Content filtering for playbooks

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Content Filtering for Playbooks

    Content filtering for playbooks in Workflow Studio allows ServiceNow customers to control user access to playbook content based on user roles. This feature ensures that users see only relevant activities and content, hiding unnecessary or sensitive information. By specifying content definitions and filtering rules linked to roles, customers can customize what playbook activities a user can access or modify.

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    Key Features

    • Content Definitions: Define types of Workflow Studio resources such as playbook activity definitions. Customers can use default definitions or create refined ones based on conditions like name, package, or tags to target specific activity subsets.
    • Content Filtering Rules: Associate user roles with content definitions to determine access. For example, roles like delegateddeveloper and playbook.activitydefread have access to all activity definitions by default.
    • Role-Based Access Control: Manage access to activity definitions by specifying required roles. Only users with appropriate roles can view or edit activity definitions. Notably, only users with the playbook.admin role can edit the Required Roles field on activity definitions.
    • Restricted Playbooks: Playbooks containing activities a user cannot access are completely hidden from that user, preventing visibility of restricted content in whole playbooks.

    Practical Application for ServiceNow Customers

    • Use default content definitions and filtering rules to quickly enable role-based access or create custom definitions and rules for finer control.
    • Assign the playbook.write role—not pdauthor—to grant users access to subsets of activity definitions within a content definition.
    • Ensure that users without the required roles do not see or interact with restricted activities or playbooks, maintaining security and relevance of content.

    Expected Outcomes

    Implementing content filtering enables tailored user experiences in Workflow Studio playbooks, helping organizations maintain security, reduce clutter, and improve usability by showing only relevant activities to each user based on their role. This leads to more efficient playbook creation and management aligned with organizational policies.

    Specify which content a user can access based on the user's role.

    Display only content that is relevant for a particular user, hiding content that is unnecessary or sensitive. Specify the Workflow Studio playbook content that you want to control access to and the role that a user must have to access it. For example, if a user with the guided_decision_builder role is creating a playbook, show only a relevant set of activities.

    To implement content filtering, you need:
    • Content definitions to specify types of content.
    • Content filtering rules and roles to determine who can access the content.
    There is one content definition for playbooks by default, the Playbooks - All Activity Definitions content definition. The Playbooks - All Activity Definitions content definition has two content filtering rules by default:
    • (Default) Playbook - Users with delegated_developer role can access all activity definitions
    • (Default) Playbook - Users with playbook.activity_def_read role can access all activity definitions
    This means that users with the roles delegated_developer or playbook.activity_def_read role can access all activity definitions. Get started with content filtering by using default definitions and rules, or create your own.

    Content definitions

    Content definitions specify a type of Workflow Studio resource. Resources are key elements of Workflow Studio components, such as activity definitions for playbooks. Create content definitions to include an entire resource, or use a condition builder to refine your definitions. For example, the content definition for playbook activity definitions includes all activity definitions, but you could create a content definition that includes only the activity definitions that contain Guided Decision in the Name or Package.

    You can further refine content definitions through tagging. Add resource tags to items in a resource list, then design your content definition to only include resources with that tag.

    Content filtering rules

    Content filtering rules specify the role that a user must have to access the content in a particular definition. Each rule associates a single user role with a single content definition. When a user accesses Workflow Studio playbooks, content filtering rules determine what activities the user may access based on the user's role.

    Role-based activity definition access

    Manage activity definition access by specifying the Required Roles to access an activity definition. To learn more about roles, see Playbooks roles. To learn more about activity definitions, see Activity definitions.


    Required roles field in an activity definition
    Note:
    Both playbook.admin and pd_content_author roles can edit activity definitions, but only the playbook.admin role can edit the Required Roles field.

    Restricted playbooks

    Users cannot view a playbook that contains activities that they do not have access to. When a playbook contains restricted activities, the entire playbook is restricted.

    Table 1. Access summary
    Resource filtered User has role User does not have role
    Activity Definition
    • The activity definition is visible to select when building a playbook.
    • The activity definition can be copied.
    • The activity definition can be modified.
    • The activity definition is hidden and cannot be selected when building a playbook.
    • Playbooks with the activity definition are not visible.

    Design considerations

    Content definition roles for activity definitions
    Give users access to the subset of activity definitions in a content definition by assigning the playbook.write role, not the pd_author role.