Combined Playbooks in Workflow Studio release notes for upgrades from Xanadu to Zurich

How to use this page

To help you prepare for your upgrade, we have combined the cross-family Playbooks in Workflow Studio release notes onto one page. Read this summary of the new features, changes, and updated information for your product from Xanadu to Zurich.

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 Playbooks in Workflow Studio to Zurich

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


Release	Release notes
Xanadu	After you upgrade to Xanadu, update the Playbooks and Workflow Studio applications in the ServiceNow Store.
Yokohama	After you upgrade to Yokohama, update the Workflow Studio application in the ServiceNow Store.
Zurich	After you upgrade to Zurich, update the Workflow Studio application in the ServiceNow Store.

New features

Between your current release family and Zurich, new features were introduced for Playbooks in Workflow Studio.


Release	Release notes
Xanadu	Variants Use one playbook for multiple scenarios with variants. Playbook recommendations Get suggestions on which activities to replace placeholder activities with. Re-prompt and preview Preview and modify your prompt before building your playbook. Image to playbook generation Generate a playbook with out-of-the-box activities from text, an image, or both. Questionnaire activity Reference flow glide variable input and output values in an activity's condition builders to collect up to 10 pieces of information from an agent or fulfiller to use later during a playbook run, without requiring an existing table or fields. Greater access controls Better manage access to your playbooks and playbook components. Archived data enhancements Schedule process execution data to be archived, and view the JSON files for your archived data. Script support for activate, restart, deactivate, and duplicate Use a script include or business rule that calls the activate, deactivate, restart, or duplicate playbook APIs. Washington 25.2 release See 25.2 features in the Washington DC Playbooks release notes: Playbook Assist
Yokohama	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.
Zurich	Set child variants to evaluate later in a playbook Instead of evaluating immediately after the trigger, set a playbook's child variants to be evaluated after a specific activity in the playbook. Agentic Playbooks Enable AI agents to assist users with activities during runtime. Add permissions for playbook authors Control which playbook authors can create, edit, and view playbooks in Workflow Studio Add permissions for runtime users Control whether runtime users can view a playbook, add optional activities, restart a playbook, and complete work within specific stages. Create decision branches for stages Add a decision node between stages to determine which stage to run next, based on runtime conditions. Set multiple triggers Configure a playbook to run based on any one of multiple triggers. Schedule when a playbook should trigger Configure a playbook to run based on a schedule. Choose your LLM for playbook generation and recommendations Choose between NowLLM, OpenAI ChatGPT4-o, Gemini, Claude for playbook generation and recommendations. Route users to stages based on decisions Send runtime users to a stage based off of the trigger record or input that users provide. Generate a playbook with a trigger Generate a playbook with both a trigger and activities. Zurich Patch 10 Playbook summarization Generate an AI-powered summary of a playbook from the Workflow Studio canvas. The summary covers the playbook's stages, activities, triggers, and inputs, helping you understand quickly about its purpose and flow without reading through each activity individually. Use AI skill as an activity Add an existing AI skill as an activity in your playbook to run lightweight, focused AI tasks as part of the playbook flow. When the playbook reaches the activity, the skill executes, produces structured outputs, and passes those outputs to subsequent activities automatically. Use custom agent in Agentic Playbooks In addition to the default AI Agents, you can add your custom AI Agent for an activity. Choose how you want to use the AI Agents in the activity- Collaborative or Autonomous.

Changes

Between your current release family and Zurich, some changes were made to existing Playbooks in Workflow Studio features.


Release	Release notes
Xanadu	Updated Roles The pd_admin role is now playbook.admin. Activities trigger asynchronously To avoid slowing down the playbook runs, the first activities are triggered asynchronously.
Yokohama	Change triggers in any playbook Edit triggers when you duplicate a playbook, in a variant, etc.
Zurich	Activate playbooks without a trigger Configure and activate playbooks without specifying triggers, so that playbooks are only triggered programmatically. Implement playbooks that are callable by a scriptable API Configure a playbook that executes with an input object instead of requiring the configuration of a trigger record reference and trigger conditions. Decision activity enhancements User experience improvements to decision activities: In the Board view, select the branch or Start rule icon on a decision activity card to see a list of dependent activities and branches, and to navigate to them. When a decision or one of its branch nodes is selected in Diagram view, the decision and all of its branches are selected, and the side panel opens. Add parallel activities within decision branches. Enter a combination of pills and text in an email body Enter a combination of text and multiple pills in any rich text / HTML editor container, such as an email body.

Removed

Between your current release family and Zurich, some Playbooks in Workflow Studio features or functionality were removed.


Release	Release notes
Xanadu	Use the Questionnaire activity instead of the Collect User Data activity.
Yokohama	No updates for this release.
Zurich	No updates for this release.

Deprecations

Between your current release family and Zurich, some Playbooks in Workflow Studio features or functionality were deprecated.


Release	Release notes
Xanadu	No updates for this release.
Yokohama	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.
Zurich	now.assist.creator role

Activation information

Review information on how to activate Playbooks in Workflow Studio.


Release	Release notes
Xanadu	The application comes with the app in 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 ServiceNow Store, as well as related applications like the Process Automation Experience Demo application. 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.
Yokohama	The application comes with the application can be downloaded for patch fixes.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 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.
Zurich	The application comes with the application can be downloaded for patch fixes.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 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.

Additional requirements

If any additional requirements were introduced or changed for Playbooks in Workflow Studio we have noted them here.


Release	Release notes
Xanadu	The following features are part of the ServiceNow AI Platform® and are active by default: Archived data enhancements Script support for activate, restart, and deactivate Updated roles Greater access controls Download the app in the ServiceNow Store to access the following features: Variants Questionnaire activity Playbook Recommendations Re-prompt and preview For access to all app in the store.Xanadu features, download the latest
Yokohama	No updates for this release.
Zurich	Download the latest Workflow Studio app in the ServiceNow Store to access the newest features.

Browser requirements

If any specific browser requirements were introduced or changed for Playbooks in Workflow Studio we have noted them here.


Release	Release notes
Xanadu	No updates for this release.
Yokohama	No updates for this release.
Zurich	No updates for this release.

Accessibility information

Review details on accessibility information for Playbooks in Workflow Studio, such as specific requirements or compliance levels.


Release	Release notes
Xanadu	No updates for this release.
Yokohama	No updates for this release.
Zurich	In Diagram view, navigate between and configure stages and activities via keyboard. Set the action bar to always show in Diagram view. To learn more, see View all buttons without hover. In Diagram view, use a screen reader to help navigate the designer. Updated color contrast for activities to meet WCAG standards.

Localization information

If there are specific localization considerations for Playbooks in Workflow Studio we have noted them here.


Release	Release notes
Xanadu	Playbook generation with images is not available in the APAC region.
Yokohama	Using OpenAI LLMs for playbook generation is not available in the APAC region.
Zurich	Using OpenAI LLMs for playbook generation is not available in the APAC region.

Highlight information

If there are specific highlight considerations for Playbooks in Workflow Studio we have noted them here.


Release	Release notes
Xanadu	Use one playbook for multiple scenarios with variants. Get recommendations on which activities to replace placeholder activities with. Preview and modify your text directions before generating your playbook outline with Now Assist. Generate a playbook with out-of-the-box activities from text, an image or both. Collect custom responses from an end user, without requiring an existing table or fields. Better manage access to your playbooks and playbook components. See Exploring playbooks for more information.
Yokohama	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.
Zurich	Add permissions for playbook authors and runtime users. Activate a playbook without a trigger. Set multiple potential triggers for a playbook, or trigger a playbook on a schedule. Enable AI agents to complete activities without human intervention during runtime. Set child variants to evaluate later in a playbook. Create decision branches for stages. See Playbooks for more information.