Reassign the External Content Connectors Service Account user to the global domain

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Reassign the External Content Connectors Service Account user to the global domain

    To resolve issues with missing user permissions in your ServiceNow instance, it is essential to reassign the External Content Connectors Service Account user to the global domain. This action ensures that all instance users can access private content indexed by external content connectors, regardless of their assigned domain.

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    Key Features

    • User Permission Crawls: The External Content Connectors Service Account user facilitates the mapping of source system user and group permissions to instance users.
    • Domain Separation Handling: If the service account is assigned to a specific domain, it can only manage permissions for users within that domain.

    Key Outcomes

    By reassigning the service account to the global domain, all instance users, irrespective of their domain, will be able to search and access private content indexed by your external content connectors. This ensures comprehensive permission mapping and enhances content accessibility across your instance.

    Resolution Procedure

    1. Navigate to All > User Administration > Users.
    2. Open the user record with ID xcc-connector-service-account and name External Content Connectors Service Account.
    3. Configure the user form to display the Managed domain, Domain, and Domain Path fields.
    4. Select the Managed domain option.
    5. Set the Domain field value to global.
    6. Set the Domain Path field value to /.
    7. Select Update to complete the reassignment.
    8. Rerun user permission crawls for your external content connectors to update user permission mappings.

    Fix issues with missing user permissions for users on your instance by reassigning the External Content Connectors Service Account user to the global domain.

    Symptom

    On an instance with domain separation configured, if you assign the External Content Connectors Service Account user to a domain other than the global domain, external content connector user permission crawls can only map source system user and group permissions correctly for instance users assigned to the same domain. Instance users assigned to other domains are unable to search private content indexed by your external content connectors.

    Cause

    The External Content Connectors application includes an External Content Connectors Service Account user. When you run user permission crawls for your external content connectors, this user account assigns the retrieved source system user and group permissions to users on your instance.

    When the External Content Connectors Service Account user is assigned to a domain other than the global domain, it can only map source system user and group permissions to instance users in its own domain. Instance users assigned to any other domain don't get correctly mapped source system user and group permissions and can't search private content retrieved by your external content connectors.

    As an example, suppose you have an instance with domain separation configured where you assign the External Content Connectors Service Account user to the PKD/BR 1.0/VK domain. With this configuration, external content connector user permission crawls can only map source system user and group permissions to your instance users who are assigned to the same PKD/BR 1.0/VK domain. Instance users assigned to any other domain don't get source system user and group permissions mapped correctly and can't search private content retrieved by your external content connectors.

    Resolution

    Procedure

    1. Navigate to All > User Administration > Users.
    2. Open the user record with ID xcc-connector-service-account and name External Content Connectors Service Account.
    3. On the User form, configure the layout to show the Managed domain, Domain, and Domain Path fields.
      To learn how to show or hide fields on a form, see Configuring the form layout.
    4. Select the Managed domain option.
    5. Set the value of the Domain field to global.
      This is the default value for the field.
    6. Set the value of the Domain Path field to /.
      This is the default value for the field.
    7. Select Update.
      The External Content Connectors Service Account user is reassigned to the global domain with default settings.
    8. Update your user permission mappings by rerunning user permission crawls for your affected external content connectors.