Combined ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) release notes for upgrades from Zurich to Australia

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated August 11, 2026
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of Combined ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) Release Notes for Upgrades from Zurich to Australia

    This consolidated guide provides ServiceNow customers with essential information on upgrading ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) from the Zurich release to the Australia release. It highlights new features, changes, activation steps, and important upgrade considerations to help ensure a smooth transition and maximize the value of the latest improvements.

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    Key Features

    • Now Assist Enhancements: Activate the 'External Content Connectors' plugin and install the ‘ServiceNow Product Documentation’ connector to enable Now Assist to provide detailed descriptions of Configuration Items (CIs) and classes. This improves contextual help and user productivity.
    • Assess CMDB Impact Workflow: A new agentic workflow analyzes the potential impact of changes or incidents by identifying upstream services and CIs likely affected, using dependency topology and change nature to provide structured impact reasoning.
    • Service Graph Connector (SGC) Recommendations: Now Assist can recommend the best data sources or Service Graph Connectors to populate CMDB data based on the CI class name you provide, helping select appropriate integrations.
    • Business Application Candidate Agent: Uses AI clustering to discover and suggest business applications to associate with existing application services in the CMDB, reducing manual effort and improving data governance.
    • CMDB Readiness Summaries: AI-generated summaries of the CMDB success advisor for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) dashboard highlight data accuracy, completeness, and health with suggested remediation actions.
    • Enhanced CI Form Interaction: Now Assist skills answer questions about CI classes and attributes directly within CI forms, dashboards, and workspace views for more efficient data handling.
    • Advanced CMDB Searches: Support for relationship-based searches spanning multiple tables, allowing complex queries such as identifying servers dependent on specific databases with defined characteristics.
    • Service Graph Database Search: Automated analysis of search criteria with intelligent selection of search methods and the ability to refine results using natural language through Now Assist.

    Important Changes

    • The Provide advice on CMDB governance workflow now requires the admin or systemscheduleradmin role.
    • The Create configuration item workflow role requirement changed from sncmdbeditor to sncmdbadmin.
    • AI skills executing in the Now Assist panel now require both the cmdbdedupadmin and nowassistpaneluser roles.

    Activation and Installation

    To use ServiceNow Otto for CMDB in Australia, request installation from the ServiceNow Store. Additionally, to enable enhanced Now Assist capabilities, activate the 'External Content Connectors' plugin and install the ‘ServiceNow Product Documentation’ connector, then perform product documentation crawling as per configuration instructions.

    Additional Notes

    • There are no removals or deprecations between Zurich and Australia releases for this product.
    • No changes to browser requirements, accessibility, or localization were noted.
    • The Australia Patch 1 introduced an AI native experience with three licensing tiers, supporting AI-powered dynamic Incident and Request Event (IRE) processes and automated de-duplication task resolution.

    What to Expect

    By upgrading to the Australia release, you gain AI-driven insights, improved automation, and enhanced search and governance capabilities within the CMDB. These improvements reduce manual efforts, increase data quality, and provide actionable recommendations, enabling better configuration management and operational decision-making.

    Consolidated page of all release notes for ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) from Zurich to Australia.

    How to use this page

    To help you prepare for your upgrade, we have combined the cross-family ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) release notes onto one page. Read this summary of the new features, changes, and updated information for your product from Zurich 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 ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) to Australia

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

    Release Release notes

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    To enable Now Assist to provide detailed descriptions of CIs and classes, you must activate the 'External Content Connectors' plugin, install the ‘ServiceNow Product Documentation’ connector, and then crawl the product documentation. For configuration instructions, see Configure the CI form contextual help skill.

    New features

    Between your current release family and Australia, new features were introduced for ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB).

    Release Release notes

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    Australia Patch 4
    Analyzing the impact of a change or incident
    The Assess CMDB Impact agentic workflow identifies the upstream services and CIs that are likely to be affected by an incident or by a proposed change. The workflow reasons about propagation likelihood based on CMDB dependency topology and the nature of the change. The workflow returns a structured list with impact levels and the reasoning.
    Determine which SGC to use
    Sometimes you're not sure which integration to use to capture CI data. When you provide Now Assist with the name of a particular CI class, it can recommend the data sources or Service Graph Connectors and ingestion sources that can best populate CMDB data.
    Business application candidate agent
    The Business application candidate agent discovers and suggests business applications to associate with existing application services in the CMDB, reducing manual mapping effort and improving data governance. The agent uses AI clustering and feedback loops to propose business application candidates for your review.
    Australia Patch 1
    Summarize CMDB readiness
    View an AI-generated summary of the CMDB success advisor for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) dashboard data. The summary highlights the key findings on CMDB data accuracy, completeness, and health, and suggests remediation actions to address the findings.
    View CI details on CI forms
    The skill answers your questions on CI classes and attributes to help you work in CI forms, dashboards, home pages, and other views on the workspace. You can submit similar queries on the Explore CI view.
    CMDB searches can include relationships
    Search queries can depend on relationships between CIs and can span multiple tables. For example, you might ask: "Search for servers that depend on databases - only Linux servers running Redhat".
    Search the Service Graph database
    ServiceNow Otto for CMDB analyzes your search criteria, identifies implicit filters, determines the optimum search method (keyword search or query generation), queries Service Graph data, and then displays the results. You then have the option to refine the search using natural language in the Now Assist panel.

    Changes

    Between your current release family and Australia, some changes were made to existing ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) features.

    Release Release notes

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    Australia Patch 5
    Now Assist > ServiceNow Otto announcement
    Australia Patch 4
    Get advice on CMDB governance
    Correction to the required role for the Provide advice on CMDB governance agentic workflow. The admin or system_scheduler_admin role is required.
    New role required for the Create configuration item agentic workflow
    The sn_cmdb_admin role is now required to use the 'Create configuration item' agentic workflow (was sn_cmdb_editor).
    Skills now also require the now_assist_panel_user role
    AI skills that execute in the Now Assist panel now require both the cmdb_dedup_admin and now_assist_panel_user roles.

    Removed

    Between your current release family and Australia, some ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) features or functionality were removed.

    Release Release notes

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    No updates for this release.

    Deprecations

    Between your current release family and Australia, some ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) features or functionality were deprecated.

    Release Release notes

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    No updates for this release.

    Activation information

    Review information on how to activate ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB).

    Release Release notes

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    Install ServiceNow Otto for CMDB by requesting it from the ServiceNow Store.

    Additional requirements

    If any additional requirements were introduced or changed for ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) we have noted them here.

    Release Release notes

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    No updates for this release.

    Browser requirements

    If any specific browser requirements were introduced or changed for ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) we have noted them here.

    Release Release notes

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    No updates for this release.

    Accessibility information

    Review details on accessibility information for ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB), such as specific requirements or compliance levels.

    Release Release notes

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    No updates for this release.

    Localization information

    If there are specific localization considerations for ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) we have noted them here.

    Release Release notes

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    No updates for this release.

    Highlight information

    If there are specific highlight considerations for ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) we have noted them here.

    Release Release notes

    Zurich

    No updates for this release.

    Australia

    Australia Patch 1 The ServiceNow AI Platform now brings you an AI native experience with three licensing tiers available.

    • Get an AI-generated summary of the CMDB success advisor for HAM dashboard, with key findings on CMDB data accuracy, completeness, and health and the suggested remediation actions.
    • Compare your current manual (static) IRE processes with AI-powered Dynamic IRE.

    • Automate the actions that a user would typically make for de-duplication tasks using the de-duplication task resolution assistant skill.
    • Search the Service Graph database using natural language.
    • Dive deeply into CI and class information while working in CI forms, dashboards, home pages, and other views on the workspace.

    See ServiceNow Otto for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) for more information.