Playbooks in Workflow Studio release notes
Summarize
Summary of Playbooks in Workflow Studio Release Notes
The ServiceNow® Playbooks builder within Workflow Studio enables playbook owners to design and manage multi-flow processes using a diagram or task board interface. The Yokohama release introduces significant enhancements to improve playbook creation, management, and integration capabilities.
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Key Features
- Custom Translations: Add translations for playbook labels, descriptions, and UI layout properties to support multi-language environments.
- Restart Playbook Activities: Configure activities so end users can restart any activity that ended in error, with automatic re-evaluation of variant conditions.
- Playbook Generation Enhancements: Generate playbooks from inputs referencing active actions, flows, subflows, content from installed spokes, or activity definitions. Integration with OpenAI GPT-4o LLM enables generating playbooks from text inputs.
- Create Checklist in Side Panel: Create checklists directly in the Workflow Studio side panel without requiring a checklist template.
- Enhanced Create Task Activity: More configurable fields are available in the new Create Task activity.
- UI Updates: The trigger label is now "Start" for clarity; triggers can be edited in duplicated playbooks or variants.
Upgrade and Activation
After upgrading to Yokohama, customers should update the Workflow Studio application via the ServiceNow Store to access new features and patch fixes. Workflow Studio is part of the ServiceNow AI Platform® and available by default, with related apps like Now Assist for Creator required for playbook generation features.
Compatibility and Deprecations
- Existing old Create Task and Checklist activities remain functional but lack new customization capabilities available in their updated versions.
- Localization note: Using OpenAI LLMs for playbook generation is not supported in the APAC region.
Related Applications
- Workflow Studio: Consolidates multiple workflow design tools into one environment for authoring and monitoring workflows.
- Flow Designer: Enables no-code automation of approvals, tasks, and notifications.
- Playbook Experiences: Allows customization of the playbook user interface for agents.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
With these updates, customers can create more dynamic and multilingual playbooks, recover from activity errors efficiently, and integrate AI-powered playbook generation for improved automation design. The ability to generate playbooks across ServiceNow applications via API streamlines process automation. UI enhancements and checklist management improvements further simplify playbook creation and maintenance.
The ServiceNow® Playbooks builder within the ServiceNow® Workflow Studio application enables playbook owners to create multiple-flow processes in a diagram or task board interface. The Playbooks builder was enhanced and updated in the Yokohama release.
Playbooks highlights for the Yokohama release
- Add custom translations for playbooks.
- Restart playbook activities that have ended in error.
- Create a checklist directly in the side panel without needing a checklist template.
- Generate a playbook via API in other ServiceNow applications such as IT Operations Management (ITOM).
- Generate playbooks from inputs that refer to active actions, flows, subflows, content from installed spokes, or activity definitions.
See Exploring playbooks for more information.
Important information for upgrading Playbooks to Yokohama
After you upgrade to Yokohama, update the Workflow Studio application in the ServiceNow Store.
New in the Yokohama release
- Translate playbooks content
- Add custom translations for labels, descriptions, and UI Layout properties in your playbooks.
- Restart playbook activities that end in error
- Configure activities so that end users can restart any activity that ends in an error and variant conditions are automatically re-evaluated when playbooks are restarted.
- Support for Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) with playbook generation
- Generate playbooks from inputs that refer to custom actions, flows, subflows, content from installed spokes, or activity definitions. Include the names of commonly used and recently published actions, subflows, flows, and activity definitions available on your instance in your playbook generation requests.
- Generate playbooks with the OpenAI GPT-4o LLM
- Use the OpenAI GPT-4o LLM to generate a playbook from text.
- Add more fields in Create Task activities
- Add more fields in a more configurable Create Task activity.
- Create a checklist directly in Workflow Studio
- Create a checklist directly in the side panel without needing a checklist template.
UI changes
- Trigger label updated
- The trigger is now labeled "Start" in Workflow Studio.
Changed in this release
- Change triggers in any playbook
- Edit triggers when you duplicate a playbook, in a variant, etc.
Deprecations
- If you have the old Create Task activity in your existing playbooks, it will continue to function. You just can't add the extra fields that are available only in the new Create Task activity.
- If you have the old Checklist activity in your existing playbooks, it will continue to function. You just won't be able to update the checklist directly in Workflow Studio the way that you can with the new Checklist activity.
Activation information
The application comes with the Workflow Studio ServiceNow Store app. Workflow Studio is part of the ServiceNow AI Platform® and is available by default. Get the latest Workflow Studio features by downloading the latest Workflow Studio app in the ServiceNow Store, as well as related applications like the Process Automation Content and Process Automation Experience Demo applications. The application can be downloaded for patch fixes.
To use the playbook generation feature in Workflow Studio, download the Now Assist for Creator application.
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.
Localization information
Using OpenAI LLMs for playbook generation is not available in the APAC region.