How to push return group members in an flow variable inside flow designer?

saint
Tera Expert

3 hours ago

I’m working in ServiceNow Flow Designer and need guidance on handling group members across multiple groups.

Requirement:

  • I have two different groups
  • I want to collect the members from each group into two separate variables (preferably as comma‑separated values, e.g., sys_ids)
  • After that, I need to find the common users between both groups
  • Finally, I want to create a comma‑separated list of common user sys_ids and use it to send approvals to all those users

Any guidance or best practices on implementing this in Flow Designer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

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Naveen20
ServiceNow Employee

3 hours ago

Try this

Step 1 — Look Up Members for Each Group

Use two separate Look Up Records actions, both querying the sys_user_grmember table:

  • Action 1: Table = sys_user_grmember, Condition = group = <Group A sys_id> — returns all member records for Group A.
  • Action 2: Same table, Condition = group = <Group B sys_id> — returns all member records for Group B.

Both return arrays of group member records.

Step 2 — Build Comma-Separated Sys_ID Strings

After each lookup, use a For Each loop over the result set and a String flow variable to accumulate the user sys_ids. Inside each loop iteration, use an Update Flow Variable action to append the current record's user.sys_id to your string variable with a comma delimiter.

You'll end up with two string variables like:

  • group_a_members = "sid1,sid2,sid3"
  • group_b_members = "sid4,sid2,sid1"

Step 3 — Find the Intersection (Common Users)

This is the trickiest part since Flow Designer doesn't have a native "array intersection" action. You have two solid options:

Option A — Script Step (recommended)

Add a Script Step action with inputs for both comma-separated strings and output a new string of common sys_ids:

(function execute(inputs, outputs) {
    var listA = inputs.group_a_members.split(',');
    var listB = inputs.group_b_members.split(',');

    var common = listA.filter(function(id) {
        return listB.indexOf(id.trim()) !== -1;
    });

    outputs.common_members = common.join(',');
})(inputs, outputs);

Define common_members as a String output variable on the script step.

Step 4 — Send Approvals to Common Members

Once you have the common_members comma-separated string, you have two approaches depending on your approval pattern:

For individual approvals (one per user): Split the string in a script step into an array, loop through it, and use the Ask For Approval or Create Approval action for each user.

For a single group-style approval: Use the Ask For Approval action with the "Anyone Approves" or "Everyone Must Approve" rule. You can feed the comma-separated sys_id list directly into a Look Up Records action on sys_user with the condition sys_idIN<common_members>, then loop over results to generate individual approval records. Alternatively, create a temporary approval group programmatically via a script step.

 

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