Attaining a more peaceful summer vacation with ServiceNow delegation

Imagine this: you are sitting on the beach with a good book in your lap, watching the waves roll ashore 🏖️🌊🍹.

But then those nagging thoughts start creeping in 😓💭. Is everything alright back at the office? What if something critical comes in? Does your team remember where to look?  

Fear not 😎! With ServiceNow's delegation tools, you can rest assured that others have your back when you can't have your eyes on the system. 

ServiceNow has not one but TWO delegation features...

1. Service Delegation (from the early days of the ServiceNow platform) allows you to assign some combination of all of one type of duty (e.g. all tasks you are assigned) that originate from ServiceNow to one specific individual.

2. Granular Delegation is a newer feature that allows specified delegation administrators to create rules that employees can delegate through. Rather than delegating all tasks, you can delegate all HR Tasks, all HR tasks that are related to an onboarding, or even all HR Tasks that are related to an onboarding and deal with ordering equipment.

Learn about the differences: 

Service Delegation 

This involves assigning responsibilities and access rights to users, allowing them to perform tasks on behalf of others. This is particularly useful for covering absences or empowering team members to handle specific duties. 

Key to remember: Service delegation fully reassigns the task to the specified delegate instead of the original user. You'll never receive or see it unless someone manually assigns it back to you. 

Setting it up is easy. From the Employee Center, 1) create a new delegate, 2) specify the time period the delegate should be active for, and 3) indicate what types of duties they should receive. 

Note: all screenshots are from a demo environment. If you don't have access to delegates through Employee Center, request it as an enhancement from your ServiceNow team.

Pros ✅ 

• Simplicity: Easy to set up and manage, making it accessible for organizations of any size. 

• Efficiency: Quickly provides the necessary permissions, enabling users to perform tasks without delays. 

• Continuity: Ensures that critical tasks are not stalled due to the absence of key personnel. 

Cons ❌ 

• Limited Control: Offers broad permissions, which might lead to security risks if not managed properly. 
• Potential Overreach: Users may have access to more information and capabilities than needed, which can complicate auditing and accountability. 

Granular Delegation

Granular delegation, on the other hand, takes a more nuanced approach. It allows for highly specific permissions to be granted, ensuring that users have exactly the access they need—no more, no less. Beyond that, you can designate multiple delegates via a single rule. You can also group multiple duties through categories, allowing your employees to assign delegates for multiple items at once.   

Key to remember: The tasks delegated are still assigned to you—you are just granting others the ability to see and take action. This means that when you return from vacation, any incomplete items will still be in your queue without the need for reassignment. 

To create a granular delegate, you must first create a granular delegate rule. To do so, pick a table, a condition for the delegation, and a name for it. From there, you can create criteria to set which employees can use this rule and be delegated to via the rule. It is as flexible as you need it to be. 

Then, from the Employee Center, you're able to select who you'd like to delegate to via each rule.   

Pros ✅ 

• Enhanced Security: Minimizes risks by providing only the necessary permissions, reducing the chances of unauthorized access. 

• Precision: Enables fine-tuning of roles and responsibilities, ensuring users can only perform designated tasks. 

• Flexibility: Multiple granular delegates can be selected for the same rule. This is excellent if you have a team covering for a single individual—each can see the tasks from their own list in the Employee Center. 

Cons ❌ 

• Complexity: Setting up granular delegation can be time-consuming and requires a thorough understanding of the roles and responsibilities within the organization. 

• Management Overhead: Ongoing adjustments may be needed to keep granular delegations up-to-date, which can add to administrative burdens. 

• Technical Limitations: As of the Washington D.C. release, granular delegation does not work for all types of assignments, particularly those originating from flows and workflows. 

• Intended for Employees: These types of delegations are primarily meant for items worked through the Employee Center—not for agents working through Agent Workspace or the Core UI. There are often other, more sophisticated features like Advanced Work Assignment to resolve these needs. 

Which feature is right for me?  

• Someone handles all my ServiceNow activities: If you have a VP or executive who should never need to go into ServiceNow, service delegation is for you. There is usually a designated admin that handles all of their tasks (and potentially approvals). It's common to see a delegate set up with an end date of December 31st 2100. Just remember to change it out if the administrator changes. 

• For specific day-to-day operations: Your most effective route forward is granular delegation, but you may want to consider why it's being assigned to the original user in the first place. Is there a different way to structure or update your process with the appropriate users? 

• I'm out on vacation and I've only got one backup: If there is no risk of anything sensitive being delegated, you can use service delegation and skip the overhead. 

• I'm out on vacation and I've got multiple individuals covering me or I'm delegating different tasks to different people: Your only option is granular delegation. Work with your granular delegation administrators to ensure you have appropriate rules set up and delegate only the relevant tasks to appropriate individuals. 

Effective delegation in ServiceNow is about striking the right balance between ease of use and control. By understanding the differences between service and granular delegation, business stakeholders can make informed decisions that enhance productivity, ensure security, and support the organization’s strategic goals. 

  For more insights on how to optimize your ServiceNow implementation, explore our ServiceNow Value Amplification Clinic and see how we can help you achieve your business goals.