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The Sign-Off Table
The ServiceNow Upgrade Testing Playbook

Week 1 of 8

Your upgrade calendar

Welcome to The Sign-Off Table. For the next 8 weeks you will get one practical move a week for testing ServiceNow upgrades, in the order you will need them. After that, a weekly roundup of new research, guides and templates.

We start with the calendar, because ServiceNow sets it. Two family releases ship each year and ServiceNow supports the current family and the one before it. Fall behind and ServiceNow schedules the upgrade for you. Australia went GA on May 5, 2026; Brazil reached early availability on September 24, with GA due in Q4.

This week: put the next two upgrades on one calendar

  1. Write down which family each instance runs today (dev, test, prod and any others) and the patch level. Check it in Now Support, not from memory.
  2. Pick your target family and a target production date. If you are on Zurich, Australia is the safe target; Brazil is the one to preview.
  3. Work backwards: production upgrade, sign-off, UAT, functional and integration testing on test, skipped-record review on dev, and a fresh clone before all of it.
  4. Put the Release Testing Preview window (at least 60 days before GA) on the calendar so your next upgrade starts with a preview, not a surprise.
  5. Name one person who signs off each upgrade, and agree now what evidence they will sign on.

Number of the week

2 per year

ServiceNow family releases, with only the current and previous family supported. That means roughly one upgrade a year, every year.

Source: ServiceNow upgrade policy, via ServiceNow Community

Use this week

Next week: the upgrade quietly leaves your customizations behind. We review skipped changes properly.

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