Configuring plan template

Release version: Xanadu

Updated July 31, 2025

2 minutes to read

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Summary of Configuring plan template

As a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) manager using the ServiceNow Business Continuity Management application, you can create and manage business continuity plans tailored for your business units to prepare for disruptive events. The application offers pre-configured plan templates that streamline plan creation by providing standardized layouts, essential document sections, loss scenarios, and primary recovery elements. These templates help focus on the content, tasks, and effective implementation of the plan.

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Creating a plan enables your organization to identify critical processes, locations, and assets that require prioritized recovery after a disruption. Choosing the appropriate plan type helps define the recovery elements and timelines.

Key Features

Pre-configured plan templates: The application includes demo data templates that you can use directly or customize, accessible in the General Administration section.
Types of demo templates:
- Application DR Plan: Focuses on recovery of IT applications after disruptive events.
- Business Continuity Plan: Ensures continuity of core business processes across workplaces, applications, or vendors.
- Datacenter Recovery Plan: Addresses recovery of datacenters impacted by disasters or significant events.
- Workplace Recovery Plan: Plans recovery for workplace locations rendered unusable or uninhabitable.
Custom plan templates: You can create templates tailored to specific business requirements beyond the demo data, including defining primary elements such as Employees or Web Servers.
Plan authoring types: Templates can be configured for different aspects including documentation, loss scenarios, and recovery tasks.

Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

Accelerate business continuity planning by leveraging ready-to-use templates with standard structures and scenarios.
Customize templates to closely align with your organization’s unique recovery priorities and operational needs.
Ensure clear identification and prioritization of critical assets and processes for recovery during disruptions.
Maintain organized, comprehensive continuity plans that facilitate effective response and recovery efforts.

As a BCP plan manager, you can create a business continuity plan that can be used for your respective business units during a disruptive event. The Business Continuity Management application provides pre-configured business continuity plan templates. You can streamline the process of a plan creation by using pre-configured plan templates. You can also create a plan template for your business requirement.

You can view the pre-configured plan templates for business continuity planning in the General Administration section in the application navigator.

Using a plan template gives you a standard plan layout that has the document sections, loss scenarios, and primary elements that are to be recovered. Plan templates help you to focus on the plan content, its tasks, and the effective implementation of the plan.

Creating a plan helps an organization to identify processes, locations, and assets that must be recovered as a priority when there is a disruption. Selecting a plan type helps to identify the elements for recovery and the time by which it should be done.

Using business continuity plan templates

The Business Continuity Management application provides the following business continuity plan templates that are installed with demo data:

Application DR Plan
Business Continuity Plan
Datacenter Recovery Plan
Workplace Recovery Plan

The business continuity plan templates that are installed with demo data are shown in the following example.

See the following table for more information on different types of demo data plan templates that you can use in the Business Continuity Management application.

Table 1. Demo data plan templates
Name	Primary element recovered	Description
Application DR Plan	Applications	Plan to recover an IT application following a disruptive event. A sample Application DR Plan template is shown in the following example.
Business Continuity Plan	Business Processes	Plan to continue operations of a core business process or processes during a disruption to workplaces, applications, or critical vendors. A sample Business Continuity Plan template is shown in the following example.
Datacenter Recovery Plan	Datacenters	Plan to recover a datacenter following a natural disaster or significant event that impacts the availability of a datacenter. A sample Datacenter Recovery Plan template is shown in the following example.
Workplace Recovery Plan	Locations	Plan to recover a workplace in the event that one of them becomes unusable or uninhabitable. A sample Workplace Recovery Plan template is shown in the following example.

Creating a plan template for your business requirement

Instead of using the demo data templates, you can create a template for your specific requirement. For more information on creating a plan template for your business requirement, see Configure the business continuity plan template.