New Assignment Data Lookup entries always default to execution order 100 — expected?

[Pedro Santos]

Hi everyone,
I’m learning ServiceNow and experimenting with Assignment Data Lookups. I created multiple lookup entries with increasing specificity:

1. Category = Network

2. Category = Network + Subcategory = (specific value)

3. Category + Subcategory + additional fields (around 5 conditions)

Every time I create a new lookup entry, the Execution order defaults to 100 (unless I edit it manually).

Is this the expected/default system behavior (new entries default to execution order = 100)? Also, in a scenario where multiple entries match, is the tie-breaker based only on execution order, or does specificity / record order matter too?

Thanks!

[Vaibhav Chouhan · Accepted solution]

Yes, what you’re seeing makes sense based on how Assignment Data Lookup works.

When you create a new lookup rule, the Order field defaults to 100.

I’ve tested this in my instance, and if multiple rules have the same Order and match, whichever one the system evaluates first gets applied.

One important point is the Always replace setting in the Data Lookup definition. If Always replace is checked, a later matching rule can overwrite an existing value. In that case, a more specific rule (for example, Category + Subcategory + Configuration Item) can effectively win by replacing the value set by a more generic rule.

If Always replace is not checked, the lookup won’t overwrite a field that already has a value. So if one rule sets Assigned To, other matching lookup rules won’t change it unless replacement is allowed. That’s why nothing else applies until Assigned To is cleared again.

[Pedro Santos]

Thanks for the reply. I suspected this was the default behavior, but I wanted to confirm. Regarding the “Always replace” setting, I’ll run a few tests to better understand how it behaves.