As mentioned in my initial post, I’ve been using the ServiceNow platform since 2012 when I joined the IT Service Desk at the University of Birmingham. At that time, the current release was Aspen, and it’s fascinating to look back and see how far the platform has come since then. Here, I’ll share some notable features from each release that have impacted my roles, both at the Service Desk and in my current Continual Improvement team. This is a subjective journey, so feel free to share your favorite features in the comments!
Thank goodness for the Internet Archive, which helped me track some historic data up to the Fuji release from the old ServiceNow wiki. I’ll include links as we go, with release dates taken from a community post.
2012: Berlin
The end of 2012 saw the Berlin release. Although I wasn’t too aware of it then, Berlin introduced TinyMCE, which I’ve used extensively over the years for writing Knowledge Base (KB) articles.
Mid-2013 brought the Calgary release with significant Service Catalog enhancements, including better search and navigation, customization options, and improved UI policies and client scripts.
Later in October, Dublin arrived with SMS notifications (which we’ve experimented with periodically) and new reporting features and charts.
2014: Eureka
The lone release of 2014, Eureka, introduced Visual Task Boards, a tool we still use heavily today. It also brought UI14, which was later superseded in…
Released in March 2015, Fuji introduced UI15, which I still have a soft spot for. This release also brought Knowledge Management v3, leading to a significant restructuring of our knowledge bases and categories.
The end of 2015 saw the Geneva release with UI16 and the introduction of Performance Analytics, a tool my IT Service Management colleagues use daily.
2016: Helsinki
Helsinki brought us Service Portals, which have been pivotal in my career development.
2017: Istanbul, Jakarta and Kingston
January 2017’s Istanbul release launched the Automated Test Framework, significantly speeding up our upgrade testing. Later that year, Jakarta arrived with two heavily used features: article versioning for the knowledge base and an updated survey experience.
Kingston was released in November 2017, making three releases that year! This version introduced Flow Designer, a tool I’ve become proficient in, offering a much-improved experience over the old workflow editor.
2018: London
London, the sole release of 2018, introduced the Virtual Agent, which I’ve spent the last few months working on, along with custom URLs, a topic for a future blog post!
Both Madrid and New York in 2019 brought enhancements to tools I use regularly, such as Flow Designer, Knowledge Management, and Virtual Agent, making it hard to single out specific features.
Orlando in 2020 introduced numerous workspaces and NLU/ML improvements, while Paris brought Amazon Connect integration, which we’re considering for our Service Desk, and more Flow Designer enhancements.
Quebec in Q1 2021 introduced AI Search, used effectively in our IT Service Portal, and Rome in Q3 brought further AI Search and Virtual Agent enhancements.
San Diego and Tokyo were released in Q2 and Q4 of 2022, respectively. San Diego introduced the Next Experience UI (Polaris), while Tokyo improved it further and added enhancements to AI and Machine Learning functionalities.
Utah was released in Q2 of 2023 with many improvements, leading up to Vancouver, which continues to build on these enhancements.
Looking Ahead
As you can see, recent releases have focused on incremental improvements to the processes and parts of the platform I use daily. It’s been an incredible journey witnessing the evolution of ServiceNow, and I look forward to exploring and sharing more innovations in future posts.
