Issue
The Early Availability version release provides existing customers the opportunity to upgrade to a version of the latest ServiceNow family release prior to Market Launch, also referred to as "General Availability" or "GA". The program is broken into two phases that work together to provide additional time to test release capabilities and the opportunity to try new features in the customer's own environment.
- Phase 1: Release Testing Preview (RTP) is available at least 60 days prior to General Availability and offers a pre-release version for testing on sub-production instances.
- Phase 2: Early Availability (EA) is available at least 45 days prior to General Availability and offers a production-ready version for upgrade on both sub-production and production environments.
Early Availability Program
What is Early Availability (EA)?
- An opportunity for existing customers and partners (except Regulated Markets such as Government Community Cloud (GCC) customers) to upgrade to the latest release production-ready release before market launch.
Who Should Participate?
- Customers who want to take advantage of new features as soon as they are released
- Customers who have time to upgrade when invited
- Customers who are willing to engage and report issues/feedback promptly
- Customers who want to be among the first who are knowledgeable about the new release
- Partners interested in getting familiar with new features early and Technology Partners interested in building apps/integration to release on the store at the time of General Availability.
How Can I Participate?
- You can self-register for Early Release Program via the Now Support Catalog item Early Release Program Registration
How Does it Work?
Once the Early Availability program begins, all registered customer accounts will be entitled to the release and invited to schedule their upgrade via the Instance Dashboard on Now Support. The EA program will end at the start of General Availability. Upon, General Availability customers can revisit the Now Support Instance Dashboard and upgrade to the latest version or allow the patching program to automatically target non-production and production instances to the latest version 30 days post General Availability.
- Registered Early Availability participants will receive a "Welcome to Early Availability" email notification once the program begins and be entitled to the EA release build
- Customers can then schedule their upgrade using the Instance Dashboard page in Now Support (HI)
- (Self-hosted customers will work with their account executive and Early Release Manager to obtain download information)
- During Early Availability, any Cases submitted should be prefixed with the release name (i.e., "Tokyo -") followed by a description
- ServiceNow notifies customers if updates are available
- Customers are encouraged to upgrade to newer versions if notified of updates
- The market launch date marks the end of the Early Availability program
- At market launch, the release becomes generally available to all customers
Related Links
Do you still have unanswered questions? Check out the most Frequently Asked Questions to see if the answer to your question is there. Otherwise, contact your Account Team or email earlyavailability@servicenow.com.
