ServiceNow Health and Safety has delivered several top innovations and enhancements in the December 11, 2025 release.
For additional details, refer to the product documentation and release notes on the ServiceNow Store listings.
Overview of Enhancements and New Features:
- Chemical Management
- Chemical Library
- Chemical Request
- Chemical Workspace
- Approving Chemical Requests
- Creating Chemicals
- Chemical Data Model
- Health and Safety Risk Assessments
- Data Model Updates
- Risk Matrix Heatmap Visualization
- Action Schedule
- Additional Features
- Ability to select multiple injuries per body part
- PDF Report Mapping properties
- Geolocation search
- Knowledge in Health and Safety Workspace
- Document Management
Chemical Management
Plugin: Environmental Management [v1.0.2]
Persona: Employees, Chemical Managers and Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) Teams
Roles: Docs on Roles
Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) teams face increasing external pressures and complexity while managing chemicals and complying with evolving regulatory requirements. The push for greater transparency in chemical management has resulted in stricter controls over hazardous substances, increased initiatives focused on sustainability and corporate responsibility.
Within organizations, EHS teams face several challenges, such as standardizing and effectively managing global chemical inventories, ensuring ongoing regulatory compliance, and minimizing manual work associated with chemical data and documentation. Promoting operational efficiency and cost reduction, alongside cultivating a robust safety culture, continues to be a primary objective for many.
ServiceNow’s Chemical Management solution enables organizations to address these challenges by streamlining the management of their chemical programs. With this solution, customers can reduce operational costs, enhance visibility into chemical inventories and chemical data maintain regulatory compliance, and create a positive experience for both EHS teams and employees.
How to Use:
The Chemical Management feature is made up of three experiences: Chemical Library, Chemical Request and Approval Workflows, and the Chemical Workspace. In this section we will walk through the experience of each user.
Chemical Library:
Accessible via the Employee Center, the Chemical Library allows employees to search for chemicals that are approved within their organization. Users can review detailed chemical information, hazard classifications, and access directly from the library.
- Log in to Employee Center with the Chemical Requestor [sn_hs_chm.requestor] role
- Navigate to the Health and Safety Taxonomy
- Select View Chemical Library
From the chemical library, employees can search for approved chemicals per location. The chemical library empowers employees to quickly and easily search for all information about a chemical within their workplace.
Employees can filter by a location or search by keyword within the chemical name.
Note: The keyword search can search keywords within the name and manufacturers
.
- Type in the name of a chemical ex. Isopropyl Alcohol
- Open the record by selecting the name of the chemical.
Part of an effective hazard communication program is effectively and clearly communicating chemical hazards so that employees know how to handle chemicals appropriately and protect themselves from harm.
Within the chemical record, employees can find up to date information to review. Each chemical record will contain chemical information, hazard information, and documents.
Chemical Information provides employees with details on the intended use, approved location, synonyms, and ingredients. Each chemical can have one or many approved locations.
If a chemical is not approved for use at a specific location, the employee can request use by using the chemical request.
Hazard information
Hazard Information provides employees with the Hazard Identification and Precautionary Statements aligned with the Globally Harmonized System.
Tip: The Globally Harmonized System is a global initiative to standardized how chemicals are classified and communicated.
Documents
Documents can be any type of resource to inform employees about the chemical. For example, safety data sheets, emergency action plans, or procedures, or even images.
The attached documents are stored within Health and Safety Documents which is extended from the platform’s document management tables.
Chemical Requests:
Chemical Requests and Approvals streamline the request and approval workflow for use of chemicals within the workplace. By digitizing the experience, safety teams will have increased visibility into the chemicals being requested and lowered manual effort approving and reviewing each request.
- Log in to Employee Center as a user with the role Chemical Requestor [sn_hs_chm.requestor]
- From the Chemical Library select Request chemical
Employees will be directed to the request which they can populate with information on the chemicals they are requesting to use.
The information on the request dictates whether the chemical can be approved for use. For example, safety teams will check the quantity, location, or intended use against regulations to verify compliance.
Note: The chemical request record producer can be configured to add additional information or hide any out of the box fields that are not relevant to a customer’s requirements.
Helpful Tip: To configure the record producer, navigate to Service Catalog > Catalog Definitions >Record Producers. Search for Request Chemical. Duplicate the out of the box record producer to have a reference and make updates to the variables.
Once the request is submitted, this will trigger the approval workflow. The attributes of the chemical request will determine the approval workflow and who is the correct approver.
For more information on how to configure the approval request please refer to docs.
Approvers can approve the request from employee center, email, or directly within workspace.
Chemical Workspace
Within the Health and Safety Workspace, EHS teams are empowered to efficiently oversee all chemical information and documentation for their organization.
- Log in to the Health and Safety Workspace as a user with the Chemical Reader [sn_hs_chm.reader] role
- Navigate to the Environmental Management application using the navigation bar on the left
- From this list view, EHS teams can easily navigate the chemical data model.
Chemical Requests:
- Select Chemical Requests
Within Chemical Requests, EHS teams can review and approve submitted chemical requests.
Every request will be its own unique record for the EHS team to review. If additional information is required, EHS teams can comment to the employee using the Comments section. Additional information can be updated within the request by the reviewer.
After approval, the reviewer clicks Create chemical at the workspace's top left to create a new chemical record.
The request record and the chemical record are two records since organizations will need a full audit record of the request and approval process.
When Create chemical is selected, a modal will appear for the user to determine how the chemical will be created. Customers have two ways of creating chemicals: Automatically or Manually
Automatically: Using the out of the box integration to 3E, customers can connect to 3E’s database of over 20 million chemicals to pull up to date chemical information and Safety Data Sheets.
Note: Additional licensing with 3E is required. Please refer to the docs on 3E for information on configuring the integration.
Manually: Customers can manually input all information about the chemical within the data model. Note, this does require periodic review to ensure the data is up to date if there have been any changes made by the manufacturer.
Creating a Chemical Automatically
- Fill out the required fields of Chemical Name, Manufacturer, Country, and Language
- Part number is optional but will reduce time spent sourcing the chemical and SDS
- Select Submit to create a new chemical record
When submitted a notification will appear for the user alerting of information being populated. The Service Provider Request table will store records of data requested from the 3E system.
Creating a Chemical Manually
- Select Manually
- Verify the chemical name
- Submit
Chemicals [sn_hs_chm_chemical]
Chemical Records contain all information regarding the specific chemical such as manufacturer, approved locations, hazard information, and locale settings.
Note: The Chemical record is the record surfaced to employees within the Chemical Library for chemical information.
The details available for each chemical may vary based on the specific chemical and its manufacturer. Sample data is provided for demonstration purposes; however, clients are responsible for importing information regarding the chemicals utilized in their workplace, as these requirements can differ significantly across industries and organizations.
Each Chemical has related lists for:
Chemical Hazard Identification: Identifies chemical hazard information such as hazard category, hazard statements, and precautionary statements
Chemical Ingredients: Lists the ingredients that make up the chemical mixture. Each ingredient is made up of a substance and its concentration. The ingredient record lists concentration and the unique CAS number for chemical identification.
Chemical Item: Physical chemical items in a location and storage conditions.
Ex. 7 bottles of IPA 70/30 in the Boston Office Storage Closet 1
Note: Risk and Exposure Assessments can be done on a chemical item based on the use, quantity, and location for the chemical.
Requests: Any chemical request submitted by an employee requesting that chemical
Risk Assessments: Using Health and Safety Risk Assessments, EHS teams can conduct Risk Assessments on Chemicals to proactively lower incident severity and likelihood while working with the chemical.
Documents: Safety data sheets or any relevant document using Health and Safety. These documents will surface in the Chemical Library in EC.
Actions: Uses Health and Safety Actions to assign out corrective, preventive, learning, task actions to the organization
Service Provider Requests:
Stores records of data requested from 3E and the state.
Chemical Groups:
The Chemical Group is a way to organize and group similar chemicals. For example, all acids could be grouped together or all Isopropyl Alcohols. Customers have flexibility to determine how they would like to group. The group aggregates information on the chemical in a consolidated view.
This view will surface all information on the chemicals in the group for safety teams to easily find and manage.
How to Configure:
Setting Up Chemical Management:
Health and Safety Environmental Management [sn_hs_env] will need to be downloaded or updated to (1.0.2) from the store into your instance.
Release Compatibility: Yokohama, Zurich
Select Health and Safety Chemical Management under Add optional features
Optional: Select Health and Safety 3E Spoke if using the 3E integration. Note: Customers will require a license with 3E
Health and Safety Risk Assessments:
To continually reduce safety risks within the organization, safety teams perform job risk assessments to protect employees during their tasks. With the updated data model, customers can assess risks associated with jobs and individual job steps, proactively spotting hazards and assigning controls using the hierarchy of controls. Safety teams can then use a dynamic heatmap report to identify and monitor the highest risks at each job step, allowing for effective management and oversight.
How to Use:
Health and Safety Workspace:
- Log in to the Health and Safety Workplace with the [sn_hs_rm.risk_manager] role
- Select the Health and Safety Risk Management
- Navigate to the Health and Safety Risk Assessment List
- Select New
- Populate details of the risk assessment
- Save
Under details, Health and Safety teams can populate information around the scope of the risk assessment.
Customers can now categorize the risk assessment with the new risk types: chemical, job, location, or process.
In the December release, additional fields have been added to provide more information about the scope.
Please refer to the table below for the updates:
|
Where is the update? |
What is the update? |
V7.0 |
V8.0 |
|
Risk Assessment: Details |
New choice list |
n/a |
Risk Type |
|
Risk Assessment: Details |
New date/time field on Risk Assessment Details |
n/a |
Created on |
|
Risk Assessment: Details |
New date/time field on Risk Assessment Details |
n/a |
Assessment completed |
|
Risk Assessment: Details |
New reference field on Risk Assessment: Details |
n/a |
Audits |
|
Risk Assessment: Details |
New multi select reference field on Risk Assessment: Details |
n/a |
Jobs to be assessed |
Once saved, related lists will appear for the Health and Safety team to populate. These lists are Risk Analyses, Risk Actions, and Action Schedules.
- Navigate to Risk Analyses
Note: In the December release (v8.0.0) the Risks and Controls table has been relabeled to Risk Analyses. The table has not been renamed, just the label within workspace.
Within Risk Analyses, customers can visualize the highest levels of residual and inherent risk using the Risk Matrix heatmap component. As assessments are completed and inherent and residual risks are determined, the heatmap will update to reflect a number for that level of risk.
To begin an analysis
- Select Create Risk Analyses
- From the modal, add jobs from the job register.
Note: When a job is added to the risk assessment, the associated hazards and controls will import to the Risk Assessment saving the safety team time and manual effort. Jobs and job steps are maintained under the Configuration area within Workspace.
Optional: If a Risk Assessment is being conducted on a chemical or location, selecting Create risk analyses and importing the jobs can be skipped. Instead select New from the list.
Once saved, the job and job steps will import under Risk Analyses. Each Job Step will have its own RAC record to conduct a Risk Analysis on.
To begin a risk analysis:
- Select the RAC record hyperlink ex. RAC0000002
The Risk Analysis record will record the highest level of risk from the associated hazard assessments.
This record contains the job, job step, levels of risk, and the assigned risk owner. The risk owner is an individual within the organization whose role is to oversee this specific risk.
To start identifying risks, hazard assessments need to be conducted.
- Navigate to the Hazard Assessments related list.
- Note the imported hazards from the job register. However, new hazards can be added by selecting New
Safety teams can assess the levels of risk for each identified hazard. Multiple hazards can be present for each risk analysis or job step.
Note if the risk for hazard assessment has not been assessed the inherent and residual risk values will appear as (empty.)
To complete a hazard assessment:
- Select a hazard record hyperlink ex. HA000010003
Note: The hazards on the hazard assessment are being populated from the Hazard Register within Configuration in the Health and Safety Workspace.
Once the hazard is selected, Safety teams can then conduct an assessment using the Hierarchy of Controls. The controls are being referenced from the Control Measure Register under Configuration.
If a new control is identified during the assessment, safety teams can create a new Control Measure using Create New Control.
Once the hazard and controls have been identified, safety teams can then assess the levels of inherent and residual risk.
Note: The levels of severity, likelihood, and risk tolerances are being referenced from the Risk Matrix.
Once these values have been input, select save. The highest level of inherent and residual from all of the related hazard assessments will populate under the risk analysis record.
Navigate back to the Risk Analyses List. Note how the highest level of inherent risk and residual is visual in both the list view as well as the heat map.
The heatmap is both a visualization of the risk matrix as well as a report. The heatmap will update as new risk analyses are conducted. Hover over the number to view the number of risks in that category, the likelihood, and the severity.
Customers can now easily visualize areas of highest risk within their organization. For customers doing job task risk assessments, safety teams will be able to identify hazards at every level of the job step.
The heatmap report can be filtered by selecting from the dropdown to filter the report by residual or inherent risk.
To set up the Risk Matrix:
Navigate to Configuration with the role [sn_hs_rm.risk_manager]
Select New
Select the Matrix Grid. For example 4x4
Input your organizations risk severity and likelihood levels.
Next, input the risk tolerance level. The risk tolerance is the level of likelihood multiplied by the level of severity.
Customers who would like to use the matrix heatmap can update the colors of the matrix using the color component.
Within V8 additional updates were made to the hazards, controls, and job register table.
Under the configuration section within the Health and Safety Workspace. Risk Categories were relabeled to “Hazard Categories.” This update will reflect in the list navigation, column, and the record.
List Navigation
Additionally from configuration customers can now update new hazard categories directly from the workspace under Hazard Categories.
Hazard Category column updated label change
Record Update
Within the Job Register, hazards and controls have been relabeled to job hazards and controls to indicate that those specific hazards and controls are for the job or job step.
For the complete list of data model updates please refer to the chart below.
Setting Up Health and Safety Risk Assessments:
Health and Safety Risk Management[sn_hs_rm will need to be downloaded or updated to (8.0.0) from the store into your instance.
Release Compatibility: Yokohama, Zurich
Additional Features:
Ability to select multiple injuries per body part
From the body picker, employees, managers, and safety teams can now select multiple injuries per body part.
PDF Report Mapping properties
The following properties and features have been introduced to enhance Report Mapping
- A property is now available to determine whether a report remains fillable after it has been generated. This allows for greater control over post-generation report interactions.
- There is a new property to specify if the generated report should be automatically attached to the relevant table. This ensures security and record-keeping within the system.
- Report Mapping now includes the ability to select specific roles that are authorized to generate reports.
- While mapping fields, users now can clear field mappings at the individual field level. This provides flexibility and precision when managing field mapping for report generation.
Geolocation search
To report a location that is not in the location hierarchy, users can use the geolocation capability to identify the location of the user’s device. In the December release, the geolocation capability has been updated to include the ability to search for a location using Google Maps. The location could be an address or the name of a location.
Ex. Waltham ServiceNow Office
A property has been added to the Health and Safety Properties to set a default location for users. If geolocation has been configured but the user has not enabled location services on their device, this property will set a default map area. For example, defaulting to headquarters. The user can then move, or search of a new address as needed.
Knowledge in Health and Safety Workspace
Health and Safety teams can now manage their knowledgebase from within the Health and Safety workspace.
Document Management
For customers who need multi language support, a new field has been added for choosing the language the document is in. Additional functionality for security and document control has been added.
