Upgrade information for all Australia features and products
Cumulative release notes summary on upgrade information for Australia features and products.
| Application or feature | Details |
|---|---|
| AI Control Tower | Not applicable. |
| AI Desktop Actions | Upgrade the currently installed AI Desktop Actions Software Installers (MSIs) by downloading and installing the newer version of the application. Make sure to close the current execution and close the desktop app before staring the installation for upgrade. For more information, see Download AI Desktop Actions installer. |
| Application Manager | Application Manager is active by default on instances on the Australia release. Upgrade your instance to Australia patch 4 or later to use the latest features. For information about upgrading your ServiceNow AI Platform instance, see Prepare your upgrade. |
| Application Vulnerability Response |
|
| Asset Audit Response | The Australia release introduces enhanced protections for read‑only fields across the ServiceNow AI Platform®. These changes include a new “read_only_option” field with granular control levels, including “strict_read_only” and “client_script_modifiable". The changes occur in the back end and maintain backward‑compatible behavior. This update helps strengthen your instance security while preserving the flexibility you need. Refer to KB2718122 for additional technical details on how to identify affected fields and adjust their settings. For more information about granular read-only security options, see Configuring read-only security options. |
| Care Team Operations for Biomed | The Australia release introduces enhanced protections for read‑only fields across the ServiceNow AI Platform®. These changes include a new “read_only_option” field with granular control levels, including “strict_read_only” and “client_script_modifiable". The changes occur in the back end and maintain backward‑compatible behavior. This update helps strengthen your instance security while preserving the flexibility you need. Refer to KB2718122 for additional technical details on how to identify affected fields and adjust their settings. For more information about granular read-only security options, see Configuring read-only security options. If you have the feature administrator role you can now complete tasks that were initially reserved for users with the broader administrator role. |
| Care Team Operations for Environmental Services | If you have the feature administrator role you can now complete tasks that were initially reserved for users with the broader administrator role. |
| Care Team Operations for Facilities | If you have the feature administrator role you can now complete tasks that were initially reserved for users with the broader administrator role. |
| Care Team Operations for Healthcare IT | The Australia release introduces enhanced protections for read‑only fields across the ServiceNow AI Platform®. These changes include a new “read_only_option” field with granular control levels, including “strict_read_only” and “client_script_modifiable". The changes occur in the back end and maintain backward‑compatible behavior. This update helps strengthen your instance security while preserving the flexibility you need. Refer to KB2718122 for additional technical details on how to identify affected fields and adjust their settings. For more information about granular read-only security options, see Configuring read-only security options. If you have the feature administrator role you can now complete tasks that were initially reserved for users with the broader administrator role. |
| Cloud Cost Management 10.0 | The Cloud Cost Management platform support is available beginning with the Xanadu release. For instructions on upgrading Cloud Cost Management to Australia, see Upgrade Cloud Cost Management. |
| Configuration Compliance | If you are currently using Configuration Compliance, and you do not intend to upgrade to Unified Security Exposure Management (USEM), install a version below v30.x of Configuration Compliance and for upgrades to supported third-party integration applications. The Missing Assets [sn_vul_wiz_missing_asset] table used for storing assets imported by the backfill integrations for the Vulnerability Response Integration with Wiz is deprecated. If you are currently using the Vulnerability Response with Wiz integrations, after updating to version 1.1, you must backdate any of your existing Wiz primary integrations by three days and run them. Please review more information about the Wiz integration at SecOps articles on the Security Operations Community. For more information about the released versions of the Vulnerability Response application as well as the third-party and ServiceNow applications that are compatible with the Australia release, see the Vulnerability Response Compatibility Matrix and Release Schema Changes [KB0856498] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base. |
| Configuration Management Database (CMDB) | Due to changes in the Configuration Item [cmdb_ci] table, if you're upgrading to Australia, you might experience an increased upgrade time. To learn more about this change and reducing its impact, see the Increased Australia Upgrade Time due to cmdb_ci composite index addition [KB2588894] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base. If you're upgrading from Xanadu or Yokohama directly to the Australia release, you must run the Remove CMDB Roles from ITIL roles and Add CUD access to sn_cmdb_admin/sn_cmdb_editor roles scheduled job to correctly configure some user roles, such as CMDB Admin and CMDB Editor. For more information about this scheduled job and its use, see the CMDB Zurich release notes. The Australia release introduces enhanced protections for read‑only fields across the ServiceNow AI Platform®. These changes include a new “read_only_option” field with granular control levels, including “strict_read_only” and “client_script_modifiable". The changes occur in the back end and maintain backward‑compatible behavior. This update helps strengthen your instance security while preserving the flexibility you need. Refer to KB2718122 for additional technical details on how to identify affected fields and adjust their settings. For more information about granular read-only security options, see Configuring read-only security options. |
| Container Vulnerability Response | Enhancements to Container Vulnerability Response permit you to see enriched container vulnerability data on data imports from your third-party scanners. After you upgrade, you must perform a full import to view the features on discovered container image, container image finding, and container vulnerable item records that are described in the following New in the Australia release section. If you're currently using Container Vulnerability Response, and you do not intend to upgrade to Unified Security Exposure Management (USEM), install a version below v30.x of Container Vulnerability Response and for upgrades to supported third-party integration applications. For more information about the released versions of the Container Vulnerability Response application as well as the third-party and ServiceNow applications that are compatible with the Australia release, see the Vulnerability Response Compatibility Matrix and Release Schema Changes [KB0856498] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base. |
| Core Business Suite |
|
| Customer Engagement Sequences | If you configured sequences with the Schedule call activity on a release before Zurich, the activity is now labeled Schedule call - Deprecated in the activity picker in Workflow Studio. Existing sequences continue to work, but the Call icon |
| Dispute Rules Content Pack for Mastercard | The Australia release adds 14 new data fields to the Authorization and Financial Transaction tables to support the new eligibility rules. The |
| Employee Center | The Australia release introduces enhanced protections for read‑only fields across the ServiceNow AI Platform®. These changes include a new “read_only_option” field with granular control levels, including “strict_read_only” and “client_script_modifiable". The changes occur in the back end and maintain backward‑compatible behavior. This update helps strengthen your instance security while preserving the flexibility you need. Refer to KB2718122 for additional technical details on how to identify affected fields and adjust their settings. For more information about granular read-only security options, see Configuring read-only security options. |
| Employee Center Pro | The Australia release introduces enhanced protections for read‑only fields across the ServiceNow AI Platform®. These changes include a new “read_only_option” field with granular control levels, including “strict_read_only” and “client_script_modifiable". The changes occur in the back end and maintain backward‑compatible behavior. This update helps strengthen your instance security while preserving the flexibility you need. Refer to KB2718122 for additional technical details on how to identify affected fields and adjust their settings. For more information about granular read-only security options, see Configuring read-only security options. |
| Flows, Subflows, and Actions | An earlier version of the save as you go feature was released and withdrawn from the Washington DC release. If you're upgrading from the Washington DC release, you might have manually turned off the save as you go features by setting a system property. To restore the save as you go features, see Restore save as you go functionality. The Australia release introduces enhanced protections for read‑only fields across the ServiceNow AI Platform®. These changes include a new “read_only_option” field with granular control levels, including “strict_read_only” and “client_script_modifiable". The changes occur in the back end and maintain backward‑compatible behavior. This update helps strengthen your instance security while preserving the flexibility you need. Refer to KB2718122 for additional technical details on how to identify affected fields and adjust their settings. For more information about granular read-only security options, see Configuring read-only security options. |
| Generative AI Controller | Generative AI Controller is installed or updated when you install or update a Now Assist application. If you have issues installing or updating applications, see this knowledge article or open a support case. |
| Hardware Asset Management |
|
| Healthcare Operations Core | The Australia release introduces enhanced protections for read‑only fields across the ServiceNow AI Platform®. These changes include a new “read_only_option” field with granular control levels, including “strict_read_only” and “client_script_modifiable". The changes occur in the back end and maintain backward‑compatible behavior. This update helps strengthen your instance security while preserving the flexibility you need. Refer to KB2718122 for additional technical details on how to identify affected fields and adjust their settings. For more information about granular read-only security options, see Configuring read-only security options. If you have the feature administrator role you can now complete tasks that were initially reserved for users with the broader administrator role. |
| Healthcare and Life Sciences Service Management Core | The Australia release introduces enhanced protections for read‑only fields across the ServiceNow AI Platform®. These changes include a new “read_only_option” field with granular control levels, including “strict_read_only” and “client_script_modifiable". The changes occur in the back end and maintain backward‑compatible behavior. This update helps strengthen your instance security while preserving the flexibility you need. Refer to KB2718122 for additional technical details on how to identify affected fields and adjust their settings. For more information about granular read-only security options, see Configuring read-only security options. If you have the feature administrator role you can now complete tasks that were initially reserved for users with the broader administrator role. |
| Impact | The Impact Store Application configuration requires a sequence of tasks in a unified registration process. See Configure the Impact Store Application. |
| Instance Data Replication | Log rotation is automatically enabled for the Replication Payload Error [idr_replication_payload_error] table after the upgrade. By default, the log rotation schedule is composed of seven shards, with five days for each shard. All log entries in this table that are created before the upgrade are automatically truncated. |
| Key Management |
|
| MID Server | For the latest MID Server system requirements, see MID Server system requirements. The minimum JRE version supported is 17.0.10 and the recommended version is 21.0.7. If you have installed your own JRE, the upgrade process takes the following actions to verify that the MID Server uses a supported JRE:
All MID Server host machines require access to the download site at install.service-now.com to enable auto-upgrades. For additional details, read how the system manages MID Server upgrades. Only one Windows MID Server service is permitted according to the executable path. Upgraded Windows MID Servers that have multiple services pointing to the same installation folder can’t start. See MID Server fails to start for more information. For more information about MID Server upgrades, see the following topics:
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| Now Assist | If you customized actions on the user interface or other items that are associated with Now Assist skills, confirm that your customized code is updated with the new skill releases. Otherwise, certain functions might not work as expected. If you run into issues when you're upgrading a Now Assist product, see the Issues and mitigation for Now Assist (generative AI) Applications and Plugin updates [KB1637452] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base. Log in to view the article. The Australia release introduces enhanced protections for read‑only fields across the ServiceNow AI Platform. These changes include a new read_only_option field with granular control levels, including strict_read_only and client_script_modifiable. The changes occur in the back end and maintain backward‑compatible
behavior. This update helps strengthen instance security while preserving flexibility. If you have custom client scripts that modify read‑only fields using The existing access control lists (ACLs) have been updated to replace the admin role with purpose-driven granular roles within scripts or security attributes. As part of this update, the
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| Now Assist for Configuration Management Database (CMDB) | 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. |
| Now Assist for Creator | Australia early availability
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| Now Assist for Employee Center Pro | Now Assist for Employee Center Pro only provides employee or requester conversations and might require other Now Assist products to deliver AI agents or other related features. |
| Now Assist for IT Service Management (ITSM) | To use the Knowledge Article Advanced Editor page in the generate a knowledge article skill, you must activate the knowledge content recommendation skill. Follow these steps to activate the skill.
The incident assist agentic workflow is active by default and includes all the capabilities of the [DEPRECATED] incident assist skill, with enhancements. When you upgrade to Australia Patch 1, if you have the [DEPRECATED] incident assist skill activated, consider deactivating it to avoid redundancy. For more information, see Incident assist skill. Starting with the Australia Patch 2, the Incident assist skill has been deprecated, moved to the Archive section, and is no longer available for use. |
| Operational Resilience | Beginning with Operational Resilience release 22.0.x, the following scheduled jobs are deactivated for new installations by default:
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| Performance Analyzer | Starting with the Zurich release, Performance Analyzer is available on your instance automatically. For access to Performance Analyzer for earlier instances, install Performance Analyzer from the ServiceNow® Store. |
| Platform Analytics experience | When upgrading, all Core UI reports and dashboards are identified as such in the library under the UI version column. Users can edit these legacy artifacts in the Report Builder and Dashboard Builder
applications. Note: Users who have not migrated their instances to Platform Analytics experience have the option to create dashboards and data visualizations in either Core UI or Next Experience. Next Experience is recommended. After upgrading, the Analytics Hub isn't available. Links to the Analytics Hub are redirected to KPI Details. |
| Playbook | After you upgrade to Australia, update the Workflow Studio application in the ServiceNow Store. |
| Product Catalog Management and Pricing Management | Pricing Management v16.0.0 provides a default pricing plan that includes changes to support pricing strategies introduced in this release. If you've been using a custom pricing plan from an earlier release, after upgrading to Pricing Management v16.0.0, the default pricing plan is in a Retired state. Determine whether you want to publish the default pricing plan for use or customize it. |
| Public Sector Digital Services | After the upgrade, certain public sector menus and menu items in CSM Configurable Workspace revert to their original CSM label names. You can relabel these items for public sector use by updating the labels for the Customer, Accounts, and Service Organizations UX list category records. For more details on relabeling, navigate to , and select . |
| RPA Hub | Upgrade any of these currently installed Microsoft Software Installers (MSIs) by downloading the RPA applications:
The following upgrade information is applicable only when you’re upgrading from San Diego or Tokyo to Australia. Based on the number of records in the application file table, you may experience a delay while upgrading the RPA Hub applications from Tokyo or earlier releases to Australia. Before upgrading RPA Hub to Australia, you must set the value of the glide.rollback.blacklist.TableParentChange.change system property to false. If this property doesn't exist in the System Property [sys_properties] table, add the property and set its value to false. For more information on how to add a property, see Add a system property. After you upgrade to Australia, the bot process definitions change to the new structure, which is the bot process configuration. Although the bot process configuration doesn't replace the bot process completely, most fields are moved from the bot process to the bot process configuration. If you upgrade to Australia without updating the system property value, the tables don’t extend the Application File [sys_metadata] table. To update the table changes manually, see the Restructuring RPA Hub tables to sys_metadata in Utah and beyond release [KB1223629] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base. |
| ReleaseOps | If you have customized the ReleaseOps sample playbooks, the runbook task playbook activity will not automatically populate when you upgrade to Australia. |
| SQL API | ServiceNow provided customers with a free SOAP‑based ODBC client. If you have an active RaptorDB Professional entitlement, you can migrate to the REST‑based SQL API client by completing the required configuration on both the server and client sides. For more information, see Configuring SQL API. |
| Service Exchange (formerly Service Bridge) | Important:
Do not upgrade your ServiceNow® instance to the Australia release if you rely on Service Exchange. A known RPS issue prevents Service Exchange from functioning correctly. Proceed with the upgrade only after Australia Patch 1 becomes available.
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| ServiceNow AI Platform core feature | The dynamic schema application framework was revised in the Zurich release. If you implemented dynamic schema in the Xanadu or Yokohama releases, the application is automatically migrated to a new framework as part of the upgrade to releases starting with the Zurich release. For details on the migration and steps you might need to perform, see the Dynamic Schema Zurich Migration Guide [KB2146133] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base. The Australia release introduces enhanced protections for read‑only fields across the ServiceNow AI Platform®. These changes include a new “read_only_option” field with granular control levels, including “strict_read_only” and “client_script_modifiable". The changes occur in the back end and maintain backward‑compatible behavior. This update helps strengthen your instance security while preserving the flexibility you need. Refer to KB2718122 for additional technical details on how to identify affected fields and adjust their settings. For more information about granular read-only security options, see Configuring read-only security options. |
| ServiceNow IDE | ServiceNow IDE version 3.2.3 is active by default on instances on the Australia release. Update to ServiceNow IDE version 4.0 or later to use the latest features. For information about updating ServiceNow IDE, see Install or update the ServiceNow IDE. |
| ServiceNow SDK | To upgrade to the latest version of the ServiceNow SDK globally or within an application, see Upgrade the ServiceNow SDK. ServiceNow SDK version 4.4 supports integration with ServiceNow instances beginning with the Washington DC release. On Windows systems, after upgrading to ServiceNow SDK version 4.3 or later, existing stored credentials aren’t supported due to the deprecation of Keytar. Users on Windows systems must add their user credentials again using the now-sdk auth
--add command to authenticate with instances. For more information, see Authenticating to a ServiceNow instance with the ServiceNow SDK.Important: |
| ServiceNow Studio | ServiceNow Studio no longer has to be downloaded from the ServiceNow Store. It’s available on the ServiceNow AI Platform by default. |
| ServiceNow Vault | ServiceNow Vault is a bundle of the following products: |
| Source-to-Pay Operations Integrations | Important:
Due to a performance issue identified with the upgrade fix script, the sourcing fix script has been modified. This script will no longer execute automatically during the upgrade process. Instead, it is now
delivered as an on-demand job. Administrators must manually execute this job outside of business hours after the upgrade is complete. |
| Subscription Management | Subscription Management version 6.1 is active by default on all instances of the Australia release. Update to Subscription Management version 6.1 or later to use the latest features. For more information about updating Subscription Management, see Update an application or plugin. |
| Third-party Risk Management | If you're a VRM user upgrading to TPRM and upgrading to Australia from an earlier release, you must run each upgrade sequentially to ensure that fix scripts run correctly. For example, you must upgrade from Xanadu to Yokohama, Yokohama to Zurich, and so on. If the scripts don't run in the correct order, you can get data inconsistencies, broken functionalities, and conflicts. After upgrading to version 21.0.x, you can enable the Smart Assessment Engine (SAE) by setting the Smart Assessment Engine enabled (sn_vdr_risk_asmt.sae_enabled) property. After setting this property, Smart Assessment Engine (SAE) becomes the default assessment engine and replaces the legacy experience. The transition isn't reversible. Warning: Set this property in your non-production instances and conduct thorough testing before changing your production instances. Failure to do so may result in unexpected issues. For more information on upgrading from VRM to TPRM and the differences between the Smart and Classic Assessment engines, see Third-party Risk Management upgrade information. For existing TPRM customers, after upgrading to version 21.0.3, data from the Industry column in the Company [core_company] table is automatically migrated to the tprm_industry column. Migration can take several hours depending on the number of records in the Company [core_company] table. After migration, a system log message confirms that the migration is complete. Review the Company [core_company] table content and update any customizations referencing the Industry field to use tprm_industry. After verifying the migration and updating customizations, you can drop the Industry column. |
| UI Builder | Saving section for later. |
| Vulnerability Response | If you're currently using Vulnerability Response, and you do not intend to upgrade to Unified Security Exposure Management (USEM), install a version below v30.x of Vulnerability Response and for upgrades to supported third-party integration applications. For more information about the released versions of the Vulnerability Response application as well as the third-party and ServiceNow applications that are compatible with the Australia release, see the Vulnerability Response Compatibility Matrix and Release Schema Changes [KB0856498] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base |