Whitepaper · Government & Healthcare
From legacy to leadership: the strategic path from Cherwell to ServiceNow
A risk-mitigated pathway for Government organisations to modernise Service Management before the Cherwell End-of-Life deadline of 31 December 2026.
What's inside
Three pathways. One forced deadline. The right approach for your context.
Cherwell End-of-Life is no longer abstract. Support for v2023.3 ended in mid-2025, and full vendor support stops in December 2026. Most organisations on Cherwell today are in Government or Healthcare — sectors where unsupported software is not a tolerable position to occupy.
Migrating to ServiceNow is the obvious destination. How you migrate determines cost, risk, adoption and long-term success. This whitepaper is a practical guide to the three migration pathways we see most often, the trade-offs of each, and the lessons from leading one of Australia's most complex Cherwell-to-ServiceNow transitions.
The three pathways
Big Bang. Service-based. Staged Transition.
Big Bang
A full switchover in one move. Every system transitions simultaneously in a single coordinated cutover. Fast, decisive, generates organisational momentum — but unforgiving when issues arise. Best suited to organisations with the planning discipline and risk tolerance to commit.
Service-based
Migrate one domain at a time. Each service moves end-to-end with its processes, data and users. Allows correct CSDM alignment from the outset and iterative learning across services — at the cost of upfront analysis effort, longer overall timeline, and the need to maintain stakeholder momentum.
Staged Transition
Run both platforms in parallel. Cherwell and ServiceNow operate side-by-side while services migrate progressively. Lowers immediate disruption and gives users a softer landing — but introduces integration complexity and the risk of stretching the timeline if not actively managed.
The reality: most organisations blend
Few organisations follow a single model. Most start cautiously, accelerate when confidence builds, and flex when parallel change programs create constraints. The DHDA migration in this paper started service-based, considered Big Bang, and ultimately landed on a Staged Transition — a deliberate evolution, not indecision.
The hidden risk
It isn't the platform switch. It's what comes with you.
After years of accretion, most Cherwell environments carry bloated service catalogues, inconsistent forms, duplicated workflows, and "dirty data" that has long outlived its purpose. Migrating that complexity as-is — a literal lift-and-shift — replicates yesterday's problems on tomorrow's platform.
Novabridge's approach is to rationalise and streamline before migration, not after. The full whitepaper details the three-step Catalogue Migration Accelerator pattern that took the DHDA catalogue from nearly 1,000 items to a streamlined, CSDM-aligned set — and how the same pattern can be applied to your environment.
Case study highlights · Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
Nearly 1,000 catalogue items. 25 network domains. Multiple parallel transformations. One platform.
Novabridge guided the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing through a Cherwell-to-ServiceNow migration of unusual complexity — running alongside Windows 11, Intune and a 25-domain network consolidation. The chosen approach evolved from a service-based pilot through a planned Big Bang into a Staged Transition, with the strategy adapting as the program revealed itself.
50% catalogue reduction. 25 network domains rationalised. Onboarding cut from weeks to days. 100% real-time governance visibility.
The full whitepaper walks through the challenge, the approach, the key interventions, the results, and the lessons that apply broadly to any Cherwell-to-ServiceNow program.
Get the full whitepaper.
The complete guide — three migration pathways with pros and cons, the Novabridge Migration Accelerator, the full DHDA case study, and lessons for your own Cherwell-to-ServiceNow program.