Business Stakeholder users – read/report access to sysapproval_approver without ITIL

[Sharad_Mehra]

Hi Community,

Has anyone implemented read/report access to sysapproval_approver for Business Stakeholder (BSL) users without assigning itil or approval_admin?

In Subscription Management, I can see Business Stakeholder → Role Type: Approver → Application Family: Platform Approver.

We are considering creating a custom approval_reporter role with a read-only ACL on sysapproval_approver. The role would provide no Incident/Request/Change fulfilment capabilities and would not inherit itil or approval_admin.

Has anyone used a similar approach and confirmed whether it remains within the BSL/Platform Approver entitlement, rather than consuming an ITSM Fulfiller licence?

Also interested to know if there is an OOTB-supported approach for this requirement.

Thanks!

[Ankur Bawiskar]

@Sharad_Mehra 

my thoughts

• Use business_stakeholder for BSL users who need to view and approve ITSM records. It is OOTB and aligns with the Approver/Platform Approver entitlement, not Fulfiller. ServiceNow
• Use approver_user for users assigned approvals; it requires an Approver entitlement. ServiceNow
• Avoid approval_admin; it provides broader access and requires a Fulfiller licence. ServiceNow
• A custom read-only approval_reporter role is possible, but licensing depends on actual ACL and table access—not simply the absence of itil.
• For a custom role, allow read-only access to sysapproval_approver, avoid broad ITSM read roles, and restrict visibility through ACLs.
• Validate the role in a non-production instance using Subscription Management and confirm the classification with the ServiceNow account/licensing team.
• Recommendation: Use business_stakeholder for approvers and a scoped read-only role for reporting-only users, subject to entitlement validation.

💡 If my response helped, please mark it as correct ✅ and close the thread 🔒— this helps future readers find the solution faster! 🙏

[Sharad_Mehra]

Thanks for the response. 

We already have a custom approval_reporter role which provides report_view.

The only missing access is READ permission on sysapproval_approver. We are considering adding a READ ACL for the existing approval_reporter role.

The user would not receive itil, approval_admin, business_stakeholder, or other Fulfiller roles solely for this requirement.

Has anyone implemented a standalone custom reporting role with read-only access to sysapproval_approver?

If so, what subscription/licence entitlement did ServiceNow classify those users under? Does read-only reporting against sysapproval_approver itself trigger an ITSM/Approver/Business Stakeholder entitlement, or can the custom reporting role be used without an additional fulfiller entitlement?

I'm specifically looking for licensing experience with this configuration, rather than whether the ACL is technically possible.