Exploring Smart Assessment Engine

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Exploring Smart Assessment Engine

    The ServiceNow® Smart Assessment Engine (SAE) streamlines and automates assessment processes within Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) workflows such as compliance management, vendor risk management, privacy management, audit management, business continuity, and operational risk management. It addresses challenges related to manual data collection, decision-making inefficiencies, and error-prone workflows, thereby reducing operational costs and compliance risks.

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    SAE offers an intuitive, configurable, and access-controlled platform that enables organizations to design, execute, and manage assessments efficiently. It supports drag-and-drop template design, predefined user roles, end-to-end workflow automation, and collaborative post-assessment actions, helping to maintain compliance, enhance accountability, and improve risk tracking and decision-making.

    Key Features

    • Assessment Templates: Create and customize diverse assessment templates (e.g., Control Attestation, Risk Identification) using a drag-and-drop designer. Set parameters such as question types, justifications, conditional visibility, instructions, and reference information.
    • Assessment Execution: Trigger assessments via Workflow Studio or scripts. Assessors can respond directly within their workspace with automatic saving, reassign in-progress assessments, or cancel unnecessary ones.
    • Bulk Management: Combine multiple assigned assessments into a single view to manage, submit, or reassign them collectively using Bulk Submit or Bulk Reassign functions.
    • Legacy Migration: Migrate existing metric types into SAE templates to leverage previously created assessment designs.
    • Scoring: Configure scoring mechanisms at assessment, section, or subsection levels to generate meaningful evaluation results.
    • Post-Assessment Automation: Automate follow-up tasks based on assessment responses to streamline remediation or compliance activities.

    User Roles and Access Control

    SAE includes predefined roles to align with standard user personas, ensuring appropriate access and responsibilities:

    • Assessment Actor: Responds to assigned assessments and can reassign them.
    • Assessment Reader: Reads and comments on assessments within assigned categories and those they created, depending on role permissions.
    • Assessment Admin: Manages template categories and templates, views and modifies all assessments, reassigns assessments, and migrates legacy metrics.
    • Template Reader: Reads specific assessment templates mapped to their accessible categories.
    • Template Manager: Creates and modifies assessment templates within assigned categories with read/write access.
    • Template Developer: Extends template functionality by scripting response automation for assessment questions, requiring both template admin/manager and developer roles.

    The ServiceNow®Smart Assessment Engine (SAE) helps you reduce the manual burden and costs of your assessment processes through automation.

    Smart Assessment Engine

    In Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) workflows such as compliance management, vendor risk management, privacy management, audit management, business continuity, and operational risk management, organizations face challenges in gathering input from employees and making informed decisions. Manual processes can be inefficient, time-consuming, and prone to errors, leading to increased operational costs and compliance risks.

    SAE is designed to automate and optimize assessment processes, reducing manual efforts and costs. It provides an intuitive, configurable, and access-controlled assessment experience, enabling organizations to design and execute assessments seamlessly while ensuring compliance and efficiency. SAE is a versatile and business-friendly assessment engine that simplifies data collection, risk analysis, and compliance management. It supports a drag-and-drop template designer for effortless assessment creation and includes predefined roles to align with standard user personas. SAE ensures end-to-end workflow automation, post-assessment actions, and seamless collaboration.

    By implementing SAE, organizations can streamline assessments, enhance accountability, and ensure regulatory compliance while optimizing overall efficiency. It enables organizations to track risks, maintain compliance, and improve decision-making through standardized evaluation processes.

    Smart Assessment Engine benefits

    The following table shows the benefits of the Smart Assessment Engine application.

    Benefit Feature Users
    See an overview of all your assessment template-related information. You can review the published and unpublished assessment templates and access the template designer. Accessing templates in the Assessment Workspace Template reader [sn_smart_asmt.template_reader], Template manager [sn_smart_asmt.template_manager], or Assessment admin [sn_smart_asmt.assessment_admin]

    Use the template designer for the following tasks:

    • Create and customize the assessment templates that support a range of types including Control Attestation and Risk Identification.
    • Set the assessment parameters such as the question types, justifications, and conditional visibility.
    • Add the instructions, questions, and reference information by using the template designer.

    Using the template designer

    Create an assessment template

    Add instructions and questions to an assessment template

    Add reference information to an assessment template

    		 Template manager [sn_smart_asmt.template_manager] or Assessment admin [sn_smart_asmt.assessment_admin]
    Trigger assessments by using the Workflow Studio or scripts in Workflow Studio. Triggering assessments Flow designer [flow_designer]
    Respond to the assessments and collect the responses from within your workspace. As an assessor, your work is automatically saved, which eliminates the need for manual saving and helps to prevent data loss. You can also reassign the in-progress assessments to another user or cancel the assessments that are no longer needed.

    Responding to assessments

    		 Assessment actor [sn_smart_asmt.actor]
    Combine multiple assigned assessments into a single, streamlined view. You can manage, submit, or reassign these combined assessments at one time. Use Bulk Submit or Bulk Reassign assessments to handle all the assessments in one action. Submit combined assessments Assessment actor [sn_smart_asmt.actor]
    Migrate the metric types to the SAE assessment templates to use the assessment designs that you already created. Migrate a legacy metric type to an assessment template Assessment admin [sn_smart_asmt.assessment_admin]
    Set up scoring for your assessment responses to calculate meaningful scores at the assessment, section, or subsection level. Scoring assessments sn_smart_asmt.template_manager and sn_smart_asmt.assessment_admin
    Automate actions based on assessment responses. These actions use the responses from an assessment to automate tasks Post-assessment automations sn_smart_asmt.assessment_admin or sn_smart_asmt.template_manager and sn_smart_imp_auto.automation_creator

    Roles of SAE users

    Assessment actor
    A user with the assessment actor [sn_smart_asmt.actor] role can respond to the assessments that are assigned to them. They can also reassign these assessments.
    Assessment reader
    A user with the assessment reader [sn_smart_asmt.assessment_reader] role can read the assessments within the categories that they’re assigned to. Additionally, they can read and comment on the assessments they created, and view and comment on the assessments that are generated from those templates.
    Note:
    The Assessment reader role field in the template determines the minimum user role that is required to view and comment on assessments. Only users with the specified role and the Assessment reader [sn_smart_asmt.assessment_reader] role can access the assessments that are generated from this template.
    Assessment Admin
    A user with the assessment admin [sn_smart_asmt.assessment_admin] role can create, view, update, and delete both template categories and assessment templates. Additionally, the user with this role can view all the assessments, modify their states, reassign the assessments, and migrate the existing metric types to new assessment templates.
    Template reader
    A user with the template reader [sn_smart_asmt.template_reader] role can read specific assessment templates that are based on the categories mapped to the templates.
    Note:
    Each template must be mapped to one or more template category. A template reader must have this role to view the templates that are mapped with that category. A template reader must be able to access a template category to view the template.
    Template Manager
    A user with the template manager [sn_smart_asmt.template_manager] role can read, write, or create specific assessment templates that are based on the categories that are mapped to these templates. Their access to the template categories during the creation process is governed by the same rules that apply to the template readers.
    Template Developer
    A user with the template admin or template manager role and template [sn_smart_asmt.developer] role can read, write, and create the script for response automation in assessment questions.

    For more information, see Roles in Smart Assessment Engine.