Combined Public Sector Digital Services release notes for upgrades from Xanadu to Zurich

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated August 11, 2026
  • 11 minutes to read
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    Summary of Combined Public Sector Digital Services Release Notes for Upgrades from Xanadu to Zurich

    This consolidated guide covers key information for ServiceNow customers upgrading Public Sector Digital Services from the Xanadu release through to Zurich. It highlights important upgrade tasks, new features, changes, removals, deprecations, activation steps, and other considerations to help ensure a smooth transition and maximize the platform’s capabilities in the public sector context.

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    Important Upgrade Information

    • After upgrading to Zurich (and earlier releases), certain public sector menu labels in the Customer Service Management (CSM) Configurable Workspace reset to default CSM names. Customers must manually relabel these via the Guided Setup path: All > Constituent Service > Administration > Guided Setup > Configurable Workspace for Public Sector Digital Services > Customize Workspace Labels Manually.
    • Pre- and post-upgrade tasks should be reviewed and completed to maintain configuration integrity and usability.

    New Features

    • License and Permit Playbook Enhancements (Xanadu): Agents can specify license details and endorsements directly from the workspace. Guided constituent experience includes appointment booking and save/resume functionality.
    • Information Request Playbook (Xanadu): Redact sensitive content in documents with version control, available to information request case agents.
    • Now Assist for Public Sector Digital Services (PSDS) (Xanadu/Yokohama): Introduces generative AI-powered case and chat summarization skills, enabling agents to generate concise case summaries, resolution notes, and chat interaction summaries to improve efficiency.
    • Grants Management (Yokohama): Streamlines grant application intake, screening, and program setup with guided steps, a self-service Grants Portal, and export functionality.
    • Service Exchange & Service Bridge for PSDS (Yokohama): Enables secure, compliance-driven data sharing and unified case collaboration across multiple ServiceNow instances for public sector agencies.
    • Grants Management Funding Program (Zurich): Allows creation of top-level funding programs to manage budgets and timelines that cascade to individual grant programs.
    • Grants Management Evaluation & Decision (Zurich): Facilitates merit-based review, scoring, and decision-making through a dedicated portal and workspace, including automated communications to applicants.
    • Grants Management Reviewer Service Portal (Zurich): Provides merit reviewers with tools to track, score, and monitor applications efficiently.
    • Agentic AI for Information Requests (Zurich): Automates fee definition and waiver assessments for information requests, integrating with workflows to streamline case handling.

    Changes

    • Constituent Service Dashboard Migration: Migrated from the previous platform to Next Experience Platform Analytics (an AI-powered ServiceNow feature) across releases Xanadu, Yokohama, and Zurich. This migration enhances visualization of historical and real-time process statistics in role-based dashboards accessible via All > Platform Analytics > Library > Dashboards.
    • Social Benefits Playbook Enhancements (Xanadu): Updated constituent card with detailed applicant info, ability to cancel draft cases, bypass eligibility screening, and skip playbook steps in the Government Service Portal.
    • Grants Management Enhancements (Zurich): Added ability to add program contacts, auto-remove program announcements, disable new applications post deadline, and enable applicants to review results and accept or decline awards within the portal.

    Removals and Deprecations

    No features or functionalities were removed or deprecated between Xanadu and Zurich releases.

    Activation and Installation

    • Public Sector Digital Services applications must be requested and installed from the ServiceNow Store for all releases.
    • Installation details and configuration guidance are documented under “Configuring Public Sector Digital Services” or “Configure” depending on the release.

    Additional Considerations

    • No new additional requirements, browser specifications, accessibility updates, or localization notes were introduced between these releases.
    • Highlighted improvements focus on enhanced agent workflows, AI-driven assistance, improved grant management lifecycle, and secure inter-agency collaboration.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Upgrading to Zurich enables leveraging AI-powered automation for case and chat summarization, improving agent productivity and constituent communication.
    • Grant management capabilities are significantly enhanced with structured funding programs, merit review portals, and applicant self-service features, supporting efficient and transparent grant processes.
    • Secure data sharing across agencies via Service Bridge facilitates coordinated and compliant public sector service delivery.
    • Migration to Next Experience Platform Analytics provides richer, role-based insights to optimize service operations and informed decision-making.
    • Manual relabeling of workspace menus post-upgrade ensures user interfaces remain aligned with public sector terminology and needs.

    Consolidated page of all release notes for Public Sector Digital Services from Xanadu to Zurich.

    How to use this page

    To help you prepare for your upgrade, we have combined the cross-family Public Sector Digital Services 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 Public Sector Digital Services 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 the upgrade, certain public sector menus and menu items in CSM Configurable Workspace revert to their original CSM label names. You can relabel these items for public sector use by updating the UX List Categories for Customer and Service Organizations. For more details on relabeling, navigate to All > Constituent Service > Administration > Guided Setup, and select Configurable Workspace for Public Sector Digital Services > Customize Workspace Labels Manually.

    Yokohama

    After the upgrade, certain public sector menus and menu items in the CSM Configurable Workspace revert to their original CSM label names. You can relabel these items for public sector use by updating the labels for the Customer, Accounts, and Service Organizations UX list category records. For more details on relabeling, navigate to All > Constituent Service > Administration > Guided Setup, and select Configurable Workspace for Public Sector Digital Services > Customize Workspace Labels Manually.

    Zurich

    After the upgrade, certain public sector menus and menu items in CSM Configurable Workspace revert to their original CSM label names. You can relabel these items for public sector use by updating the labels for the Customer, Accounts, and Service Organizations UX list category records. For more details on relabeling, navigate to All > Constituent Service > Administration > Guided Setup, and select Configurable Workspace for Public Sector Digital Services > Customize Workspace Labels Manually.

    New features

    Between your current release family and Zurich, new features were introduced for Public Sector Digital Services.

    Release Release notes

    Xanadu
    Agent updates to License and Permit Playbook
    Specify the license details and add license endorsements directly from the workspace in License and Permit Playbook.
    Guided Constituent Experience for License and Permit Playbook
    Streamline how you communicate with your constituents with easy appointment booking. You can also simplify complex license and permit applications with the save and resume and guided data entry functionality in License and Permit Playbook as part of the playbooks-on-portal experience.​
    Document redaction for Information Request Playbook
    Redact sensitive content, data, or entire documents within the document management tool in the Information Request Playbook. You can either highlight bodies of text, or search for strings of text and designate them to be redacted. This functionality is only available to information request case agents for documents in the Published or Draft state. New versions of the same document are generated each time that text is redacted or unredacted.
    Now Assist for Public Sector Digital Services (PSDS)
    Condense case records into short summaries by using the case summarization skill in the Now Assist for PSDS application. Agents can use the resolution summarization skill to generate resolution information for a case, propose the resolution to the customer, and add the information to the case record. The Now Assist for PSDS application brings generative AI case summarization and resolution notes generation to Public Sector Digital Services.

    Yokohama
    Grants Management
    Simplify and streamline Grant application intake and screening​ with Grants Management:​ Intake and Screening, a part of Grants Management. Improve self-service with a Grants Portal that streamlines finding, applying for, and tracking grants, with added features such as guided intake, and a save, resume, and export functionality. Set up and manage grant programs easily with guided steps​ using Grants Management: ​Program Set Up​, which guides grant program managers through the process of creating, publishing, and managing grant programs.​
    Communicate and share citizen and agent data securely between agencies using Service Exchange for Public Sector Digital Services
    Connect multiple ServiceNow instances to provide seamless support and service experiences across the Public Sector​ using Service Bridge for Public Sector Digital Services. Service Bridge enables unified case collaboration across agencies, streamlined approval workflows for funding distribution, and real-time crisis coordination with dynamic task management. Agencies can share citizen & agency data securely through ​compliance-driven access.​​​
    Post-chat summarization in Now Assist for Public Sector Digital Services (PSDS)
    Condense chat records into short summaries using the chat summarization skill in the Now Assist for PSDS application. Agents can use the chat summarization skill to generate chat records for a case, auto-populate the chat summary into the Interaction section of the case record, and obtain a summary of the main points discussed during the chat, helping them propose a case resolution. The Now Assist for PSDS application brings generative AI chat summarization to Public Sector Digital Services.

    Zurich
    Grants Management Funding Program

    Create a funding program, which serves as the top-level container from which individual grant programs are created and derive their budget allocations.

    Grant program managers can create a new funding program, or start by copying data and configurations from an existing funding program, using the funding program ID. From this funding program, admins can create grant programs directly, set and update the duration and overall budget, and ensure budgets flow down logically to individual grants.

    Each grant program is associated with a single funding program via the funding program ID. All grant programs linked to a specific funding program share the cumulative budget of that funding program, and their start and end dates fall within the funding program's duration.

    Grants Management Evaluation & Decision​
    Simplify and streamline your grant application decisions​ with Grants Management:​ Evaluation & Decision. You can review, score, and manage proposals for grant programs in the Merit Review portal and define a funding proposal for a grant program by using the Grants Workspace. You can share this information internally with the grant program director.​ Grant program managers can define the merit review framework criteria, assign a reviewer group to each application, create, and track merit review tasks. Grant program managers can use document templates to compose letters that inform the applicants of results, with template options for Award, Rejected (Ineligible), and Rejected (Decline).
    Grants Management Reviewer Service portal
    Enable your merit reviewers to track, score, and monitor grant applications via a dedicated Reviewer Service portal. The merit reviewers can capture and aggregate scores across the Grant Proposal review framework​ in the Grants Workspace. A score and rationale can be summarized as part of the application proposal result.​
    Agentic AI
    Define the fees for information requests and autonomously assess waivers against an agency's criteria​. You can automate the process of synthesizing similar information requests and associated fees, and apply those fees to cases​. Your case fields are automatically filled in and integrated into the Information Request Playbook workflow and ServiceNow's AI framework.

    Changes

    Between your current release family and Zurich, some changes were made to existing Public Sector Digital Services features.

    Release Release notes

    Xanadu
    Constituent Service Dashboard Migration to Platform Analytics
    The Constituent Service Dashboard has been migrated to Next Experience Platform Analytics. Next Experience is a ServiceNow AI Platform® feature that is active by default when the user loads or upgrades to the Xanadu release. The dashboard migration to Next Experience enables continuous visualization of historical and real-time process statistics in role-based dashboards, which enable individual stakeholders to make informed decisions. The new dashboard can be accessed by navigating to All > Platform Analytics > Library > Dashboards.
    Enhancements to Social Benefits Playbook
    Use the enhanced Social Benefits Playbook to view an updated constituent card with more detailed information about the primary applicant. Cancel draft cases, bypass the initial eligibility screening, and skip playbook activities by using the updated process playbook in the Government Service Portal.

    Yokohama
    Constituent Service Dashboard Migration to Platform Analytics
    The Constituent Service Dashboard has been migrated to Next Experience Platform Analytics. Next Experience is a ServiceNow AI Platform® feature that is active by default when the user loads or upgrades to the Yokohama release. The dashboard migration to Next Experience enables you to visualize historical and real-time process statistics in role-based dashboards, which enable individual stakeholders to make informed decisions. The new dashboard can be accessed by navigating to All > Platform Analytics > Library > Dashboards.

    Zurich
    Enhancements to Grants Management: Program Setup
    In the Grants Management: program setup, grant program managers can now add new points of contact for the applicants to the grants program in the Define Program stage. In the Publish Program stage, new fields have been added for program announcement removal. Grants program managers can now set grants programs to auto-remove at a defined date, and set application close to disable new applications from being submitted through the Grants Management portal.
    Enhancements to Grants Management portal
    Enable grant program managers to turn off new grant proposal submissions after the proposal close date. Applicants can no longer submit proposals after the proposal close date, keeping the process on schedule and helping prevent late submissions from being reviewed.

    Enable applicants to review and download the results letter and merit review summary (where applicable) of their grants application, as well as accept or decline their award, all within the new Results tab of the Grants Management portal. Notify constituents about a pending award decision through the portal.

    Constituent Service Dashboard Migration to Platform Analytics
    The Constituent Service Dashboard has been migrated to Next Experience Platform Analytics. Next Experience is a ServiceNow AI Platform® feature that is active by default when you load or upgrade to the Zurich release. The dashboard migration to Next Experience enables you to visualize historical and real-time process statistics in role-based dashboards. Access the new dashboard by navigating to All > Platform Analytics > Library > Dashboards.

    Removed

    Between your current release family and Zurich, some Public Sector Digital Services features or functionality were removed.

    Release Release notes

    Xanadu

    		 No updates for this release.

    Yokohama

    		 No updates for this release.

    Zurich

    		 No updates for this release.

    Deprecations

    Between your current release family and Zurich, some Public Sector Digital Services features or functionality were deprecated.

    Release Release notes

    Xanadu

    		 No updates for this release.

    Yokohama

    		 No updates for this release.

    Zurich

    		 No updates for this release.

    Activation information

    Review information on how to activate Public Sector Digital Services.

    Release Release notes

    Xanadu

    Install Public Sector Digital Services applications by requesting them from the ServiceNow Store. For details on installing the applications, see Configuring Public Sector Digital Services. 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 Public Sector Digital Services applications by requesting them from the ServiceNow Store. For details on installing the applications, see Configuring Public Sector Digital Services. 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

    Install Public Sector Digital Services applications by requesting them from the ServiceNow Store. For details on installing the applications, see Configure.

    Additional requirements

    If any additional requirements were introduced or changed for Public Sector Digital Services 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.

    Browser requirements

    If any specific browser requirements were introduced or changed for Public Sector Digital Services 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 Public Sector Digital Services, such as specific requirements or compliance levels.

    Release Release notes

    Xanadu

    		 No updates for this release.

    Yokohama

    		 No updates for this release.

    Zurich

    Localization information

    If there are specific localization considerations for Public Sector Digital Services 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.

    Highlight information

    If there are specific highlight considerations for Public Sector Digital Services we have noted them here.

    Release Release notes

    Xanadu
    • Added enhancements to License and Permit Playbook, including updates to the Intake stage for applicants on the constituent Government Service Portal, and added functionality for specifying license details and license endorsements on the agent playbook.
    • Added enhancements to Social Benefits Playbook, including updates to the Intake and Decision stage, and updates to the process playbook for applicants on the Government Service Portal.
    • Redact sensitive content or data from PDF documents in the Information Request Playbook.
    • Auto-generate case summaries and case resolution notes for cases in the Social Benefits Playbook by using the Now Assist for Public Sector Digital Services (PSDS) application.

    See Public Sector Digital Services for more information.

    Yokohama
    • Review requests for grants, and create new grant programs using Grants Management.
    • Connect multiple ServiceNow instances to provide seamless support and service experiences across the Public Sector​ using for Service Bridge for Public Sector Digital Services.
    • Utilize the Chat summarization skill, powered by Now LLM, to auto-generate chat summaries for customer-agent interactions in the Now Assist for Public Sector Digital Services (PSDS) application.

    See Public Sector Digital Services for more information.

    Zurich
    • Create funding programs to establish top-level budgets and timelines that flow down to associated grant programs.
    • Simplify and streamline the grant application decisions​ with Grants Management:​ Evaluation & Decision.
    • Enable merit reviewers to track, score, and monitor grant applications via a dedicated Reviewer Service portal.
    • Enable applicants to review and download the results letter and merit review summary of their grants application, and accept or decline their award, all within the new Results tab of the Grants Management portal.
    • Define fees for and autonomously assess fee waivers against agency-defined criteria for information requests with the Help manage public information requests agentic AI Agent, part of the Public Sector Digital Services AI Agent Collection application.

    See Public Sector Digital Services for more information.