9.4.1 - Release Notes

Overview

The ServiceNow 9.4.1 emergency release is planned for Tuesday, April 14, 2020, from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

 

What is the issue?

The ServiceNow ITSM/HR system at berkeley.service-now.com uses a Gmail account for its incoming email, servicenow@berkeley.edu. This account was flagged by Google for excessive activity, and as a result we were effectively throttled; some connections to download email from Google to ServiceNow either failed or timed out. This reached a peak on April 10 when the delay on incoming email was 6 hours and increasing. At that point we were told by Google the only recourse was to turn off email checking for 48 hours which we did. On Sunday evening were we able to start downloading email again. But this has not corrected the delay issue. Through research and talking with Google and ServiceNow, we have reduced the delay, although it can change due to load.

If email is working why are you making this change?

The ServiceNow ITSM/HR and bConnected Operations teams feel strongly that we’ll end up in a worse situation at some point in the future if we don’t make a change, i.e. we now have a temporary work around but no permanent solution.

 

What we are changing

Because of issues with our Gmail account, we are going to switch to a ServiceNow email account for storing incoming email.

 

What we are not changing

• We are not changing how we send email from ServiceNow and we are not changing our email address.
• We are not making any other changes to the platform. 

 

You don’t need to make any changes

• If you are a service provider who forwards your support email to servicenow@berkeley.edu you will not need to make any changes. 
• You will not have to change any filters that you have on your email account.
• You will not need to change any notification settings that you have on your profile in ServiceNow.

 

The ServiceNow ITSM/HR team and bConnected Operations are working hard to make sure that you won’t see any effects due to this change. Additionally, we will continue to have strong security and data privacy safeguards through ServiceNow. We will closely monitor the change for the next few days. If you see any issues please email us at servicenow-support@berkeley.edu.