Roles required for Advanced planning capability and Project Portfolio Management integration

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Roles required for Advanced planning capability and Project Portfolio Management integration

    The advanced planning capability in ServiceNow integrates Advanced Audit with the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) product. This integration creates an equivalent project for an engagement and offers planning features such as resource planning and cost planning directly from the engagement workspace. To leverage these features effectively, users must be assigned specific roles aligned with their responsibilities.

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    Engagement planning features and role requirements

    • Resource Planning: Enables resource requesters to check resource availability and manage resource plans for projects and tasks. Users require the snaudit.manager role combined with resourceuser or resourcemanager roles to manage and add resource plans. The resourcemanager role additionally permits confirming and allocating resources. Users with existing engagement access and roles like snppmread, timecarduser, or resourceuser can view resource plans.
    • Cost Planning: Allows creation and management of project cost plans specifying unit costs for fiscal periods. Users with snaudit.user or snaudit.manager plus itprojectmanager roles can manage cost plans, while those with snaudit.user or snaudit.manager plus projectmanager roles can add new cost plans. It is recommended to use itprojectmanager over projectmanager roles. Users with roles such as snppmfinanceread, demandmanager, programmanager, portfoliomanager, or projectmanager and engagement access can view cost plans.
    • Resource Allocations: After resource plans are created, resource managers confirm and allocate resources, moving plans through Confirmed and Allocated states. These managers need the ppsresource role plus either snaudit.user or snaudit.externalauditor roles to be assigned as auditors on engagements. The ppsresource role is necessary to be added as resources to resource plans.
    • Time Card Reporting: Users can log hours on time cards for engagements and related tasks. If a project is linked to an engagement, actual expenses and resource values roll up accordingly. To create time cards, users need the timecarduser role. Viewing time cards requires engagement access plus roles such as snppmread, timecardapprover, or timecardadmin. Users with only timecarduser role can view their own reported time cards. Approving time cards requires the timecardapprover role, with the approval process governed by the user’s assigned time sheet policy.

    Practical implications for ServiceNow customers

    Assigning the correct roles ensures that users can fully utilize advanced planning features within the integration of Advanced Audit and PPM. These roles govern who can create, manage, view, confirm, allocate, and approve resources, costs, and time reporting tied to engagements and projects. Proper role management facilitates efficient resource and cost planning, accurate time tracking, and seamless coordination between audit engagements and project portfolios.

    The advanced planning capability enables integration of Advanced Audit with the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) product. The capability creates an equivalent project for the engagement, and provides planning features that could be used for resource planning, cost planning, and so on, from the engagement.

    Engagement planning features and roles

    To use the new features of advanced planning capability, users must have the following roles:
    Table 1. Engagement planning features and role requirement
    Feature name Description Roles and their scope
    Resource Planning As a resource requester, find the availability of the resources, and create and manage the resource plans for the project and project tasks in the project workspace. For more information, refer to Create and manage resource plans for a project
    • Users with sn_audit.manager plus resource_user or resource_manager roles would be able to manage and add resource plans. Users with resource_manager role would also be able to confirm and allocate the resource plans.
    • Users who already have access to the engagement and also have sn_ppm_read or timecard_user or resource_user roles are able to view the resource plans on the engagement.
    Cost Planning Project cost plans capture the costs of projects. Create a cost plan to specify the unit cost of a cost type for a fiscal period. For more information, refer to Create a project cost plan
    • Users with sn_audit.user or sn_audit.manager plus it_project_manager roles would be able to manage the cost plans.
    • Users with sn_audit.user or sn_audit.manager plus project_manager roles would be able to add a new cost plan.
      Note:
      Users are suggested to use it_project_manager role instead of project_manager role by PPM product.
    • Users who already have access to the engagement and also have sn_ppm_finance_read or demand_manager or program_manager or portfolio_manager or project_manager roles are able to view the cost plans for the engagement.
    Resource allocations

    After resource requesters create a resource plan, resource managers can confirm the resources to move the plan to the Confirmed state. Resource managers can then allocate resources to the plan and move it to the Allocated state.

    Based on calendar and schedule information, resource managers view resource availability and select the resources under their management that can be confirmed and allocated to specific tasks. For more information, refer to Resource allocation
    • Users need both pps_resource and sn_audit.user or sn_audit.external_auditor roles to be added to the auditors field on the engagement from the resource plan.
    • Users need pps_resource role to be added as resources to the resource plans.
    Time card reporting

    You can log hours in a time card for an engagement and other tasks on an engagement. If there is a project associated with an engagement, then the actual expenses and actual resources values roll up. To create a time card, see Create a time card.
    • Users need timecard_user role to create a time card.
    • Users who already have access to the engagement, audit tasks, milestones, issues and also have sn_ppm_read or timecard_approver or timecard_admin roles will be able to view all the time cards on the engagement, audit tasks, milestones, and issues.
    • Users who already have access to the engagement, audit tasks, milestones, and issues and also have the timecard_user role will only be able to view the time cards that they have reported on the engagement, audit tasks, milestones, and issues.
    • Users need timecard_approver role to approve a submitted time card. The time sheet policy assigned to the user governs the approval process.