Functionality enhancements for the entities
Summarize
Summary of Functionality enhancements for the entities
These functionality enhancements for entities are part of the Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) updates in the Yokohama release. They focus on improving ownership management and form design for entities, helping ServiceNow customers maintain accurate and synchronized entity ownership while providing better contextual information.
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Key Features
- Email Notification: Automatically sends an email notification to the entity owner when the owner value is updated or a new owner is assigned, ensuring clear communication about ownership changes.
- Auto-update Entity Owner: Enables synchronization of the entity owner field with the value from its reference (source) field. This option is available only for entities created via the entity filter with the "Use owner field" option enabled. It can be controlled directly on the entity form in the workspace view.
- Form Design Enhancements:
- Mandatory completion of the Entity class and Default owner fields on entity and entity filter forms. The Default owner must be specified even if "Use owner field" is cleared to ensure every entity has an owner assigned.
- Addition of the Department field to provide contextual classification of entities, along with location and class fields.
- Visibility of the Auto-update owner option and a new Source field for owner that appears only when auto-update is enabled.
- An Activity journal on the entity form that logs all changes made to relevant fields for audit and tracking purposes.
- A new UI action called Sync owner with source field that manually synchronizes the entity owner with its source record when they are out of sync.
- Synchronization Job and Properties:
- A background job must be activated to enable automatic synchronization of entity owners with source records.
- Configuration properties allow setting the frequency of synchronization (daily, weekly, or monthly) and the maximum batch size for these sync operations under GRC properties.
Key Outcomes
- Improved accuracy and consistency of entity ownership data across records by automating synchronization with source fields.
- Enhanced communication through automated email notifications to owners upon assignment or update.
- Better entity context and classification via new department and location fields, aiding governance and reporting.
- Streamlined entity management with mandatory ownership assignment and clear audit trails via the activity journal.
- Flexibility to manually or automatically synchronize ownership data, supported by configurable batch processing and scheduling.
You can configure some functionality enhancements for the entities as part of the GRC updates.
- Email notification: When you update the entity owner value or when you assign a new owner to an entity, an email notification is sent to the entity owner about the assignment of the entity.
- Auto-update the entity owner: You can select the Auto-update owner
option to keep the entity owner in synchronization with the value from its reference (source)
field. See the following example.
Figure 1. Auto-update entity owner option The Auto-update owner option is visible only for those entities that you have created by using the entity filter and that you have enabled by using the Use owner field option in the filter.
You can also view the Auto-update owner option on the entity form in the workspace view. See the following example.
Figure 2. Entity form in the workspace view - Form design changes: The following form design changes are introduced in the entity and
entity filter forms.
- You must fill in the Entity class and Default
owner fields in the form as shown in the following example.
Figure 3. Class and owner fields in the entity form - You must fill in the Default owner field even if you have cleared
the Use owner field as shown in the following example. This update
ensures that every entity that has been created has an owner assigned to it.
Figure 4. Default owner field - The Department field is added to the entity form. You can add context to an entity by selecting the department, location, and class fields.
- The Auto-update owner and Source field for
owner fields are displayed in the form. The Source field for
owner is visible only if you have enabled the Auto-update
owner field as shown in the following example.
Figure 5. Auto-update owner and Source field for owner fields - The Activity journal displays the log of the changes that are made to the fields as shown
in the following example.
Figure 6. Activity journal on the entity form - The new Sync owner with source field related link is displayed in
the entity form as shown in the following example. It synchronizes the owner of an entity
with its source record's field value. It is visible on the form only if the value of the
source field and the owner of an entity are not in synchronization.
Figure 7. Sync owner with source field UI action Activate the job that synchronizes the entity owner before enabling the property. You can enable the Frequency of syncing the entity owner with the source record property under GRC properties to synchronize the entity owner with its source record on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
Activate the job that synchronizes the entity owner before enabling the property. You can enable the Maximum batch size while syncing the entity owner with that of its source record property under GRC properties to set the maximum batch size to an integer value. By doing this action, you synchronize the entity owner with its source record value.
- You must fill in the Entity class and Default
owner fields in the form as shown in the following example.