Why would you use User Criteria vs. Groups for access managment?

[LearningService]

What are the benefits of using User Criteria?

[Jaspal Singh]

Did you go through docs? It has all details about its purpose, use & its need.

[Susan Britt]

They have two completely different use cases.  Groups should be used for role based access within the platform.  User Criteria is used for managing access to knowledge articles, catalog items, etc.  For example, you may have a catalog item that should only be available for everyone in APAC.  You would not want to create a group and maintain the users that way.  Instead, User Criteria allows you to systematically create the conditions necessary.  You can select a specific group(s) within User Criteria, if needed also.

[Community Alums · Accepted solution]

Hi,

User Criteria is an ability to group users based on certain conditions.
In Service Now, we have User Groups which groups sets of users. But not that might not always satisfy all the usecases.

Lets say, we want to group all users working in Support organization from New York office.
We dont have an ability to group these people in Service Now using User Group.
Thats where User Criteria comes in. User Criteria allows to group user based on multiple conditions.

Mark my answer correct & Helpful, if Applicable.

Thanks,

Sandeep