Service Operations Workspace for ITSM release notes

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 10 minutes to read
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    Summary of Service Operations Workspace for ITSM Zurich Release Notes

    The ServiceNow Service Operations Workspace (SOW) for IT Service Management (ITSM) provides a configurable, unified agent workspace that integrates multiple ITSM and IT Operations Management (ITOM) capabilities. The Zurich release introduces enhancements to improve agent productivity, collaboration, and operational efficiency through new features, improved integrations, and UI optimizations.

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    Key Features

    • Standard Change Template Proposal: Users with the itil role can propose standard change templates directly from change records.
    • Microsoft Teams Integration: Configure Notify with Microsoft Teams within the SOW Admin Center using guided setup for seamless communication.
    • Visual Indicators for Chat: Chat session tabs use colors and icons to highlight unread messages and critical wait times, aiding SLA compliance and improving multi-chat management.
    • Resizable Modals: Agents can resize modals for tasks such as copying incidents, reporting knowledge gaps, reopening incidents, and adding similar incidents as child incidents to major incidents for better issue tracking.
    • On-Call Scheduling Enhancements: Support for subflows in trigger rules, re-triggering escalations on field changes, custom notification channels, and sending escalations to all stakeholders.
    • Auto-Dismiss Alerts and Notifications: Alerts of certain types auto-dismiss after a configurable timeout, reducing manual dismissals and improving user experience.
    • Digital End-User Experience (DEX) and Service Observability (SO) Metrics: Investigate tab displays CI metrics for relevant classes, enabling better incident analysis.
    • SOW Record Page Improvements: Includes clickable URLs in incident summaries, action library for DEX actions on configuration items, and enhanced glide list actions for user management on reference fields.
    • Knowledge Article Enhancements: Configure display of recent task records linked to knowledge articles for easier access and navigation.
    • Granular Admin Roles: New specific admin roles allow focused configuration access for Incident, Major Incident, On-Call, and Problem Management within SOW.
    • Change Request Conflict Detection: View and manually manage scheduling conflicts, blackout periods, and active changes directly within the change request form.
    • Interaction Wrap-Up: Agents get dedicated time after each interaction to finalize details before starting new conversations.
    • Change Advisory Board (CAB) Workbench Updates: Enhanced meeting controls and visual risk indicators improve CAB meeting efficiency and agenda management.
    • List Page and Related Records Enhancements: Related lists and Multi Record Associator (MRA) now support consistent UX with fuzzy count for performance improvements.
    • Unified Dependency Map: Reference fields for configuration items, services, and service offerings open a unified CMDB dependency map in a workspace tab instead of a separate browser tab.
    • On-Call Shift Administrator Access: Users with rotaadmin role can access Teams, Schedules, and Home pages within SOW.

    Activation and Upgrade Considerations

    SOW for ITSM is active by default starting with version 8.0 in Zurich and is installed automatically upon upgrade from previous versions via the ServiceNow Store. Ensure compatibility of related applications for ITSM and ITOM components prior to upgrading.

    Accessibility Enhancements

    The workspace supports reflow for browser zoom levels up to 400%, enabling users with low vision to access content without loss of functionality or layout issues. This can be disabled via system properties if needed.

    Related ServiceNow Applications and Features

    • Change Management, Incident Management, and Problem Management for lifecycle and root cause analysis.
    • Interaction Management and Notify for multi-channel communication and notifications.
    • On-Call Scheduling for managing escalation and availability.
    • Password Reset for secure credential management.
    • Predictive Intelligence for machine-learning based recommendations.
    • Recommended Actions for ITSM to provide guided field recommendations within incidents.
    • Request Management and Service Level Management for catalog and SLA visibility.
    • Service Operations Workspace for ITOM for integrated IT operations workflows.
    • Walk-up Experience for managing in-person interactions efficiently.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    With the Zurich release, ServiceNow customers can expect a more efficient agent workspace that improves communication, reduces duplicate incident handling, automates notification management, and enhances visibility into operational metrics. The introduction of granular admin roles and enhanced UI elements also provides better control and usability, helping organizations maintain high service quality and SLA adherence.

    The ServiceNow® Service Operations Workspace application is a configurable workspace that provides a unified agent experience for multiple IT Service Management and IT Operations Management capabilities. Service Operations Workspace for IT Service Management was enhanced and updated in the Zurich release.

    Service Operations Workspace highlights for the Zurich release

    • Propose a standard change template from a change record in Service Operations Workspace (SOW).
    • Experience enhanced meeting and pagination controls in the Change Advisory board (CAB) workbench.
    • Configure the Microsoft Teams integration with Notify in SOW Admin Center.
    • Use visual indicators like colors and icons on chat session tabs to notify agents about unread messages to maintain the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the chats in SOW.
    • Optimize your viewing experience by resizing the modals in SOW.
    • Find similar incidents and add them as child incidents to a major incident record.
    • Support subflows in the On-Call trigger rule configurations.
    • Configure the alerts and notifications in SOW to automatically dismiss within the specified time.
    • View the dependency map for reference fields in a separate tab within the workspace.
    • Starting in version 8.2, you can do the following:
      • Analyze the metrics for configuration items (CIs) in the Digital End-User Experience (DEX) and Service Observability (SO) UI dashboard view on the Investigate tab of an incident record.
      • Access and configure SOW from the Admin Center using granular feature admin roles.
      • View the recent task records to which the knowledge article is attached.
      • Manage user actions on the reference fields with the glide list action.
      • Perform DEX actions on a Configuration Item (CI) using the Action library from the contextual panel of the record page.
      • View the details of conflicts detected, and manually run conflict detection in the change request form.
      • As an on-call shift administrator with the rota_admin role, access Teams, Schedules, and Home pages in SOW.

    See Service Operations Workspace for ITSM for more information.

    Important:
    Service Operations Workspace is available in the ServiceNow Store. For details, see the "Activation information" section of these release notes.

    Important information for upgrading Service Operations Workspace to Zurich

    Ensure that the following applications have compatible upgraded versions:
    • Service Operations Workspace ITSM Applications application (sn_sow_itsm_cont)
    • Service Operations Workspace ITOM Applications application (sn_sow_itom_cont)

    For more information on compatible versions, see Version compatibility between Service Operations Workspace for ITSM and Service Operations Workspace ITOM.

    New in the Zurich release

    Configuring Notify in Service Operations Workspace
    Configure Notify with Microsoft Teams SOW in Admin Center using the guided setup.
    Visual indicators for unread messages
    To help agents maintain the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for chats, visual indicators are available on chat session tabs in the SOW. These indicators include color codes, where tabs with unread messages are highlighted in different colors. Inactive tabs display a purple background color to indicate that a message has been received. Tab colors shift to yellow and then to red to highlight critical wait times. These enhancements aim to improve customer service by ensuring quick response time, increase productivity by helping agents manage multiple chats more effectively, and reduce stress by providing clear visual cues, ultimately leading to better SLA compliance and higher service quality.
    Resize modal in Service Operations Workspace
    Optimize your viewing experience by resizing the following modals in SOW:
    • Copy incident
    • Report knowledge gap
    • Reopen incident
    Add similar incidents to major incident record
    Find multiple similar incidents and add them as child incidents to a major incident or major incident candidate record from the child incident related list in the Related records tab of the major incident record. Similar incidents are retrieved based on the similarity solution definition that can be configured to train on various fields such as Short description and Description. Adding the similar incidents as child incidents to the major incident record ensures avoiding the creation of multiple major incident records for the same issue.
    On-Call Scheduling enhancements in Service Operations Workspace
    On-call scheduling in SOW has the following enhancements:
    • The On-call trigger rule page is enhanced to support and select subflows.
    • The On-call trigger rule page is enhanced for supporting re-triggering escalations on configured fields such as Priority. Re-triggering is enabled whenever the value in the configured field changes.
    • Configure custom providers as channels for on-call escalation notifications.
    • Send the on-call escalations notifications to all stakeholders when any of the record fields configured using the on-call trigger rules are modified.
    Auto-dismiss the alerts and notification in Service Operations Workspace
    Configure the alerts and notifications in SOW to automatically dismiss within the specified time. Auto-dismissal of the alert notification reduces the user effort in manually dismissing the notification. By default, the base system has the following settings:
    • Auto-dismiss is turned on for alert notification of type info, positive (success) and low and has the timeout value of three seconds.
    • Auto-dismiss is turned off for alert notification of type critical, high, moderate, and warning.
    • The time label is turned off and only a visual time indicator is displayed.
    • The alert notification content is expanded.
    DEX and SO view in the investigate tab
    Based on the Configuration Item (CI) selected in the Investigate tab and the rules defined in the Investigate CI Experience Rules (sn_sow_investigate_ci_ux_rule) table, the Investigate tab displays the CI metrics in the UI experience dashboard view for the different CI classes:
    • DEX view - Displayed for the cmdb_ci_computer CI class.
    • SO view - Displayed for the cmdb_ci_service class.
    You can select both the affected CIs including service and service offering and caller CIs.
    SOW record page enhancements
    The SOW record page has the following enhancements:
    • Add a clickable URL to the Summary section on the Overview tab of an incident record, enhancing navigation and reference capabilities. The Overview page supports URL type of field in read-only mode.
    • Perform various DEX actions on a CI using actions from the Action library in the contextual side panel of the SOW record page.
    • Manage user actions on the reference fields of a SOW record page with the following glide list actions:
      • Add me - Add the logged in user to the field.
      • Remove me - Remove the logged in user from the field.
      • Add multiple users - Add multiple users to the field.
      • Add multiple records - Add multiple records to the field.
    View recent tasks in a knowledge article record
    Configure the Display recent task for knowledge article (glide.knowman.recent_task.display) system property to view the recent task records to which the knowledge article is recently attached. You can select the task record link to open the task record in a new tab with the workspace view.
    Introduction of Granular Admin roles in SOW
    The following granular admin roles are introduced in SOW:
    • sn_sow_admin.sn_sow_admin: Provides access to SOW Admin Center page for SOW configurations. Admins can use the role to configure SOW features and maintain organizational policies.
    • sn_sow_inc_sn_incident_sow_admin: Provides access to SOW Admin Center pages for configurations related to Incident Management features.
    • sn_sow_mim.sn_mim_sow_admin: Provides access to the SOW Admin Center pages for configurations related to Major Incident Management (MIM) features.
    • sn_sow_on_call.sn_on_call_sow_admin: Provides access to the SOW Admin Center pages for On-Call Scheduling configurations.
    • sn_sow_problem.sn_problem_sow_admin: Provides access to the SOW Admin Center pages for Problem Management configurations.
    View conflicts in the change request form
    The improved schedule and conflicts section added in the change request form displays the scheduling conflicts for a change request. If a scheduling conflict exists, conflict detection also provides details of any related blackout or maintenance schedules and other active change requests to determine the scheduling conflict. You can use the resulting information to review and modify the change request details to eliminate conflicts. You can also manually check and manage conflicts.

    For more information on conflict detection, see Conflict detection.

    Interaction wrap up with modeless dialog in Service Operations Workspace
    Provide agents with dedicated time after each call or chat to finalize the interaction details and wrap up their work before starting a new conversation.

    UI changes

    CAB workbench enhancements
    • Configuration provided for risk-highlighted value is displayed in the agenda item card and CAB meeting details.
    • Visual feedback is provided when agenda items are restored.

    Changed in this release

    Configure help and order of the remedial action parameters
    Configure the Help and Order fields for the remedial action parameters on the Remedial action parameter [sn_reacf_remedial_action_parameter] table if you have the Remedial action admin[sn_reacf.sn_remedial_action_admin] user role.
    List page enhancements in Service Operations Workspace
    The list page in SOW has the following enhancements:
    • The related lists in the Related records tab of the SOW record pages, including those within the record pages as well such as Recent Incidents or Assigned Assets, are updated with the record list bundle. This update provides them with the same appearance, functionality, and user experience as the SOW list page.
    • The related lists in the Related records tab of the SOW record pages, including the Multi Record Associator (MRA) list, as well as the related lists within the record pages such as Recent Incidents or Assigned Assets, now support the fuzzy count UX page property. You can configure a default value that is applicable to the list for all tables or a value for a specific table such as incident thereby improving the list page performance.
    Dependency view changes for reference fields
    Selecting the dependency view for the following fields in the incident, problem, change, and request records, opens a unified CMDB map in a new tab within the workspace view instead of a new browser tab:
    • Configuration item
    • Service
    • Service offering
    Propose a standard change template
    As a user with the itil role, you can create a standard change template proposal from any change record in SOW.
    Service Operations Workspace access for an on-call shift administrator
    Starting in version 8.2, a user with the rota_admin role can access Teams, Schedules, and Home pages in SOW.

    Activation information

    Service Operations Workspace for ITSM is active by default and its default version is 8.0 in Zurich. When you upgrade from any previous release to Zurich from the ServiceNow Store, Service Operations Workspace for ITSM 8.0 is automatically installed.

    Accessibility information

    Reflow

    The Configurable Workspace supports reflow, which enables pages and content to be zoomed up to 400% through your browser settings without loss of content or functionality. Additionally, content can be enlarged without scrolling in two dimensions at a width equivalent to 320 CSS pixels or a height equivalent to 256 CSS pixels. Page layouts are transformed into a vertical, stacked view automatically when users increase browser zoom to 400%.

    This enhancement helps users with low vision or who have trouble seeing web content in a browser due to monitor size, device type, poor lighting, or other situations. Reflow can be turned off with a system property for instances, experiences, and pages. See for details.

    Related ServiceNow applications and features

    Change Management
    Control the life cycle of a change and implement the change with minimum disruption to IT services.
    Incident Management
    Enable users to identify IT issues and log incidents through the Incident Management system. Efficiently track, classify, and prioritize incidents to work effectively toward their resolution.
    Interaction Management
    Respond to an incoming chat, phone, walk-up, or messaging interaction quickly by using an interaction that provides a centralized location for all communication channels.
    Notify
    Provide support for SMS and voice channels on the platform to communicate with your team and customers.
    On-Call Scheduling
    Identify available on-call members of a support group who can be contacted to resolve an issue.
    Password Reset
    The ServiceNow® Password Reset application enforces strong and secure passwords by enabling end users to reset or change their passwords either by using the self-service process or by requesting the assistance of a service desk agent.
    Predictive Intelligence
    Use machine-learning algorithms to provide dynamic and contextual recommendations for resolving an incident.
    Problem Management
    Identify the root cause of recurring incidents or a major incident to help prevent them from happening again.
    Recommended Actions for ITSM in Service Operations Workspace
    Get field recommendations and guidance in the side panel for the incident form in Service Operations Workspace.
    Request Management
    Initiate a catalog request flow from a different IT Service Management flow, such as an incident flow, by using catalog requests.
    Service Level Management
    Access incident service level agreement (SLA) information on the Service Operations Workspace for ITSM landing page and incident record page.
    Service Operations Workspace for ITOM
    Configure your operator experience through a unified interface for multiple ServiceNow® IT Operations Management workflows.
    Walk-up Experience
    Manage walk-up interactions and queues effortlessly by using Service Operations Workspace for ITSM.