Developer Sandboxes release notes
Summarize
Summary of Developer Sandboxes release notes
The ServiceNow Developer Sandboxes application allows administrators and delegated developers to request, access, and manage individual sandboxes on a shared underlying development instance. The Australia release introduces enhancements to improve sandbox management, administration, and integration with AI Search and other ServiceNow development tools.
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Key Features
- Granular Roles: New roles provide developers with administrative and configuration capabilities without requiring full admin permissions, enhancing security and role management.
- AI Search Support: AI Search now maintains separate indices for each sandbox environment, ensuring accurate search functionality during development. This integration is supported only in non-production environments.
- UI Enhancements: Improved sandbox initialization feedback includes error status messages on the instance home page and hides the Developer Sandboxes home page when the product is inactive.
- Upgrade Improvements: Sandbox recreation and automatic backup of update sets post-upgrade are now reliable, resolving prior issues. Queuing for successive sandbox creation enhances performance when multiple sandboxes are provisioned consecutively.
- SSO for Vanity URLs: Instances using vanity URLs support Single Sign-On, simplifying user authentication.
- Schema Change Isolation: Schema changes on shared tables trigger isolation of those tables on sandboxes, ensuring configuration consistency without impacting other environments.
- New Vibe Coding Documentation: Introduction of documentation for vibe coding, a natural language approach to application development on the ServiceNow platform, complements AI-powered development tools.
- New Plugin - Dev Sandboxes CC: Supports clone preservation to maintain settings when cloning instances with sandboxes.
Deprecated Features
Data generation profiles and templates have been deprecated as of the Brazil release. Upon upgrade, all related data generation metadata and records are deleted, and the plugin is disabled. Sandbox initialization no longer depends on data generation logic. Customers are encouraged to use the Now Assist Data Kit as an alternative.
Activation and Related Tools
- Contact your ServiceNow account manager to install the Developer Sandboxes application.
- Developer Sandboxes integrates with several ServiceNow development environments and tools, including ServiceNow IDE, SDK, Studio, and Workflow Studio, facilitating streamlined application development and workflow management.
The ServiceNow® Developer Sandboxes application enables your administrators and delegated developers to request, access, and manage the individual sandboxes on top of the same underlying development instance. Developer Sandboxes was enhanced and updated in the Australia release.
Developer Sandboxes highlights for the Australia release
- Upgrading an instance recreates sandboxes and backs up any update sets.
- A new plugin supports clone preservation when cloning an instance with sandboxes.
See Developer Sandboxes for more information.
New in the Australia release
- New granular roles for administration
- Several new granular roles enable developers to complete administrative and configuration tasks without requiring the full admin role.
- Support for separate indices for AI Search
- AI Search (AIS) now maintains separate indices for each sandbox environment, ensuring development activities that rely on AIS are correctly supported.Note:The AIS integration with Developer Sandboxes is supported only on non-production environments.
UI changes
- Clarified sandbox initialization status
- An error status message now appears on the instance home page when there’s an initialization error when allocating a sandbox.
- Developer Sandboxes home page hidden when product is inactive
- The Developer Sandboxes home page is unavailable when Developer Sandboxes is inactive on an instance.
Changed in this release
- Australia Early Availability
- Upgrade enhancements
- After an upgrade, Developer Sandboxes now recreates the sandboxes on an instance and automatically backs up update sets to the base instance.
- Queuing for successive sandbox creation
- To improve performance, Developer Sandboxes has implemented queuing when multiple sandboxes are created in succession.
- SSO support for vanity URLs
- Instances with vanity URLs can now support Single Sign-On (SSO).
- Schema change for shared tables isolates the table
- To ensure configuration consistency, if you make a schema change, such as adding a column, to a shared table, the table now becomes an isolated table on the sandbox that initiated the schema change.
- New vibe coding documentation
- Documentation is now available that introduces vibe coding, which is a natural language approach to application development in ServiceNow, including how to get started, when to use it, and how it fits within the broader suite of AI-powered development tools.
Deprecated features
- All data generation metadata and non-metadata records are automatically deleted.
- The data generation plugin is no longer discoverable.
- All references to data generation will be removed from sandbox templates.
- Sandbox initialization will operate independently of data generation logic.
Activation information
Contact your ServiceNow account manager to install Developer Sandboxes.
Plugin information
- New plugin
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The following plugin is new in Australia:
Dev Sandboxes CC (com.glide.dsb.cc): A new plugin is available for clone preservers, which preserve settings when you clone an instance.