Combined Business Continuity Management release notes for upgrades from Vancouver to Washington DC

How to use this page

To help you prepare for your upgrade, we have combined the cross-family Business Continuity Management release notes onto one page. Read this summary of the new features, changes, and updated information for your product from Vancouver to Washington DC.

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 Business Continuity Management to Washington DC

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


Release	Release notes
Vancouver	No updates for this release.
Washington DC	After upgrading to the Washington DC release, you must note the following important information for the existing business impact analyses, business continuity plans, and events: For business impact analyses, the Source column in the dependency assessment is renamed to Primary source and the BCM source is renamed to Manual for manually added dependencies following an upgrade. When you select the Update dependencies button, the system adds the CMDB dependencies. For business continuity plans, the Source column is renamed to Primary source following an upgrade. When you select the Update dependencies button, the system adds the CMDB and BIA dependencies. To maintain compatibility with the previous releases, the BCM administrator can configure the sources and keep only the BIA upstream dependency and BIA downstream dependencies as the sources in the updated configuration. For events and exercises, when you select the Update dependencies button, the system adds the CMDB, BIA, and Business Continuity Planning (BCP) dependencies after an upgrade. To maintain compatibility with the previous releases, the BCM administrator can configure the sources and keep only the BIA upstream dependency and BIA downstream dependencies as the sources in the updated configuration.

New features

Between your current release family and Washington DC, new features were introduced for Business Continuity Management.


Release	Release notes
Vancouver	Business impact analysis Create a business impact analysis to prioritize the critical processes, assess the impact of a disruptive event, and identify the recovery dependencies. Complete the business impact analysis workflow in BCM UIB Workspace. For more information on the next generation of the user interface, see Next Experience UI. Business continuity planning Create a business continuity plan to mitigate the risks that you may face during a disruptive event. You can address and plan on the primary scope of the activities. Manage your business continuity planning tasks in BCM UIB Workspace. Exercises Manage the exercise events and recovery tasks in BCM UIB Workspace. By simulating the exercise events, you can continuously test and improve your business continuity plans. Crisis events Manage the crisis events in BCM UIB Workspace. Track the events that may affect your business and minimize your business disruptions. Structured workflows for Crisis map in BCM UIB Workspace Integrate with the BCM application and analyze the real-time threat alerts from different locations in a map view. You can initiate the response workflows for crisis management from the BCM UIB Workspace view. Sending notifications with Everbridge in BCM Configurable Workspace Set up emergency notifications with Everbridge, inform the stakeholders about critical events, and coordinate their responses in BCM UIB Workspace. Business Continuity Management lite operators Use the enhanced BCM Lite Operator (sn_bcm_lite.lite_operator) role in the BCM application. GRC record page template for BCM records Use the new variant of record pages to streamline page creation, simplify maintenance, and minimize the cost of page ownership.
Washington DC	Configuring the Dictionary, UI policy, element variables, and UI view Configure new fields in the dependency assessment with the admin role and mark them as required or optional using the UI policy. In addition to UI policy configuration, you can also customize the UI view and UX view rules for the BIA dependency and BIA dependency groups. It offers you the flexibility to modify the display and functionality of the dependency assessment based on your specific requirements. In previous releases, the Required Recovery Timeframe validation was required for all impact categories. However, starting with version 6.1.x of the BCM application, it's now required only for the Applications impact category. This change is controlled by the UI policy. Automate the recovery task in the plan Automate the recovery tasks to streamline the recovery process in both business continuity plans and exercises. By classifying a task as automated and attaching an automated flow to it, the recovery process can be streamlined. When a business continuity plan is activated as part of an exercise or an actual event, the associated automated flow gets triggered. However, if an error or failure occurs during the execution of the automated flow, the user with edit access to the event record can manually retrigger the task as a backup. Therefore, the recovery process can proceed seamlessly, even if the automated flow encounters any issues. Add a task to the crisis event Manage multiple recovery tasks by editing various fields, including State, Actual start, Actual end, Assigned to, and Assigned group at the same time in the recovery tasks list. It helps the event task users update multiple tasks simultaneously, saving time and effort. If a task was closed by mistake, the event task users with edit access to the event record can reopen it for editing and make necessary corrections, maintaining accuracy and completeness in the recovery process. Additionally, the Closed failed task state has been implemented on the Event task form. When a task is transitioned to the Closed failed state, the entire exercise is paused until the user with edit access to the event record unblocks the task and changes its state to Closed complete. The event task users can then resolve any issues or failures before continuing with the exercise. Schedule an auto-update of the dependencies Update the CMDB assets and dependencies in the business impact analysis. BCM administrators can configure the Impact analysis dependency update configuration module to start an auto-update or to trigger a manual review process. Administrators can enable the scheduled job to monitor the dependencies continuously and send email notifications. Schedule an auto-update of the related assets Update the CMDB assets and dependencies in the business continuity plan. BCM administrators can configure the Planning dependency update configuration module to start an auto-update or to trigger a manual review process. Dependencies are fetched from different sources such as a BIA upstream dependency, BIA downstream dependencies, and the CMDB. Administrators can enable the scheduled job to monitor the dependencies continuously and send the email notifications. Adding the dependencies of the impacted assets Update the CMDB assets and dependencies in an event. BCM administrators can configure the Event dependency source configuration module to start an auto-update or to trigger a manual review process. Dependencies are fetched from different sources such as a BIA upstream dependency, BIA downstream dependencies, CMDB, Plan primary assets, and Plan related assets.

Changes

Between your current release family and Washington DC, some changes were made to existing Business Continuity Management features.


Release	Release notes
Vancouver	No updates for this release.
Washington DC	No updates for this release.

Removed

Between your current release family and Washington DC, some Business Continuity Management features or functionality were removed.


Release	Release notes
Vancouver	No updates for this release.
Washington DC	No updates for this release.

Deprecations

Between your current release family and Washington DC, some Business Continuity Management features or functionality were deprecated.


Release	Release notes
Vancouver	No updates for this release.
Washington DC	No updates for this release.

Activation information

Review information on how to activate Business Continuity Management.


Release	Release notes
Vancouver	Install Business Continuity Management by requesting it from the ServiceNow Store.
Washington DC	Install Business Continuity Management by requesting it from the ServiceNow Store. Visit the ServiceNow Store website to view all the available apps and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes.

Additional requirements

If any additional requirements were introduced or changed for Business Continuity Management we have noted them here.


Release	Release notes
Vancouver	No updates for this release.
Washington DC	No updates for this release.

Browser requirements

If any specific browser requirements were introduced or changed for Business Continuity Management we have noted them here.


Release	Release notes
Vancouver	No updates for this release.
Washington DC	No updates for this release.

Accessibility information

Review details on accessibility information for Business Continuity Management, such as specific requirements or compliance levels.


Release	Release notes
Vancouver	No updates for this release.
Washington DC	No updates for this release.

Localization information

If there are specific localization considerations for Business Continuity Management we have noted them here.


Release	Release notes
Vancouver	No updates for this release.
Washington DC	No updates for this release.

Highlight information

If there are specific highlight considerations for Business Continuity Management we have noted them here.


Release	Release notes
Vancouver	Use BCM UIB Workspace (also known as BCM Configurable Workspace) to perform your day-to-day business continuity management activities. Optimize the simplified user experience by using the single-pane view in BCM UIB Workspace. Streamline page creation, simplify maintenance, and minimize the cost of page ownership by using the common GRC record page template. See Business Continuity Management for more information.
Washington DC	Configure new fields in the dependency assessment and mark them as required or optional by configuring the UI policy with the admin role. Automate the recovery tasks for faster disaster recovery (DR). Schedule an auto-update of the dependencies in the business impact analysis (BIA) based on the source data and relationships in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB). Get email notifications with the details of the BIA dependency updates from the application. Schedule an auto-update of the related assets in the plans based on the source data and relationships in the CMDB and BIA. Get email notifications with the details of the planning dependency updates from the application. Add the dependencies of the impacted assets manually in the events and exercises from the CMDB, BIA, and plans. See Business Continuity Management for more information.