Guidance for proper HR Service Delivery domain separation

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  • Updated March 12, 2026
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    Summary of Guidance for Proper HR Service Delivery Domain Separation

    This document provides essential guidance for successfully deploying HR Service Delivery in a domain-separated environment, highlighting key considerations, limitations, and instructions for various HR functionalities to ensure proper configuration and operation across different domains.

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    Key Features

    • HR Services: Create or update write ACLs to restrict editing of global HR services to HR admins in the global domain. Use HR criteria to limit global HR services to specific domains.
    • HR Approvals: Avoid using global or parent domain groups for approvals. Use domain-specific approval groups to prevent unauthorized access.
    • HR Assignment Rules: Utilize assignment groups from the same domain to ensure proper case assignment and prevent issues with access across domains.
    • HR Assignment Groups: Ensure that assignment groups chosen for parent domains do not include groups from child domains.
    • HR SLAs: Configure domain-specific SLAs as needed, while global SLAs can be defined for uniform requirements across all domains.
    • HR Response Templates: Set up templates as global or domain-specific, noting that global templates are accessible across all domains.
    • Advanced Work Assignment (AWA): When using AWA with global groups, ensure availability of at least one global agent to avoid routing issues.
    • Escalation Rules: Set escalation rules at either global or domain-specific levels, avoiding selection of child domain groups for parent domain rules.
    • Enterprise Service Management Integrations: Maintain separate connection records and copy necessary flows into respective domains for integrations.

    Key Outcomes

    By following these guidelines, ServiceNow customers can ensure a well-structured HR service delivery system that maintains security and operational integrity across various domains, while minimizing the risk of unauthorized access and ensuring that users have appropriate visibility and control over HR cases and services relevant to their domain. Proper configuration will ultimately enhance user experience and operational efficiency within the HR Service Delivery framework.

    Additional guidance to successfully deploy HR Service Delivery in a domain separated environment.

    The following sections explain how to successfully set up domain separation on your instance.
    Figure 1. Example of a domain separation hierarchy
    Domain separation hierarchy

    HR Services

    While you set up HR services in a global domain, note the following points:
    Limitations
    1. Administrator of any domain can edit the global HR services, which impacts all other domains.
    2. An HR service that is created in a global domain will be present in all others domains.
    Instructions
    • This instruction applies to the first limitation: You can create or update write ACL on an HR service table so that the global HR services are only editable by HR admins in a global domain.
    • This instruction applies to the second limitation: By using HR criteria, you can restrict global HR services to be used for certain domains only. However, this will not stop access for an global service to view and modify the global HR service by HR administrators.

    HR Approvals

    While you set up HR approvals for domain separation, note the following points:
    Limitations
    When the users of parent domain and child domain are added to same approval group:
    • The parent domain's HR case is going for approval to a child domain even when the users of the child domain do not have access to the case. For example, the HR case in Domain (Parent) is going for approval to Domain 1 and Domain 2 users even when they do not have access to the case (Refer to the domain hierarchy image).
    • The child domain's HR case is not going for approval to the parent domain even when the users of parent domain have access to the case. For example, the HR case in Domain 1 is not going for approval to users in Domain (Parent) even when they have access to the case.
    Instructions
    Do not use global groups or groups in a parent domain for approvals. While using these groups for approval, verify that you use a flat domain hierarchy, otherwise use domain specific approval groups.

    HR Assignment rules

    While you set up HR assignment rules for domain separation, note the following points:
    Limitations
    When the users of parent domain and child domain are added to same approval group:
    • The parent domain's HR case might be assigned to a child domain even when the users of the child domain do not have access to the case. For example, the HR case in Domain (Parent) might be assigned to Domain 1 and Domain 2 users even when they do not have access to the case (Refer to the domain hierarchy image).
    • The child domain's HR case might not be assigned to the parent domain even when the users of parent domain have access to the case. For example, the HR case in Domain 1might not go for approval to Domain (Parent) users even when they have access to the case.
    Instructions
    • For an assignment rule in a domain, use group from the same domain.
    • While using global groups for an assignment, use a flat domain hierarchy, otherwise use the domain specific assignment groups.

    HR Assignment group

    While you set up HR assignment groups for domain separation, note the following:
    Limitation
    For an HR case that is created in parent domain, assignment group from child domain can be selected. For example, for an HR case in Domain (Parent), user can select an assignment group from Domain 1.
    Instructions
    Select the correct assignment group for a parent domain. Do not select an assignment group from a child domain.

    HR SLAs

    While you set up HR SLAs for domain separation, note the following points:

    As an administrator:
    • Set up domain specific SLA as per your requirement.
    • Set up global SLA definition if all domains require the same SLA definition.

    HR Response templates

    While you set up HR response templates for domain separation, note the following points:

    You can set up response templates with either global or a specific domain. Global templates will be accessible to all other domains, while a specific domain template will be accessible to that domain only.

    Advanced Work Assignment (AWA) for HR

    While you set up HR live agent chat (AWA) for domain separation, note the following points:
    Limitations
    When you have AWA set up with a global group, users from a specific domain are getting the Connect to the live agent option even when an agent from that domain is not available. For example, if available agents are only from Domain 1 and user from Domain 2 tries to connect to the live agent, user will get option to Connect to a live agent, but the actual routing to any agent will not happen.
    Instructions
    AWA can be set up for both global or domain specific groups. If you are using global group for AWA setup, verify at least one of the global agent is always available.

    Escalation rules

    While you set up escalation rules for domain separation, note the following point:

    Set up escalation rules either at global or a domain specific layer. For an escalation rule in parent domain, do not select a group from child domains.

    Enterprise Service Management Integrations Framework

    While you set up Enterprise Service Management Integrations Framework for domain separation, note the following points:
    • Maintain a separate connection record per domain.
    • Copy the default scheduled flow in to respective domain for each integrations.
    • Copy default Trigger external interface flow into respective domain.