Guest updating records

[Nora3]

Hi,

I have a request with a user in requested for and in opened by, this is an active user. This request has 3 requested items.

In all of the requested items it seems like the user account "Guest" has updated the requested items. It has created a task, and I really don't understand why. This doesn't always happen, but sometimes guest seems to update records and start workflows, regardless if there is an active user in the system. Does anyone have any idea why guest does this?

We also have sso.

Kind regards,

Nora

[harishdasari]

Hi Nora,

Guest user is used for all unauthenticated transaction in ServiceNow. 

In SSO authentication: When a user send a SAML request and ServiceNow receives the response, the guest user actually logs in and finds the relevant IDP to be used for the authentication. Further, it also queries sys_user table to be used in the SSO scripts to check if the user who is trying to login through SSO actually exists in sys_user table. Guest user should always exists in global scope in domain separated instances as global scope entitle the user to access all data/processes.

Disabling the Guest user account is simple solution, but I dont recommend deactivating the guest user account. Reason is Inbound email actions will also work creating the records using the Guest account.

Thank you.

[Nora3]

Disabling the guest account does not seem like a good idea, but if we did, what would be instead of guest? Which account would be the one that is updating the records then?

The user that logs in does exist in the sys_user table, so I still dont understand why this happens.

Thank you for your help.

[Inactive_Us1992]

Hey Nora,

See the following Community post, https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_question&sys_id=04e4432ddbd8dbc01dcaf3231f961930

It could be an Inbound Email action?

Regards,

Martijn

[Nora3]

This happens when users are ordering from the service portal, so the user is already logged in (the user needs to be logged in to see the portal).