Processing activity overview page

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Processing Activity Overview Page

    The processing activity overview page offers insights into the privacy risk and compliance status of a processing activity. Key elements displayed include compliance scores, risk posture, and status of assessments, enabling organizations to monitor how personal data is managed throughout its lifecycle. The structured vertical layout allows for easy navigation and understanding of the data processing workflow from initiation to completion.

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    Key Features

    • Required Roles: Access to the overview page requires the roles of snprivacy.manager and snprivacy.analyst.
    • Organized Sections: The page is divided into six informative sections:
      • State: Indicates the processing activity's current workflow status (New, Discover, Review, Monitor, Retired).
      • Compliance Overview: Displays compliance and criticality scores, along with the status of controls against authority documents or policies.
      • Risk Overview: Shows the residual risk score and a heatmap of processing activities based on risk classification.
      • Assessments: Lists counts of risk and privacy assessments categorized by their states (open, overdue, due soon).
      • Priority Tracking: Details the number of issues and policy exceptions by priority level.
      • Control Assurance: Shows the distribution of controls and counts of attestations and indicators based on their status.

    Key Outcomes

    By utilizing the processing activity overview page, ServiceNow customers can effectively manage and assess privacy compliance and risk levels associated with their data processing activities. The clear presentation of information aids in identifying compliance issues and tracking assessments, which ultimately enhances the organization's ability to meet regulatory requirements and improve data governance.

    The processing activity overview page provides the privacy risk and compliance posture for a processing activity. This page contains details, such as compliance score, criticality score, risk posture and heatmap, privacy and risk assessment status, issues and policy exceptions, and control assurance status.

    The vertical layout of a processing activity provides a structured, top-down view that presents information in a clear and sequential manner. This design facilitates an intuitive understanding of the data processing lifecycle by visually representing each step of the workflow in a linear progression. You can easily trace the flow of information from initiation through to completion, enabling better insight into how personal data is collected, used, shared, and retained. This layout supports streamlined navigation and improves the ability to identify key elements and dependencies within the processing activity, enhancing both usability and compliance oversight.

    Figure 1. Processing activity overview page
    Overview of the reports on a processing activity in Privacy management.

    Required roles

    To view the home page, you must have sn_privacy.manager and the sn_privacy.analyst roles.

    Use cases

    For examples of how different people in your organization would use this home page, see the following use cases.
    User Dashboard use
    Privacy manager and Privacy analyst The privacy manager and the privacy analyst can view and understand the privacy compliance posture of the given processing activity.

    Reports in a processing activity overview

    The processing activity overview page is organized into six sections.

    Table 1. State
    Title Description
    State Current state of the processing activity in the workflow: New, Discover, Review, Monitor, and Retired.
    Table 2. Compliance overview
    Title Description
    Compliance score Compliance score percentage of the processing activity and the change since the last period.
    Criticality score Regulatory risk level of the processing activity.
    Compliance status Number of compliant and non-compliant controls for each applicable authority document or policy. Toggle between Authority documents and Policies to switch views.
    Table 3. Risk overview
    Title Description
    Risk posture Residual risk score of the processing activity, along with the inherent risk level and control effectiveness.
    Risk heatmap Distribution of processing activities by residual/inherent risk and control effectiveness levels. You can filter by risk classification.
    Table 4. Assessments
    Title Description
    Risk assessments Number of risk assessments by state, including counts for open, overdue, and due in 7 days. You can filter by RAM template.
    Privacy assessments Number of privacy assessments by state, including counts for open, overdue, and due in 7 days. You can filter by available assessment templates.
    Table 5. Priority tracking
    Title Description
    Issues Number of issues by priority, including counts for open, overdue, and due in 7 days.
    Policy exceptions Number of policy exceptions by risk rating, with counts for open, overdue, and due in 7 days.
    Table 6. Control assurance
    Title Description
    Controls Distribution of controls by state.
    Attestations Number of attestations that are open, overdue, and due in 7 days.
    Indicators Number of indicators that are open, overdue, and failed in the last 6 months.