Granular Delegation

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Granular Delegation

    Granular delegation enables employees to delegate tasks to others for specific dates and times based on defined rules. This feature allows for the delegation of specific records by table and condition, including approvals and task assignments, enhancing operational efficiency in task management.

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    Key Features

    • Delegation Rules: Admins can create rules that dictate when tasks can be delegated, such as by priority or record type.
    • Delegate Roles: Three roles are defined: Delegate Admin (sets up rules), Delegator (assigns tasks), and Delegate (receives tasks).
    • HR Service Delivery Integration: Supports delegation for HR tasks, with additional filtering options for delegators and delegates.
    • Access Control Modifications: ACLs in HR Service Delivery must be adjusted to utilize granular delegation effectively.
    • Types of Delegations: Can be rule-based (automatically assigned) or ad-hoc (manually assigned through the Employee Center).

    Key Outcomes

    By leveraging granular delegation, employees can ensure that tasks are managed efficiently, even in their absence. This feature enhances collaboration, ensuring that tasks are completed on time while maintaining control over who is assigned what and when. For further customization, additional resources and guidelines are available through ServiceNow’s platforms.

    Granular delegation allows employees to delegate their tasks to other employees for specific date and time ranges based on delegation rules.

    Granular delegation provides the ability to delegate specific records by table and condition. It also allows admins to delegate approvals and/or task assignments for task tables they administer.

    A task is delegated when it matches the delegation rules specified for a delegation. For example, William can assign Jane as a delegate for approvals or tasks when the priority is set to High.

    Service delegation options are available, like limiting a delegation to specific record types. For example:
    • Limiting records that match a filter condition.
    • Limiting records to only approvals.
    • Limiting records to only task assignments.
    Note:
    Granular Delegation is intended for employee users, not fulfiller or agent users, such as in ITSM. Depending on your use cases, fulfiller and agent delegation is better managed via Advanced Work Assignment.

    Terms

    The following terms are applicable:
    • Delegate Admin: An employee that defines the tables used for delegation rules, defines delegation rules, and can assign delegates for employees.
    • Delegator: An employee who delegates their tasks to another employee through a delegation record, specifying the delegate user, time frame, and delegation rules.
    • Delegate: An employee who is delegated tasks that are assigned to another employee. The delegate also receives tasks assigned from the delegator. The delegate also receives notifications of these assignments and the time frame the delegation covers.

    Granular Delegation with HR Service Delivery

    Granular Delegation with the HR Service Delivery base system supports the HR task (sn_hr_core_task) table. Along with filter conditions, you can filter delegations for delegators and delegates.

    For more information on how user criteria filters delegations for delegators and delegates, see Create delegation rules.

    For information on HR criteria and user criteria, see:
    Access control rules (ACLs)
    Access control rules (ACLs) in HR Service Delivery were modified to look for the Assigned to person on an HR task. Other domains that want to use Granular Delegation must modify their ACLs to use this feature. For more information about ACLs, see Access control list rules.
    Rule-based and ad-hoc delegations
    • Rule-based: The delegation_admin configures delegation rules, which automatically reassign tasks to specific employees.
    • Ad-hoc: An employee who is defined as a delegator can delegate their tasks from the My Delegates widget in the Employee Center.
    Note:
    The delegation_admin must define a delegation rule table, delegation rules, and delegates. For more information on defining a delegation rule table see Add delegation rule tables. For more information on defining a delegation rule, see Create delegation rules. For more information on defining delegators and delegates, see Create a delegate.

    Additional resources