User groups are the foundation for assigning work, routing notifications, and organizing permissions across your instance. This guide walks you through creating a group and configuring the key settings that control how it behaves.
Why groups matter for platform administration
Before user groups, you're managing individual assignments and permissions one user at a time. That becomes unmanageable fast — when someone leaves, you're hunting through dozens of assignment rules and role grants. When a team restructures, you're updating hundreds of individual configurations. The people who manage ServiceNow instances — platform admins — need a way to organize users that reflects how the business actually works, not just how IT thinks about individual accounts.
How groups organize users and permissions
A user group is a container for users that can receive assignments, get notifications, and inherit roles. The key insight is that roles assigned to a group automatically flow to all members — add someone to the group and they get the permissions immediately. Groups can have a manager (useful for approvals and escalations), an email address (for external notifications), and notification settings that control whether members get emails when the group is assigned work. You'll configure these settings based on whether the group handles work assignments, permissions only, or both.
Building groups that scale with your organization
Start with groups that match your team structure — one group per functional team that gets assigned work. Once those are working, you can create permission-only groups that span multiple teams (like 'Catalog Managers' or 'Report Viewers'), or specialized groups for specific workflows like approvals. The mature pattern is having a mix of assignment groups tied to your org chart and role-based groups that cut across teams. This gives you flexibility without creating a maintenance nightmare.
Before you start
- •user_admin role or admin role
Sourdough: ServiceNow Monitoring and Analytics
A Chrome extension for ServiceNow Admins and Developers with essential tools, analytics, graphs and monitoring features.
Free to install. Pro $5/month after a 14-day no-card trial.
Pro requires the ServiceNow admin role. Upgrade inside the extension.
Step by step
Navigate to User Groups table
Go to User Administration > Groups. This opens the Groups table where you'll create and manage all user groups. Click 'New' to start creating a group.
The All menu path is System Security > Users and Groups > Groups if you're coming from there.
Set group name and description
Fill in the Name field — this is what appears in assignment dropdowns and notification emails. The Description field should explain the group's purpose clearly because other admins will see this when configuring assignments. Keep names concise but descriptive.
Use consistent naming patterns like 'IT - Network Team' or 'Finance - AP Processors' so groups sort logically in lists.
Configure the group manager
Set the Manager field to a user who can approve requests or handle escalations for this group. The Type field defaults to 'Security group' — leave it unless you're creating an LDAP-synced group. If this group will receive external emails, fill in the Email field with a shared mailbox address.
The manager gets automatic approval rights for requests assigned to this group, even without explicit approval roles.
Set notification preferences
Check 'Include members in notifications' if you want group members to receive email notifications when records are assigned to the group. Leave this unchecked if only the group email address should receive notifications, or if you're creating a permissions-only group that won't handle assignments.
This setting only affects email notifications — members still see assignments in their work queues regardless.
Add group members
Click the 'Group Members' tab and add users to the group. You can add members individually or use the 'Add Multiple Members' related link to bulk-add users. Members inherit all roles assigned to the group immediately upon being added.
You can add members later — create the group first to get the basic structure in place.
Assign roles to the group
Click the 'Roles' tab and grant roles that all group members should have. Common patterns are giving assignment groups basic roles like 'itil' or 'incident_manager', while permission-only groups get specific functional roles like 'catalog_admin'. Every member inherits these roles automatically.
Test the group configuration
Save the group and verify it appears in assignment dropdowns for relevant tables. Check that a group member can see the expected roles in their user record under the Roles tab. If you enabled notifications, create a test assignment to confirm emails route correctly.
Best practices
Don't assign the admin role to groups — it's too broad and makes audit trails unclear when you need to track who did what.
Create separate groups for assignments and permissions when they don't align — your 'Network Team' assignment group doesn't need the same members as your 'CMDB Editors' permission group.
Set group email addresses even for small teams — when the group grows or the manager changes, you won't have to reconfigure notification rules.
Use the manager field strategically for approval workflows — the group manager can approve requests without needing explicit approver roles.
Review group memberships quarterly — people change roles but group memberships often don't get updated, leading to permission creep.
Test Your Knowledge
Quick 3-question quiz — see how your ServiceNow skills stack up.
A list view on a table with millions of records is slow. Best fix?
Select an answer to continue