational calendars.
    • This approach helps avoid scheduling releases or milestones on holidays or weekends, reducing risk of delays.
    • Use the backward date calculation method from the release readiness target date to plan phase timelines accurately.

    You can associate a holiday schedule with a release so that the phase and release durations are calculated considering non-working days.

    The following example of a release shows how holiday schedules affect its overall timeline to keep important dates on working days.

    Let's say a release has four phases: Planning, Development, Testing, and Implementation, with durations of 10, 25, 15, and 10 days, respectively, totaling 60 working days. The release readiness target date is set to Sep 5, 2025, and has a public and weekend holiday schedule (U.S. Federal + Weekend holidays in 2025) associated. So, the start and end dates of each phase are adjusted to account for non-working days (holidays and weekends on the schedule), to keep the phase durations intact. Key dates also follow the same adjustment rule.

    Considerations:
    • Total release duration: 60 working days
    • Phases and durations: Planning: 10 days; Development: 25 days; Testing: 15 days; Implementation: 10 days
    • Release readiness target date: Sep 5, 2025
    • Working days in a week: Mon through Fri (5 days)
    • Non-working days on the associated schedule:
      1. Weekends are non-working days so skipped.
      2. Federal holidays in 2025, relevant to the release period are as follows:
        • Jun 19: Juneteenth (Thu).
        • Jul 4: Independence Day (Fri).
        • Sep 1: Labour Day (Mon).
    • Adjustment rules:
      • The original end date of the last phase is the release readiness target date, usually a working day so no adjustment needed. All remaining phases prior to the last phase get their original end and start dates by counting all calendar days, including both working and non-working. Their adjusted end and start dates are the actual dates on a working day, skipping non-working days.
      • The original start date is determined by counting all calendar days backward from the adjusted end date. The adjusted start date is the actual start date on a working day, skipping non-working days.
      • If a key date or the phase start or end date falls on a holiday or weekend, shift to the previous working day.
      • The duration of each phase (in days) remains fixed, but holidays and weekends within the phase period extend the calendar span.

    With these considerations, let's calculate the working days in the release timeline and adjust the phase and release duration accordingly.

    Calculation of release dates with holiday adjustments
    Table 1. Phase 4: Implementation
    Option Description
    Phase Phase 4: Implementation
    Original end date Sep 5 (Fri)

    (Same as the release readiness target date)
    Adjusted end date Sep 5 (Fri)

    (A working day, no adjustment needed)
    Original start date Aug 27 (Wed)

    (10 days counted backward from the phase's adjusted end date, includes weekends and holidays)
    Adjusted start date Aug 22 (Fri)

    (excludes weekends and holidays, see the End date calculation)
    Key dates Deployment preparation: On 5th day from the phase's adjusted start – Aug 28 (Thu)

    (Excludes weekends and holidays. Falls on a working day, no adjustment needed)
    Original duration 10 days

    Aug 27 (Wed) – Sep 5 (Fri)
    Adjusted duration 15 calendar days (10 working days + 5 non-working days)

    Aug 22 (Fri) – Sep 5 (Fri)
    End date calculation Working days: 10
    • Sep 5–2 (Fri-Tue): 4 days.
    • Aug 29–25 (Fri-Mon): 5 days (total 9 days).
    • Aug 22 (Fri): 1 day (total 10 days).
    Non-working days: 5
    • 1 holiday skipped: Sep 1 (Labor day)
    • 2 weekends skipped: Aug 30-31; Aug 23-24
    Table 2. Phase 3: Testing
    Option Description
    Phase Phase 3: Testing
    Original end date Aug 21 (Thu)

    (The day before the Phase 4 start date)
    Adjusted end date Aug 21 (Thu)

    (A working day, no adjustment needed)
    Original start date Aug 7 (Thu)

    (15 days counted backward from the phase's adjusted end date, includes weekends and holidays)
    Adjusted start date Aug 1 (Fri)

    (Excludes weekends and holidays, see the End date calculation)
    Key dates Test plan approval: On 5th day from the phase's adjusted start – Aug 7 (Tue)

    (Excludes weekends and holidays. A working day, no adjustment needed)
    Original duration 15 days

    Aug 7 (Thu) – Aug 21 (Thu)
    Adjusted duration 21 calendar days (15 working days + 6 non-working days)

    Aug 1 (Fri) – Aug 21 (Thu)
    End date calculation Working days: 20
    • Aug 21-18 (Thu-Mon): 4 days.
    • Aug 15–11 (Fri-Mon): 5 days (total 9 days).
    • Aug 8-Aug 4 (Fri-Mon): 5 days (total 14 days).
    • Aug 1 (Fri): 1 day (total 15 days).
    Non-working days: 6
    • 0 holiday skipped
    • 3 weekends skipped: Aug 16–17; Aug 9–10; Aug 2–3
    Table 3. Phase 2: Development
    Option Description
    Phase Phase 2: Development
    Original end date Jul 31 (Thu)

    (The day before the Phase 3 start date)
    Adjusted end date Jul 31 (Thu)

    (a working day, no adjustment needed.)
    Original start date Jul 7 (Mon)

    (25 days from the phase's adjusted end date, includes weekends and holidays)
    Adjusted start date Jun 26 (Thu)

    (excludes weekends and holidays, see the End date calculation)
    Key dates Sprint end: Every 10 working days from the phase's adjusted start – Jul 10 (Thu), Jul 24 (Thu)

    (all working days, no adjustment needed)
    Original duration 25 days

    Jul 7 (Mon) – Jul 31 (Thu)
    Adjusted duration 36 days (25 working days + 11 non-working days)

    Jun 26 (Thu) – Jul 31 (Thu)
    End date calculation Working days: 25
    • Jul 31-28 (Thu-Mon): 4 days.
    • Jul 25–21 (Fri-Mon): 5 days (total 9 days).
    • Jul 18–14 (Fri-Mon): 5 days (total 14 days).
    • Jul 11-7 (Fri-Mon): 5 days (total 19 days).
    • Jul 3-Jun 30 (Fri-Mon): 4 days (total 23 days).
    • Jun 27-26 (Fri-Thu): 2 days (total 25 days).
    Non-working days: 11
    • 1 holiday skipped: Jul 4 (Independence Day)
    • 5 weekends skipped: Jul 26-27; Jul 19-20; Jul 12-13; Jul 5-6; Jun 28-29
    Table 4. Phase 1: Planning
    Option Description
    Phase Phase 1: Planning
    Original end date Jun 25 (Wed)

    (The day before the Phase 2 start date)
    Adjusted end date Jun 25 (Wed)

    (a working day, no adjustment needed)
    Original start date Jun 16 (Mon)

    (10 days from the phase's adjusted end date, includes weekends and holidays)
    Adjusted start date Jun 11 (Wed)

    (excludes weekends and holidays, see the End date calculation)
    Key dates Midpoint: On 5th working day from the phase's adjusted start – Jun 17 (Tue)

    (a working day, no adjustment needed)
    Original duration 10 days

    Jun 16 (Wed) – Jun 25 (Wed)
    Adjusted duration 15 days (10 working days + 5 non-working days)

    Jun 11 (Wed) – Jun 25 (Wed)
    End date calculation Working days: 10
    • Jun 25–23 (Wed–Mon): 3 days.
    • Jun 20 (Fri): 1 day (total 4 days).
    • Jun 18–16 (Wed-Mon): 3 days (total 7 days).
    • Jun 13–11 (Fri-Wed): 3 days (total 10 days).
    Non-working days: 5
    • 1 holiday skipped: Jun 19 (Juneteenth)
    • 2 weekends skipped: Jun 21-22; Jun 14-15
    Summary Timeline

    The timeline extends beyond the 70-days original duration to account for weekends and associated holiday schedule, but the phase durations remain fixed in working days.

    Table 5. Summary of release timeline
    Option Description
    Original calendar span Jul 8 to Sep 5

    Calendar view of a release timeline without considering any holidays and weekends.
    Adjusted span, excluding non-working days Jun 11 to Sep 5

    Calendar view of a release timeline considering associated holiday schedule and weekends.
    Original release duration 60 working days
    Adjusted release duration 87 calendar days
    Non-Working Days 87 – 60 = 27 days (12 weekends + 3 holidays)