Creating and Managing Groups

As your ServiceNow instance grows, managing users one by one becomes impractical. That’s where groups come in—they help organize teams, assign tasks, and control access more efficiently.

In this chapter, you’ll learn how to create and manage groups, set up assignment groups, and build custom group structures that fit real business needs. Whether it’s for IT, HR, or any other team, knowing how to configure groups is a must-have skill for every ServiceNow admin.

What Is a Group in ServiceNow?

A ServiceNow group is a set of users with a shared responsibility or purpose. This might be by department (such as HR), function (such as incident response), or role (such as approvers for changes). After a group is created, it can be reused in multiple applications—for access control, approvals, notification, and assignment of tasks.

Every group record is preserved in the sys_user_group table, which maintains group names, descriptions, members, and concerned roles.

Groups can be utilized for numerous things, but are most often used to:

• Assign tasks (incidents, requests, approvals, etc.)
• Route approvals through workflows
• Apply for security roles at a group level
• Enable consistent access for similar users

Use Cases: Why Groups Matter

Imagine managing a mid-sized IT team responsible for handling incidents. Instead of assigning each new incident to a specific agent manually, you assign it to a group—like the Service Desk. Any member of that group can then pick it up.

Groups help simplify task routing and reduce administrative effort. They are especially useful in environments where responsibilities shift regularly across users.

Some example groups include:

• IT Support – handles tickets and outages
• HR Team – manages employee onboarding tasks
• Security Review – responsible for approving access requests
• Change Advisory Board – votes on change request approvals

By creating relevant groups, you can automate the assignment of work and maintain clear ownership across business functions.

Understanding Assignment Groups

Assignment groups are teams or groups of people in ServiceNow who are responsible for handling tasks. These groups are often used in IT service management modules like Incident, Change, Problem, and Request Management to make sure the right team gets the right task..

When a task is assigned to an assignment group:

• All members can view the task
• The task appears in group queues and dashboards
• Ownership belongs to the team, not one person

This allows teams to self-organize and pick up tasks based on workload, skill, or urgency.

Assignment groups are not separate entities—they are just regular groups that are designated for task assignments. You can use any group as an assignment group by referencing it in the Assignment Group field of a task record.

How to Create a Group in ServiceNow?

Creating a group in ServiceNow is a straightforward process. You can set up a general group or define one specifically for task assignment or access control.

Steps to create a group:

1. Navigate to User Administration → Groups

2. Click New

3. Fill in the fields:
   • Name – e.g., Service Desk, HR Onboarding
   • Description – the short purpose of the group
   • (Optional) Add roles that this group should inherit
4. Click Submit

Once created, you can begin adding users and linking the group to roles or tasks.

This process works for creating both general groups and assignment groups. There’s no separate form—you control the purpose based on how the group is used.

Adding Members to a Group

After creating a group, you’ll want to assign users to it.

To add users:

1. Open the group record
2. Scroll to the Group Members related list
3. Click Edit
4. Select users from the available list
5. Click Save

Once a user is added to a group, they will inherit any roles assigned to that group and will be eligible for group task assignments.

You can also assign group roles from the same record under the Roles-related list.

Creating Custom Groups

In many organizations, you’ll need to define groups tailored to specific workflows or business units. These are often referred to as custom groups.

Examples:

• HR_Access_Review
• IT_Onsite_Team
• Finance_Approvers_Q1

When creating custom groups:

• Use clear, descriptive names
• Document their purpose in the description field
• Align naming conventions with department or function

This helps avoid confusion later and ensures groups are easy to identify and manage.

Custom groups can also be used to control visibility in reports, dashboards, and knowledge-base articles.

The Group Table in ServiceNow

All group records are stored in the sys_user_group table. This table stores key information like:

• Group name
• Description
• Group roles
• Group members
• Group manager (optional)

Understanding this table is important for reporting, scripting, and automation.

You’ll also interact with the sys_user_grmember table, which links users to their groups. Each entry in that table defines a single user-group relationship.

These tables play a key role in access control and workflow routing across the platform.

Best Practices for Group Setup

To manage groups effectively, keep these guidelines in mind:

• Assign roles to groups, not individual users
• Keep group names clear, consistent, and purpose-driven
• Use groups to manage access and simplify security
• Review group memberships periodically
• Limit the number of overlapping groups to avoid confusion
• When using groups for task assignments, keep the member list relevant and active

What’s Next

In the next chapter, we’ll explore how to assign roles to users and groups effectively. You’ll learn how to build role structures that scale and how role assignments influence access and permissions across ServiceNow.

Let’s keep going.

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