Depends on Relationship and Ticket Routing

[CD4WG]

If a set of secondary services depends on primary service (i.e., local tech support) that uses location based routing for tickets, then will the secondary services automatically follow the same location based routing as the primary service? If not, then how heavy of a lift is it to configure the workflow for several dozen secondary services? Is there a better way?

[Mark Manders]

How are you routing them? ServiceNow has several ways of doing this, so it all depends how dynamic you made it. If it's something like 'select assignment group based on selected service location' and you have all your data in place, it should work. But without knowing what you are using and how your data is setup, it's hard to tell you if it will work (and the effort for getting it to work is also depending on the answer on this).

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @CD4WG You can use Assignment Lookup, or you can use Flow Designer as well. In Flow Designer, you can set the first mapping, and then through a script or Business Rule, you can apply the same on the second device

[AJ-TechTrek]

Hi @CD4WG ,

Key Concept for ticket routing rules -

* In ServiceNow, ticket routing rules (assignment rules, location-based routing, assignment lookup rules, etc.) are not automatically inherited from a related/primary service.
* A dependency between primary and secondary services in CMDB or CSDM (via Depends on :: Used by) is architectural and does not, by itself, drive workflow/assignment logic.
So by default, secondary services will not automatically follow the primary service’s routing rules.

Standard Approached to solve these as per my understanding -

1. Standard Approach – Duplicate Routing Rules
* For each secondary service, configure the same assignment rules / location-based routing logic as the primary service.
* This works but is maintenance heavy, especially if dozens of services exist and rules need updates in the future.

2. Better Approach – Centralize Routing Logic
Instead of duplicating rules, abstract the routing logic to a shared function that all services can reference.
Ways to do this:

* Assignment Lookup Rules:
* Create a lookup rule table that maps Service → Location → Assignment Group.
* Both primary and secondary services point to the same rule set.
* Script Include / Flow Designer Subflow:
* Put your location-based routing logic into a script include or subflow.
* When tickets are created for any service in that family, the workflow calls the same reusable logic.
* Service Family / Service Offering Pattern:
* Group your primary + secondary services into a service family or offering structure in CSDM.
* Route based on the family/offering rather than duplicating per service.

3. Lightweight Approach – Reference to Primary Service
* Add a field to secondary services: “Inherit Routing From” (reference to a primary service).
* In your assignment logic, if that field is populated → pull routing rules from the referenced service instead of configuring them individually.

Best Practice Recommendation
* Do not manually configure dozens of duplicate rules.
* Instead:
* Use a shared assignment lookup rule or subflow for location-based routing.
* Optionally, add a “Routing Source Service” field to secondary services to inherit rules from the primary service.
* Keep all routing logic centralized so changes only need to be made once.

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