Combined Field Service Management release notes for upgrades from Yokohama to Australia

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated May 4, 2026
  • 20 minutes to read
  • Consolidated page of all release notes for Field Service Management from Yokohama to Australia.

    How to use this page

    To help you prepare for your upgrade, we have combined the cross-family Field Service Management release notes onto one page. Read this summary of the new features, changes, and updated information for your product from Yokohama to Australia.

    Tip:
    If there were no updates for a release notes section in a certain family release, we included a short note for your reference. For example, if a product did not have any updates in Tokyo, the row says "No updates for this release."

    Important information for upgrading Field Service Management to Australia

    Before you upgrade to Australia, review these pre- and post-upgrade tasks and complete the tasks as needed.

    Release Release notes

    Yokohama

    • Upgrading to Yokohama may extend the upgrade maintenance time of a customer due to Appointment Booking. The Appointment Booking configuration tables get extended to the Application File [sys_metadata] table as a part of the upgrade. After upgrading to Yokohama, re-parenting occurs automatically and the duration of the re-parenting depends on the number of records in Application File [sys_metadata] table.
    • Effective March 1, 2025, Google has designated the Places API, Directions API, and Distance Matrix API as Legacy services. The newer versions of these services are Places API (New) and Routes API. You can’t enable or generate new API keys for these legacy services. However, you can continue using these services with the existing API keys. If you need to create a new Google API key after March 1, 2025, you must enable the new APIs from Google Console and upgrade to Yokohama Patch 3 version or higher to ensure compatibility.

    Zurich

    Effective March 1, 2025, the Google Places API, Directions API, and Distance Matrix API have been designated as legacy services. The newer versions of these services are Places API (New) and Routes API. Google Maps APIs for Field Service capabilities uses the latest version of the APIs in the Zurich release and Dispatcher Workspace version 8.0. To help avoid issues with the Google Maps APIs, enable Places API (New) and Routes API from Google Cloud Platform Console.

    Australia

    No updates for this release.

    New features

    Between your current release family and Australia, new features were introduced for Field Service Management.

    Release Release notes

    Yokohama

    Dispatcher Workspace
    Use Dispatcher Workspace to perform the following tasks:
    • View the Field Service agent’s real-time location and completed daily route.
    • Use a condition builder to filter relevant resources. You can also extend existing tables to filter custom fields.
    • Use advanced filters with hierarchical structures to filter territories.
    • View task scheduling conflict messages in the Dispatcher Workspace to improve visibility and facilitate resolutions for dispatchers.
    Field Service Agent Efficiency
    Use Agent Efficiency to perform the following tasks:
    • Define the agent efficiency criteria to calculate the Agent Efficiency for a task.
    • Calculate the estimated work duration for a work order task more accurately based on the Agent Efficiency feature.
    • Enhance manual task assignment and dynamic scheduling for a task by leveraging Agent Efficiency.
    • Optimize Intelligent Task Recommendation by incorporating Agent Efficiency values so that dispatchers can assign tasks more effectively.
    Appointment Booking
    Use Appointment Booking to perform the following tasks:
    • Replicate the application and service-based configurations across instances.
    • Grade the appointment booking slots by recommended or available slots to ensure optimal scheduling.
    • Use the seismic appointment booking calendar across all user interfaces to ensure a consistent and seamless scheduling experience.
    Task dependencies
    Use task dependencies to perform the following tasks:
    • Enable administrators and dispatchers to define advanced task dependencies, such as start together or start after start, so that you can ensure that tasks are executed in the right order.
    • Enable dispatchers to create task dependencies within or between work orders.
    Schedule Optimization
    Use Schedule Optimization to perform the following tasks:
    • Enable dispatchers to optimize resource assignments that are based on the dependency relationship between tasks.
    • Generate more accurate scheduling and assist your field technicians in navigating traffic conditions more effectively by configuring Schedule Optimization. You can consider time-of-day and set up intraday scheduling to leverage real-time traffic data when certain conditions are met.
    • Use new optimization features, such as Maximize consecutive collocated task assignments and Minimize task start times, when you're creating a policy.
    • Provide greater control over task distribution by enabling a new drip feed property, Number of tasks, to enhance your scheduling capabilities.
    • Expect more reliable and efficient task scheduling due to resolved conflicts between the various scheduling engines.
    • View the task scheduling conflict messages on the task, user, and group records when optimization is in progress.
    Capacity and Reservations Management
    Use Capacity and Reservations Management to perform the following tasks:
    • Leverage the capacity console to efficiently manage resource allocation across territories and demand channels so that you can enable your teams to analyze field technician performance and make data-driven decisions.
    • Set flexible reservation rules to define the minimum and maximum resource allocations so that you can enable dynamic adjustments to capacity based on shifting demands.
    • Create recurring capacity assignments for specific days of the week for long-term capacity planning and management.
    • Enable multiple overrides for the same date range to address demand fluctuations so that you can manage exceptions with more precision and flexibility.
    Scheduling Health dashboard
    Use the Scheduling Health dashboard to view these additional Schedule Optimization metrics:
    • Tasks without skills
    • Technicians without skills
    • Tasks without parts
    • Technicians without parts
    Business location-based work management
    Enable your staff across various industries to efficiently manage work orders. Your employees can resolve tasks that are specific to their assigned location, while your managers can oversee the tasks across their assigned locations. You can reinforce your security by ensuring that your staff can only access the work orders that are related to their designated locations.
    Managing agents and tasks from Workforce
    Use Workforce to perform the following tasks:
    • Enable additional users to use Workforce by adding additional managers to assignment groups.
    • Enable managers to view the event management tab when Workforce Optimization for Field Service is active.
    Smart Assessment for Field Service Questionnaire
    Use Smart Assessment templates to perform the following tasks:
    • Migrate from a survey-based questionnaire to Smart Assessment based questionnaires.
    • Create work order questionnaires.
    • Set up detailed instructions that include rich text and images.
    • Configure conditional questions based on responses of all other types of questions and across sections.
    • Allow additional comments or attachments on a question's response.
    • Improve the work order questionnaire in the Mobile Agent® application by implementing a paginated layout, providing instructions with questions, and offering in-line choices.
    Planned Work Management
    Seamlessly migrate monthly and annual plans from Planned Maintenance to Planned Work Management.

    Zurich

    Using Dispatcher Workspace
    Use Dispatcher Workspace to perform the following tasks:
    • Use the advanced resource filter to sort contractors and equipment.
    • Add agents to Dispatcher Workspace to see their schedules, or assign them tasks if you manage the assignment group or territory they're a part of. This action can be done without loading the entire assignment group or territory that the agent is a member of.
    • Set up the calendar to use multiple time zones at once. For more information, see Show multiple time zones.
    • Navigate from a work order task to a related list of smart assessments that are associated with that work order.
    Assigning WOTs manually
    Use the records page to perform the following tasks that was limited to Dispatcher Workspace before:
    • Flag a work order task.
    • Use assignment assistance.
    Schedule Optimization
    Use Schedule Optimization to do the following:
    • Initiate immediate optimization to adjust schedules and tasks when an in-day event occurs, like a new priority 1 task, a canceled task, an agent taking PTO, or an agent running late.
    • Assign the best agent for a work order task based on agent efficiency, which helps schedule and assign tasks more appropriately, using Field Service Agent Efficiency.
    • Define work, travel, and overtime penalty values for each agent so the optimization engine can either schedule a nearby agent with a higher penalty or a distant agent with a lower penalty.

    • Improve task scheduling by assigning dependent tasks to a single technician within the same shift.
    Workforce
    Enable managers to show or hide work order tasks from the Calendars tab in Workforce. When Workforce Optimization for Field Service is enabled, these tasks can also be viewed in Hybrid and Map views.
    Field Service Scheduling
    Manage resource attributes for any duration, whether a single day or multiple days.
    Appointment Booking
    Use Appointment Booking to do the following:
    • Enable better control over task sequencing using new dependency types, such as 'Finish to Start - Same Day' and 'Finish Together' with lag options, integrated with appointment booking for more precise scheduling. Enhance operational insight for all roles through improved visualizations including dependency trees, conflict alerts, and task indicators, which support dispatcher decisions and technician execution.
    • Optimize appointment recommendations by allowing radius configuration at the territory level, tailored to diverse areas, such as urban versus rural. This capability includes an extension point for customers to implement custom radius logic with default instance-level values if no specific configuration is set.
    • Enhance appointment recommendations by allowing grading against user-defined similar services rather than identical ones, resulting in more versatile scheduling options. This feature includes an extension point for customers to specify which services they consider similar, and the system defaults to same-catalog matching if no custom configuration is provided.
    • Increase scheduling flexibility with new features to support slot overlap and overrides. This capability enables territory-based customization of appointment windows, default schedules, and specific slot-level overrides, giving more control over availability.

    Australia

    Dispatcher Workspace
    Dispatcher Workspace now enables you to perform the following tasks:
    • Show multiple time zones on the map in Dispatcher Workspace with a segmented time indicator to see which time zone each Field Service technician is in. For more information, see Time zones.
    • Quickly see a work order task in the task panel and find it on the calendar rather than having to search through multiple days. For more information, see Open tasks from the task list.
    • See live traffic on the map in Dispatcher Workspace. For more information, see Show map overlays in Dispatcher Workspace.
    • Flag multiple tasks at once. For more information, see Flag or unflag tasks from the list.
    • Quickly find tasks in the calendar from the task list. For more information, see Flag or unflag tasks from the list.
    • View analytics, including the number of technicians without a work schedule or valid location. For more information, see Scheduling Health dashboard.
    • Show an overtime indicator on the calendar to visually see which technicians have overtime tasks. For more information, see Show overtime indicator.
    • Control the size of the cells on the calendar to see shorter tasks more easily. For more information, see Zoom in or out on the calendar.
    Field Service Manager Mobile
    Field Service Managers can do their work from anywhere on their mobile device, including the following tasks:
    Locations on personal events
    See locations for personal events regardless of where they're created in Field Service Management applications including Dispatcher Workspace and Field Service Manager Mobile.
    ServiceNow Agent mobile app
    • Generate work summary reports and capture signatures in them at the work order task level along with the existing work order level. Additionally, you can view responses and score information for the smart assessment questionnaires in the work summary report.
    • Perform asset audits for the technician's personal stockroom to verify and reconcile assets between a physical stockroom and the data on the ServiceNow instance.
    Respond to a reviewed work order task
    View and resubmit smart assessment questionnaire responses that need additional information, enabling more informed and timely corrections of responses from job sites.
    Schedule Optimization
    Enhance scheduling accuracy and performance with Schedule Optimization
    • View comprehensive details for all optimization runs to quickly identify issues. Access standardized information about run status, included tasks and qualifiers, unassigned tasks with explanations, and the objectives and constraints applied during each optimization.
    • Manage integrations more easily by configuring options to enable or disable third-party map providers beyond the default provider.
    • Leverage all available trainers to reduce processing time and accelerate end-to-end scheduling for high-volume scenarios by splitting qualifiers into non-overlapping sets and running multiple optimization jobs in parallel.
    • Improve scheduling accuracy by introducing a Window End Buffer Duration field on the Work Order task record that enables you to configure a buffer duration that extends optimization beyond the defined window end so tasks are retained in the schedule.
    • Ensure only relevant tasks are processed by removing intraday events that don't meet specified criteria from both scheduled and prioritized optimization runs.
    • Improve optimization control by applying matching rules to intraday events by accessing them in the Table field on Matching Rules.
    • Reduce processing time for high-volume scheduling by splitting qualifiers into non-overlapping groups to run multiple optimization jobs in parallel across available trainers. View how qualifiers are grouped using the Job Distribution column in both batch and intraday runs.
    Appointment Booking
    Use Appointment Booking to perform the following tasks:
    • Ensure better alignment with your operations by defining advanced lead time and cut-off logic through APIs or extension points. You can implement a custom script through an extension point based on job type, time of day, and day of week.
    • Accommodate emergencies or priorities even if the capacity or appointment slots are full by enabling overbooking of appointments.
    • Configure appointment slots to consider the holiday settings for a territory and display the available slots accordingly.
    • Ensure guaranteed appointment slots by configuring availability checks to be performed at the time of slot retrieval so that any slot displayed is assured to be bookable without needing further capacity validation during the appointment booking.
    • Ensure an accurate calculation of the duration for a task while booking an appointment by defining work and travel duration either in the appointment schedule configuration or in the schedule override configuration.
    • Determine appointment availability using territory and demand channel mapping when contact or location details are not provided.
    • Consider task dependencies while booking or rescheduling appointments and display the slots for the successor tasks after the estimated completion time including the defined lag time for the predecessor task.
    ServiceNow product tiers
    The ServiceNow AI Platform now brings you a new AI experience with three licensing tiers available:
    • Foundation: AI basics to deliver insights
    • Advanced: AI to boost productivity across relevant use cases
    • Prime: Act autonomously with all AI assets, and create your own

    Depending on your license, you will have access to certain application features, generative AI skills, agentic workflows, and AI agents.

    Changes

    Between your current release family and Australia, some changes were made to existing Field Service Management features.

    Release Release notes

    Yokohama

    SLAs in Dispatcher Workspace
    The SLAs breached query on the Dispatcher Dashboard in Dispatcher Workspace has been updated to look at the SLAs that are associated with the work order tasks only instead of the work orders and work order tasks. The SLA breached counter on the task cards is also static, instead of real time. For more information on changing the SLA timer on task cards, see the Enable the SLA timer on work order task cards property on Configure settings for Dispatcher Workspace.
    Assignment groups and territories in Dispatcher Workspace
    You must save the default assignment groups or territories in Dispatcher Workspace to load when you open Dispatcher Workspace. If you don’t have the defaults saved, then you must select the assignment groups or territories to appear every time you open Dispatcher Workspace. This change is made to improve the performance of Dispatcher Workspace. For more information on saving the default assignment groups, see the Groups section on the General tab on Enable Dispatcher Workspace settings. For information on saving default territories, see Select Territories in Dispatcher Workspace. Administrators can disable this by setting the sn_fsm_disp_wrkspc.enableEmptyState system property to false.
    Work order questionnaire
    Availability of inline choices for a question and the ability to add additional information for a question when completing a work order questionnaire through the Now Mobile Agent application.
    Role to access opportunities
    The Opportunity Writer sn_opty_mgmt_core.opportunity_writer role has been replaced with the Opportunity Contributor sn_opty_mgmt_core.opportunity_contributor role. Field service technicians can use the new Opportunity Contributor[sn_opty_mgmt_core.opportunity_contributor role to create and view opportunities.
    Google Maps APIs for Field Service Capabilities
    Upgrade to the new Places API (new) and Routes API for Field Service Capabilities.

    Effective March 1, 2025, Google has designated the Places API, Directions API, and Distance Matrix API as Legacy services. The newer versions of these services are Places API (New) and Routes API.

    You can’t enable or generate new API keys for these legacy services. However, you can continue using these services with the existing API keys. Enable the new APIs from Google Console to continue using the API services without any issues.

    If you create a new Google API key after March 1, 2025, enable the new APIs from Google Console to use these services with the new API keys.

    For more information see, KB2111488, KB2112054, and Changes to Google Maps Platform automatic volume discounts, monthly credit, and services transitioning to Legacy status.

    Zurich

    Capacity and Reservations Management

    Use the aggregated schedules of all agents of a territory to allocate resources until a specified cut-off date, after which predicted capacity can be used for bookings. This feature optimizes resource utilization and capacity management for a territory, which helps ensure that business services remain available without overburdening resources.

    Google Maps APIs for  Field Service  capabilities

    Effective March 1, 2025, Google has designated the Places API, Directions API, and Distance Matrix API as Legacy services. The newer versions of these services are Places API (New) and Routes API. You can’t generate new API keys for these legacy services. However, you can continue using these services with the existing API keys. If you create a Google API key after March 2025, you must upgrade to a supported ServiceNow release version to verify compatibility.

    Smart Assessment for Field Service
    Use Smart Assessment for Field Service to do the following:
    • Streamline asset identification and data entry by scanning and capturing barcode values directly within a work order questionnaire.
    • Configure a predefined range for numeric inputs to minimize errors and help ensure data accuracy.
    • View completed questionnaires in the workspace.
    • Create follow-up work order tasks from a work order questionnaire based on the responses.
    • Allow users to retry or replace an attachment if the upload is unsuccessful.
    Field Service Scheduling
    Migrates data from the Work Parameter table to the Resource Schedule Attribute table for each technician, confirming that work parameters align with the new schedule attributes.

    Australia

    https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=external.sn-app-store&family=australia&ft:locale=en-US
    The following plugins are planned for deprecation in the C release. Beginning with the Australia release this plugin will be migrated to a store application. Upgrade your instance to Australia or later release versions and the store applications will be automatically installed.
    Beginning with the Australia release, the following applications have been moved to the https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=external.sn-app-store&family=australia&ft:locale=en-US. Any application enhancements will be delivered through the related store app.
    Google maps ID
    The google.maps.map_id system property enables Field Service Management to use Google Maps for cloud-based map styling, vector mapping, and advanced markers. You must obtain your own map ID.

    Removed

    Between your current release family and Australia, some Field Service Management features or functionality were removed.

    Release Release notes

    Yokohama

    The approval for new requests workflow was removed from the Field Service Management Business Process configuration. Existing customers that use this workflow are unaffected. New customers can use ServiceNow® Workflow Studio to build the approval for the new requests workflow. For more information on Workflow Studio, see Flow Designer.

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    No updates for this release.

    Deprecations

    Between your current release family and Australia, some Field Service Management features or functionality were deprecated.

    Release Release notes

    Yokohama

    • Starting with the Yokohama release, Approval Workflow for FSM is being prepared for future deprecation. It will be hidden and no longer activated on new instances but will continue to be supported. For details, see the Deprecation Process [KB0867184] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base.
    • Starting with the Zurich release, the Enable capacity constraint for Schedule Optimization is being prepared for future deprecation. It will be no longer be applied for Schedule Optimization. For details, see the Deprecation Process [KB0867184] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base.

    Zurich

    • Non-collapsed mode is being deprecated and removed from Dispatcher Workspace. Dispatchers must use collapsed mode to see available resources in Dispatcher Workspace.
    • Starting with the Zurich release, the Enable capacity constraint for Schedule Optimization is being deprecated. It will no longer be applied for Schedule Optimization. For details, see the Deprecation Process [KB0867184] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base.

    Australia

    No updates for this release.

    Activation information

    Review information on how to activate Field Service Management.

    Release Release notes

    Yokohama

    Field Service Management is a ServiceNow AI Platform feature that is active by default.

    Leverage advanced features of Appointment Booking, such as the appointment slot recommendation, by activating the Advanced Appointment Booking (com.snc.advanced_appointment_booking) plugin.

    Define the task dependencies for a work order task and schedule tasks based on the dependency by activating the Field Service Task Dependencies (com.snc.fsm_task_dependency) plugin.

    Integrate agent efficiency metrics with Field Service Management to define and use the efficiency of agents to estimate the work duration for tasks by activating the FSM Agent Efficiency (com.snc.fsm_agent_efficiency​) plugin.

    Zurich

    Field Service Management is a ServiceNow AI Platform feature that is active by default.

    Australia

    Field Service Management is a ServiceNow AI Platform feature that is active by default.

    Additional requirements

    If any additional requirements were introduced or changed for Field Service Management we have noted them here.

    Release Release notes

    Yokohama

    No updates for this release.

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    No updates for this release.

    Browser requirements

    If any specific browser requirements were introduced or changed for Field Service Management we have noted them here.

    Release Release notes

    Yokohama

    No updates for this release.

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    No updates for this release.

    Accessibility information

    Review details on accessibility information for Field Service Management, such as specific requirements or compliance levels.

    Release Release notes

    Yokohama

    No updates for this release.

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    No updates for this release.

    Localization information

    If there are specific localization considerations for Field Service Management we have noted them here.

    Release Release notes

    Yokohama

    No updates for this release.

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    No updates for this release.

    Highlight information

    If there are specific highlight considerations for Field Service Management we have noted them here.

    Release Release notes

    Yokohama

    • Define configurable rules that you can use to derive recommendation scores and optimize your appointment booking slots.
    • Create advanced dependency relationships among tasks to enhance scheduling accuracy.
    • Optimize your task assignments by using dependencies that align with the overall objectives and constraints of your resource allocation.
    • Streamline your capacity and resource management by using enhanced visualization in the Capacity Console.
    • Calculate the work duration for a work order task more accurately by using the Agent Efficiency feature.

    See Field Service Management for more information.

    Zurich

    • Use the aggregated agent schedule to optimize the allocation of resources for a territory up to the specified cut-off date.
    • Flag a task or use assignment assistance directly from the Work Order Task page to streamline task management.
    • Configure Schedule Optimization to instantly adjust technician schedules in response to real-time events, like new priority 1 tasks, task cancellations, paid time off requests, or delays.

    See Field Service Management for more information.

    Australia

    • Increase productivity by Field Service Managers, who can do their work from anywhere on their mobile device with Field Service Manager Mobile.
    • Allow overbooking in priority cases, consider holidays at the territory level, enable flexible sourcing for work and travel times, and consider task dependencies when scheduling or rescheduling appointments through advanced lead-time management.
    • Determine appointment availability without specific contact or location information by using territory and demand channel mapping through APIs.
    • View run summaries in Schedule Optimization to understand what was evaluated during scheduling, including objectives, constraints, travel mode, and assignment outcomes.
    • Review the Field Service Management features and activation plugins now available through the ServiceNow Store application. For more details, see the "Changed in the Release" section.

    See Field Service Management for more information.