Groups control access to applications, assignment rules for incidents and requests, and notification recipients. This guide shows you both ways to add users and explains how group membership affects permissions.
Why groups replace individual assignments
Before groups, administrators assigned permissions, notifications, and work directly to individual users. When someone changed roles or left the team, you had to hunt through dozens of records to update assignments. Groups solve this by letting you assign permissions and work to the group once, then just manage membership. ServiceNow admins use groups for everything from application access to incident routing, and business users see groups as assignment options throughout the platform.
How group membership works
ServiceNow stores group membership as many-to-many relationships — users can belong to multiple groups, groups can contain multiple users. You can add members from either direction: open a group and add users to it, or open a user and add them to groups. The membership is the same regardless of which approach you use. Roles assigned to groups are inherited by members automatically — they don't copy to the user record, they're evaluated in real-time. This inheritance kicks in immediately when you save the membership change.
Building effective group structures
Start with functional groups that match how work gets assigned — Help Desk, Network Team, HR Approvers. Avoid creating groups for one-time assignments or temporary projects. Add role-based groups when teams need different permission levels within the same functional area. Well-designed group structures use descriptive names, clear purposes, and minimal nesting. Most organizations end up with 20-50 groups that cover their major functions and permission boundaries.
Before you start
- •user_admin role or admin role
- •Write access to the User [sys_user] and Group [sys_user_group] tables
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Step by step
Navigate to the target group
Go to User Administration > Groups and search for the group you want to modify. Click on the group name to open the record. You'll see basic group information like Name, Description, and Manager.
Use the search box with partial names — typing 'help' finds 'Help Desk Team' faster than scrolling.
Add users from the Group Members tab
Click the Group Members tab at the bottom of the group record. Click New to create a new membership relationship. In the User field, search for and select the user you want to add. The Group field auto-populates with the current group. Click Submit to save the membership.
You can select multiple users by opening additional New records before submitting — ServiceNow keeps the tab open.
Alternative: Add groups from user record
Navigate to User Administration > Users and open the target user record. Click the Groups tab and click New. Select the group from the Group dropdown. The User field auto-populates. Click Submit to save.
Verify role inheritance
Return to the user record and click the Roles tab. You'll see roles inherited from groups listed alongside directly assigned roles. Group-inherited roles show the source group in parentheses. Test access by impersonating the user or checking specific application access.
Test assignment rule propagation
If this group is used in assignment rules, create a test record (incident, request, etc.) that should trigger the rule. Verify that the newly added user appears in assignment groups or receives notifications as expected. Assignment rule changes are immediate — no cache clearing required.
Best practices
Add users to groups rather than assigning roles directly — group membership is easier to audit and manage at scale.
Use the group approach (step 2) when adding multiple users to the same group — it's faster than opening individual user records.
Don't create group memberships with end dates unless you have automated cleanup — expired memberships stay in the system and cause confusion during access reviews.
Test group-based assignment rules in a sub-production instance first — a misconfigured group can route hundreds of tickets to the wrong team.
Document group purposes in the Description field — six months later, no one remembers why 'ServiceDesk_L2_Temp' exists.
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