ServiceNow’s most recent release offers an exciting glimpse into the future of business systems and service optimization. This latest version, called Kingston, will offer enhanced machine learning tools for everyday work, innovations to user experiences, and more. With shifting desires for businesses to reduce reactive states in favor of acting proactively, this upcoming release promises organizations an enhanced ability to make performance predictions and analyze data to identify trends. Its release date has not yet been announced, but it is expected to debut in the first half of 2018.
Editor’s Note: This post was published in November of 2017 and then updated (with this note) to make readers aware of Kingston’s ultimate release date, which was in January of 2018.
From an intelligent machine capable of delivering predictive performance metrics to enhanced abilities to reduce service outages, the platform’s upcoming features are designed to help companies optimize work and improve customer satisfaction. ServiceNow tackles concerns of a one-size-fits-all model with machine-learning capabilities, allowing businesses to enhance the performance of their services based on their individual needs and create models designed for specific, internal workflows. In this article, we delve into the newest features of Kingston, which will offer many new capabilities to help drive innovation, reduce enterprise costs and inefficiencies, and boost performance in all areas.
AI Innovation to Boost Business Performance
We already know that automation improves business performance, reduces costs and errors, and boosts efficiencies across organizations. The ServiceNow platform has provided companies a centralized and intuitive platform that makes it easy to share knowledge, automate processes, and improve service deliveries in all areas. With the upcoming Kingston release and its new AI capabilities, ServiceNow customers will be able to experience next level performance improvement and strategic planning.
ServiceNow’s AI tool – called the Intelligent Automation Engine – does more than help business areas identify areas needing automation. This engine uses predictive algorithms and data analytics to categorize and route tasks, find patterns in data to predict outages and service issues, and automate functions based on company use. Using its accurate predictive modeling and benchmark data, this engine can predict when your company will reach its performance goals and measure your company against its peers. Since this engine learns through analyzing company data in real time, its performance continually improves.
Realizing the Value of Data to Predict Outages
The Kingston Release will put to use data that companies may otherwise be overlooking or have no way of drawing value from. Businesses collect large amounts of data from every area, but most do not fully utilize it – in fact, according to a 2016 GE Report on digital innovation, only 61% of senior executives are using data to inform their business decisions. Your company may be holding valuable information about IT events and not realize its importance. To combat this, ServiceNow is introducing an intelligent system that not only captures but also analyzes data to create proactive solutions.
IT often struggles to keep up with service requests and sort through event noise – it can be difficult to manage outages and issues, much less find ways to prevent them from occurring. The data exists – but there is no effective way to sort through it. By adding machine learning capabilities to the integrated ServiceNow platform, this newest version will offer businesses the ability to predict outages and performance metrics in a way that has not previously been possible. How? The Intelligent Automation System analyzes thousands of events to find patterns, which gives insights into past issues and allows the system to predict outages based on those patterns.
Improved User Experience with the Now Platform
The Kingston release brings exciting features to the Now Platform that benefits users and their experience with ServiceNow. To truly boost efficiencies within any business area, the technology solution needs to be intuitive and user-friendly. ServiceNow has proved its desire to exceed user expectation with this update in small but helpful ways. For example, a document viewer option in the Kingston release lets staff view documents within the platform rather than downloading the document – and you can even track the number of views and downloads for that document. ServiceNow has also improved its accessibility features to make it even easier for all staff to access and navigate the platform.
Another example of this improved user experience is with ServiceNow’s self-service portals. Service portals have dramatically improved the ability for staff to find information, make routine requests, and add information to the Knowledge Base. They also improve tedious or routine processes and give staff control over information. With this update, companies can send announcements through service portals; improve the searchability of static and dynamic pages by adding SEO information, and redirect page reference ID widgets without needing to replace them.
The Future of ServiceNow
The ServiceNow version Jakarta, which was released earlier in 2017, sought to address customer demands for an improved system of action. Companies needed a way to connect their services to their customers in a fast, clean, and efficient way. Optimizing performance through automation helped businesses with this goal, and improved information sharing through the Internet of Things and a Knowledge Base made it easier for staff and customers to find what they need. With the Kingston release, ServiceNow improves upon these areas by adding intelligent automation and predictive tools. They have not yet announced Kingston’s release date, but people can expect it to be released within the first half of 2018. These exciting capabilities will help drive businesses forward to improve future services, reduce outages and other problems, and make it easier to reach strategic goals.
Editors Note: For more information about Kingston and/or any other release versions, please reference this post here – ServiceNow Version History: Release Notes, Release Dates & Information – for official ServiceNow documentation about the Kingston release, please reference the community forum announcement here – ServiceNow Software Release – Kingston