Who can assign a delegate in ServiceNow?

[DavidReynolds]

A co-worker was taking some time off so they delegated their approval tasks to another person. The second person was also taking off most of the same time period. Question: can a delegate take duties assigned to them and then assign them to someone else?

To the best of my understanding, this is not possible. Only people assigned by the original person can taker over for them. Since I am uncertain, I thought I'd ask the forum.

Thank-you.

[Tanushree Maiti]

Hi @DavidReynolds 

If a delegate is unavailable, they cannot re-assign your tasks to a third party. The responsibility remains with the original delegate until they are removed or modified by the delegator. 

Refer Servicenow Documentation: Service Delegation 

[BrianS344076034]

if its already assigned, then yes its with that person

in this scenario I assume the following is happening

Person 1 - Delegated to Person 2

Person 2 is also going to be off, so they are going to delegate to person 3

If thats the case, anything already in flight is still tied to the assigned person, any new duties I believe would hit D1, cascade to D2 and then to D3 since they are 1 & 2 are off

Ive never tested this out, and to be honest I can barely get our members to remember to delegate their stuff when they go on vacation or leave

[DavidReynolds]

I've never seen this happen before but it was brought to my attention by someone who experienced it. Also, the way my company works prevents cascading like this. It might be possible in ServiceNow but not here.

My suggestion was adding more than one delegate. I also suggested all delegates have the same permission level or greater. You can add a co-worker, a manager or someone higher up, but not anyone below you. That applies mainly to approvals and some internal requests. 

[yashkamde · Accepted solution]

Hello @DavidReynolds ,

Yes your understanding is correct: only the original person can assign who takes over their approvals.

In ServiceNow, delegation is strictly a relationship between the original user and their chosen delegate. A delegate cannot further reassign delegated tasks to someone else. The platform enforces this to maintain accountability and audit integrity, approvals must always trace back to either the original approver or the explicitly designated delegate.

If the second person is also unavailable, the original user would need to set up another delegate directly, or an admin could step in to reassign tasks if business continuity requires it. But there’s no built in mechanism for a delegate to re-delegate their responsibilities.

Refer this :

Service Delegation 

If my response helped mark as helpful and accept the solution.