The User record
Summarize
Summary of The User record
User records in ServiceNow establish a connection between an individual and your ServiceNow instance. Each user record includes essential details such as user name, password, contact information, location, and job title. These records are stored in the Users [sysuser] table and are central to managing access and personalization within the platform.
Show less
Key Features
- Roles: Define access to applications and modules. It is recommended to simplify administration by assigning roles to groups rather than individual users.
- Groups: Collections of users with common purposes. Assigning users to groups automatically grants them all roles associated with that group, streamlining role management.
- Delegates: Users can be assigned as delegates, allowing them to act with the same permissions as another user.
- Skills: Associate users with their training and expertise to better manage capabilities and assignments.
- Subscriptions: Control user access to purchased subscriptions on your instance, managed by administrators.
- User Preferences: Enable users to save personalized settings for UI customization and notification preferences.
- System and Guest Users: Automated processes use system or guest user accounts to update certain user record fields (e.g., login times, failed login attempts). Auditing can be enabled to track these updates for transparency and troubleshooting.
Practical Benefits
Understanding and managing user records effectively allows you to control permissions, streamline user administration through groups and roles, personalize user experience via preferences, and monitor automated system activities. This enables secure, organized, and efficient user management tailored to organizational roles and needs.
Learn about user records and their use within the ServiceNow AI Platform.
User account records
User records establish a relationship between an individual and your ServiceNow instance. User records consist of a user name, a password, and information relating to the individual, such as contact information, location, and job title.
User records are stored in the Users [sys_user] table.
Related records
User records are associated with records on several other tables to control permissions, preferences, and other features.
- Roles
- Roles control access to features and capabilities in applications and modules. For more information on roles, see Managing roles. Note:
When possible, simplify user administration by assigning roles to groups. Create groups that contain all the roles necessary for specific personas, and then assign users to those groups.
- Groups
- A group is a set of users who share a common purpose. Users assigned to groups are automatically assigned to all roles associated with that group. For more details, see Creating groups and Managing roles.
- Delegates
- In addition to role and group assignments, users can be assigned as delegates, giving them permission to act with the same permissions as a delegator user. See Delegating roles for more information on delegation.
- Skills
- Use skill management to associate users with their areas of training and expertise. For more information on skill management, see Skill Management.
- Subscriptions
- Administrators use subscriptions to control which users have access to purchased subscriptions on their instances. Details on subscription management can be found at Subscription Management.
- User preferences
- User accounts are also connected with user preferences. Users can save personalized preferences to configure many UI features, as well as preferences regarding the notifications they receive. Details on administering user preferences are found at User preferences.
System and guest users
Some automated processes use the system or guest user to apply and track changes to records. As a result, some records may show that they were last updated by system or guest.
For example, when a user logs in for the first time in a day, some fields on that user's record are updated by the system user, such as Last login and Last login time. If a user has a failed login attempt or is locked out, some fields on that user's record are updated by the guest user, such as Failed Login Attempts or Locked Out.
If a record was last updated by the system or by guest users, identify the fields that were updated by enabling auditing for the table and viewing the audit history set. For more information, see Configuring auditing for a table and Knowing about History sets.