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Day 7 · Free ServiceNow tutorial

ServiceNow Users, groups & roles

Explore who uses the platform and how access is organised.

By Nayeem · ServiceNow Architect and Certified Technical Architect

Understand the concept

Users represent identities, groups organise people and work, and roles grant capabilities used by access controls and application features. Assignment-group membership and permission to read a record are related operational concerns but are not the same rule.

A practical business example

A new support analyst joins the service desk group and receives the approved role through that group. Their access should be tested as the analyst rather than assumed from an administrator session.

What you will learn

• Create a learning user and group
• Understand group membership
• Explain the purpose of roles

Step-by-step practice

Use a personal learning instance and suitable permissions. Record your starting configuration before changing it.

1. Create a clearly labelled learning user and group.
2. Add the user to the group and review the approved roles assigned to the group.
3. Inspect the user’s resulting roles and their source.
4. If permitted, impersonate the learning user, test intended access and end impersonation when finished.

Common mistakes and troubleshooting

Administrator access can hide permission problems during testing. Use least privilege and never grant admin merely to make a missing module appear.

Does joining an assignment group always grant application access?

No. Access depends on roles and access controls; membership alone is not a universal permission grant.

Watch the lesson

Hands-on lab

Users Groups Roles and Impersonation · Estimated practice: 60 to 90 minutes. Download the Word document and work through it alongside the video.

Keep learning

Use the ITSM interview questions with examples to practise explaining concepts. For platform reference information, consult the official ServiceNow documentation for your release.