Assign user personas, roles, groups, and responsibilities in Grants Management

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
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    Summary of Assign user personas, roles, groups, and responsibilities in Grants Management

    This guide explains how ServiceNow Grants Management customers can assign and manage user personas, roles, groups, and responsibilities to delegate access and organize teams effectively within the Grants Management application. It covers assigning roles to individual users, creating user groups with inherited roles, and managing internal program team responsibilities specific to grant programs.

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    Assigning User Roles

    Users within your grants organization must be assigned appropriate roles to access Grants Management features and data. To assign roles:

    • Ensure user records exist or create them via All > User Administration > Users.
    • Edit the Roles related list on the user record to add desired roles.
    • Repeat for all users needing access.

    The admin role is required to assign roles. Determining which roles fit each user depends on the tasks they perform in grant cases. Refer to the Grants Management roles and personas documentation for role definitions and guidance.

    Using Assignment Groups

    Groups can be created to represent organizational teams, simplifying role management by assigning roles to groups rather than individual users. Key points include:

    • Create one group exclusively for administrators with the admin role.
    • Create additional groups as needed and assign relevant roles to these groups.
    • Add users to groups so they inherit the group's roles automatically.
    • Groups facilitate delegation of access across grants programs at the organizational level.

    To create a group, navigate to All > User Administration > Group, specify the group name, add members, and assign roles.

    Internal Program Team Responsibilities

    Responsibilities differ from roles and are assigned specifically at the grant program level within the playbook. They govern user duties on individual grant program cases and include:

    • Approver
    • Collaborator
    • Observer
    • Program Lead
    • Program Co-lead

    A user can have multiple responsibilities across different grant programs, which do not impact their broader user roles or agency-level permissions. These responsibilities are assigned via dropdown menus in the Internal Program team activity once a grant program is created.

    Grants Management Personas

    The application defines key personas to clarify user responsibilities within grants management processes. Admins can configure specific read/write access roles for internal program team members on a per-case basis, providing granular control over data access and task delegation within grant programs.

    By default, Grants Management comes with roles, personas, and responsibilities that can be assigned to existing users on the platform.

    Assigning user roles

    Assign roles to members of your grants organization Grants Management application so that your users can have delegated access to Grants Management features, capabilities, and data.

    There are a few guidelines when assigning roles to users:
    • Determine the roles who would be working on the grant cases for the agency, and what user would do what. For more information on the roles available in Grants Management and to determine which makes sense for each user, see Grants Management roles and Grants Management Personas
    • Create as many users as needed in your organization.

    Role required: admin

    To assign roles to a user within an organization:

    1. Make sure a user record has been created within the organization. Navigate to All > User Administration > Users to create a user record, or open an existing user record.
    2. In the Roles related list, select Edit.
    3. In the Collection list, select the desired roles, and then select Add
    4. Select Save.
    5. Repeat as many times as needed until all desired users are added to and associated with the organization and have the desired role.
    You can also create user groups and assign roles to them. Users assigned to the group inherit the roles.

    Using assignment groups to create organizational teams

    There are a few guidelines for creating groups:
    • Create one group for administrators and assign the admin role to this group only.
    • Create as many groups as needed in your organization. Assign the necessary users to those groups, and then assign the necessary role to those groups if you haven't already. You can create groups first, assign a role to the group, and add users, or you can add user roles individually and then add them to the group. All users in a group will inherit the group role.

    To delegate access to grants programs and create organizational teams, you can create assignment groups. This is different from creating internal program teams within a grant program in Grants Management. These are responsibilities that are assigned at the grant program level within the playbook, and adding a user to either of these grant program-level groups do not affect roles at the user and agency level. For information on how to create an internal program team and external reviewer group, see Add members to a Grant Program internal program team and Add external reviewer groups in Grants Management.

    To create a user assignment group:
    1. Navigate to All > User Administration > Group to create group record.
    2. Select a group Name.
    3. In the Group Members related list, select Edit.
    4. Select one or more names in the Collection list.
    5. Select Add and Save.
    6. Repeat as many times as needed until all desired users are added to the group.
    7. In the Roles related list, select Edit.
    8. Add the desired roles to the group.
    9. Select Save.

    For more information on the roles available in Grants Management and to determine which makes sense for each user, see Grants Management roles and Grants Management Personas

    Internal Program Team Responsibilities

    The following is a list of all internal program team responsibilities that are provided with the Grants Management application by default. You can assign these using the dropdown menus in the Internal Program team activity of the playbook. For information on creating internal program teams, see Add members to a Grant Program internal program team

    Program team responsibilities are different than user roles; responsibilities are tied to the grant program only and determined at the grant program case level. These can only be assigned once a program has been created. A user can have multiple responsibilities across grant programs, per program, and a user's responsibility within a program does not affect a user role.

    The following is a list of all internal program team responsibilities that are provided with the Grants Management application by default.

    • Approver
    • Collaborator
    • Observer
    • Program Lead
    • Program Co-lead