Combined External Content Connectors release notes for upgrades from Xanadu to Yokohama
Summarize
Summary of Combined External Content Connectors release notes for upgrades from Xanadu to Yokohama
This consolidated release notes document assists ServiceNow customers in preparing for upgrades of External Content Connectors from the Xanadu release family to Yokohama. It summarizes new features, important upgrade considerations, configuration changes, and enhancements introduced across multiple patch releases within this period.
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The External Content Connectors enable integration with various external source systems to retrieve searchable content and user permissions, enhancing search capabilities within your ServiceNow environment.
Important Upgrade Information
- Semantic Vector Indexing: Starting with version 2 of the External Content Connectors, semantic vector indexing is implemented for crawled content. After upgrading, all previously retrieved items are reindexed during the next crawl, even if their content is unchanged. To expedite this, customers should cancel any running crawls and restart them manually.
- Full Content and User Mapping Crawls Required: When upgrading to version 4, ensure you complete both a content crawl and a user mapping crawl for each connector. This guarantees that all crawled content and security principals are properly indexed and visible in search results.
New Features
- Expanded Connector Support: Yokohama introduces numerous new external content connectors, including Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service, Asana, Docusign, Dropbox, GitHub Enterprise Cloud, HubSpot, Lucidchart, Miro, monday.com, Notion, SAP DMS, Smartsheet, Trello, WordPress, Workday, Zoom, Amazon S3, Box, GitLab, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Viva Engage, ServiceNow instance KB articles, Webcrawler, and Zendesk Guide.
- Connector Administration Role: The new
snextconn.xccadminrole enables users to create, configure, and monitor external content connectors and their crawls. - User Mapping Permission Settings: Customize which source system and ServiceNow user fields are compared during user mapping, improving accuracy of permission assignments.
- Enhanced Analytics and Crawl Statistics: New and redesigned analytics pages provide detailed insights into connector performance over time, including statistics for content and user permission crawls.
- Now Assist Integration: External content search results can be added to Virtual Agent conversations via Now Assist, expanding the range of accessible information.
- Warning Messages for Index Limits: Connectors now display warnings when indexed document counts exceed 800,000, alerting administrators before reaching the 1,000,000 document limit.
- Webcrawler Connector: The predefined web sources connector has been replaced by the more flexible Webcrawler, which supports both predefined and custom web sources for indexing.
- Improved Connection Settings: Several connectors, including Atlassian Jira Cloud, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft SharePoint Online, and Microsoft Teams, now accept certificate SHA1 thumbprint hashes in both hexadecimal and base64 formats.
Changes
- The Analytics page has been redesigned for better analysis of connector performance.
- Some connection settings requirements were simplified, such as removing the need for an Atlassian Jira Cloud instance ID.
- The Webcrawler external content connector replaced the predefined web sources connector to provide greater customization.
Removed and Deprecated Features
No features or functionalities were removed or deprecated between Xanadu and Yokohama releases.
Activation and Installation
To install or upgrade the External Content Connectors, request the application from the ServiceNow Store. The Yokohama release requires installing the External Content Connectors Application Suite. Refer to the ServiceNow Store version history release notes for detailed installation and update information.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Access and index a broader set of external content sources, improving search comprehensiveness across your enterprise data.
- Leverage semantic vector indexing to enhance search recall, delivering more relevant search results.
- Configure user permission mappings precisely to maintain secure and accurate access to external content within ServiceNow.
- Monitor connector health and performance with improved analytics and warning messages, enabling proactive management of indexing limits and crawl activities.
- Integrate external content search results into Virtual Agent conversations, enriching user experiences and knowledge discovery.
Consolidated page of all release notes for External Content Connectors from Xanadu to Yokohama.
How to use this page
To help you prepare for your upgrade, we have combined the cross-family External Content Connectors release notes onto one page. Read this summary of the new features, changes, and updated information for your product from Xanadu to Yokohama.
Important information for upgrading External Content Connectors to Yokohama
Before you upgrade to Yokohama, review these pre- and post-upgrade tasks and complete the tasks as needed.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Xanadu |
Beginning with version 2 of the External Content Connectors application, external content connectors implement semantic vector indexing for crawled items. When you upgrade to a version that supports semantic vector indexing, your existing connectors will reindex all previously retrieved items the next time they're visited by a crawl, even if those items' content is unchanged. To force semantic vector indexing of your external content items as soon as possible after upgrading, cancel any running crawls, then restart the canceled crawls manually. |
Yokohama |
Beginning with version 2 of the External Content Connectors application, external content connectors implement semantic vector indexing for crawled items. When you upgrade to a version that supports semantic vector indexing, your existing connectors will reindex all previously retrieved items the next time they're visited by a crawl, even if those items' content is unchanged. To force semantic vector indexing of your external content items as soon as possible after upgrading, cancel any running crawls, then restart the canceled crawls manually. When you upgrade to version 4 of the External Content Connectors application from an earlier version, searches may not show all previously crawled content until you've completed both a content crawl and a user mapping crawl for each upgraded connector. The first content crawl run after the upgrade will reindex all searchable content from the source system, and the user mapping crawl will reindex all security principals from the source system. All crawled content should be shown in searches after both of these crawls are complete. |
New features
Between your current release family and Yokohama, new features were introduced for External Content Connectors.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Xanadu |
|
Yokohama |
|
Changes
Between your current release family and Yokohama, some changes were made to existing External Content Connectors features.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Xanadu |
No updates for this release. |
Yokohama |
|
Removed
Between your current release family and Yokohama, some External Content Connectors features or functionality were removed.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Xanadu |
No updates for this release. |
Yokohama |
No updates for this release. |
Deprecations
Between your current release family and Yokohama, some External Content Connectors features or functionality were deprecated.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Xanadu |
No updates for this release. |
Yokohama |
No updates for this release. |
Activation information
Review information on how to activate External Content Connectors.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Xanadu |
Install External Content Connectors 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. |
Yokohama |
Install External Content Connectors by requesting the External Content Connectors Application Suite 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 External Content Connectors we have noted them here.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Xanadu |
No updates for this release. |
Yokohama |
No updates for this release. |
Browser requirements
If any specific browser requirements were introduced or changed for External Content Connectors we have noted them here.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Xanadu |
No updates for this release. |
Yokohama |
No updates for this release. |
Accessibility information
Review details on accessibility information for External Content Connectors, such as specific requirements or compliance levels.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Xanadu |
No updates for this release. |
Yokohama |
No updates for this release. |
Localization information
If there are specific localization considerations for External Content Connectors we have noted them here.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Xanadu |
No updates for this release. |
Yokohama |
No updates for this release. |
Highlight information
If there are specific highlight considerations for External Content Connectors we have noted them here.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Xanadu |
See External Content Connectors for more information. |
Yokohama |
Yokohama Patch 11
Yokohama Patch 6
Yokohama Patch 3
See External Content Connectors for more information. |