---
sourceDocument: Yokohama IT Operations Management
sourceDocumentLink: https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/r/yokohama/it-operations-management

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    - yokohama

ft:locale :

    - en-US

ft:publication_title :

    - Yokohama IT Operations Management

ft:clusterId :

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bundleId :

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workflow :

    - Technology


---

# Group application services

# Group application services {#ariaid-title1}

* Release version: Yokohama
* 
* Updated January 30, 2025
* 
* ![](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ico-clock) 2 minutes to read

Organize application services by groups to perform actions simultaneously on multiple
services, and to control user access to services. You can use Event Management to
track service health by service groups.

## Before you begin

Role required: service_mapping_admin or app_service_admin

## About this task

Typically, enterprises have hundreds of services which makes it impractical to manage them individually. Service groups can make service lists much shorter and easier to manage, especially in large organizations or service providers.{#organizing_services-into-groups__OrganizingServicesIntoGroupsPH}  
How you group service instances depends on the user and on service provisioning policies in your enterprise. The relation between service instances in groups is purely logical and the same service instance can belong to multiple groups. For example, the Mobile service can be part of the following service groups: Sales, Beijing, and Telephony. Figure 1. Example of a service instance belonging to different groups   

You can embed a service group within another service group to create a hierarchy of service groups. If users have access to a parent service group, they automatically have access to all its child groups.
By default, all new services are assigned to the All service group that lets all users view and manage service instances. When you assign a role to a service group, the users with this role can access service instances in this service group and in the All service group. To enable users with this role to access other services, assign this role to the respective service group. Do not assign user roles directly to the All service group.

If Service Mapping is activated, service groups can contain a mixture
of manually created application services and application services discovered by Service Mapping.

You can use ServiceNow AI Platform
Notifications to alert users if the service group severity changes to
critical. The overall severity of the group is determined by the highest alert
severity within the group.

## Procedure

1. Navigate to AllConfigurationApplication ServicesService Groups.
2. Click New.
3. Enter the name of the new service instance group in the Name field.
4. To embed this group in another group, enter the name of the other group in the Parent Group field.
5. Right-click the form header and click Save.
6. Add a service instance to the newly created service group.
   1. In the Service Group Members section, click New.
   2. In the Name field, enter the name of the service instance.  
      If you are using Event Management, you can also enter an alert group name.
   3. Click Submit.
   {#organizing_services-into-groups__substeps_z54_1br_dcb}
7. Alternatively, add a service instance to a group from the service instance form.
   1. Navigate to AllConfigurationService InstancesService Instances.
   2. Select the service instance you want to add to a service group.
   3. In the Service Group Members section, double-click Insert a new row.
   4. Enter the name of the service group to which you want to add the selected service instance.
   5. Click the OK icon (![OK icon]()).
   6. Click Update.
   {#organizing_services-into-groups__substeps_fbp_2r5_ccb}
**Related concepts**   

* [Service definition transfer from one instance to another](https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/0m8zCq~MrSCq3TQZmNN6GA#transfer-service-definitions "Save time and effort by exporting definitions of service instances from the source instance and importing these definitions into the target instance. You can use this method to copy definitions of service instances only of the discovered type.")  
**Related tasks**   

* [Define criticality for application services](https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/Y9p3~lEp81GBX9uLv5JDBg "For each service instance, select a criticality level that reflects how important it is to your organization operations.")
* [Control user access to application services](https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/Tl72BIYyrHnYkttnrTFwVw "Assign user roles to service groups to grant users access to application services in your organization. Your organization may restrict access to some services for security or secrecy reasons.")
* [Schedule a top-down discovery by Service Mapping](https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/f0ArHYog5fm~LDBlmp997A "After Service Mapping discovers configuration items (CIs) belonging to your service instance for the first time, it then rediscovers CIs to find changes and updates. Create or modify discovery schedules to control how often Service Mapping rediscovers services or CIs. For example, you may create custom discovery schedules to avoid redundant stress on the infrastructure.")

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