Special handling notes overview
Summarize
Summary of Special handling notes overview
The Special Handling Notes application in ServiceNow allows users to create notes that highlight important information about individual records, such as cases or accounts, ensuring critical details are brought to the user's attention. These notes can be created for specific records or groups of records based on defined conditions and can also show notes from related records, such as associated accounts or products. Special handling notes are intended for exceptional circumstances rather than routine workflows.
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To maintain system performance, it is recommended to keep the number of special handling notes under 10,000 per instance and to avoid complex conditions or excessive dot walking when defining notes.
Configuring and Managing Special Handling Notes
Users with the snshn.admin role can configure entity tables (e.g., Case table) to use special handling notes and determine how notes display—either in embedded/related lists on forms or as pop-up windows when accessing records. Users with appropriate roles have different permissions:
- snshn.admin: Create, update, delete notes, and configure settings
- snshn.editor: View and update notes
- snshn.user: View notes only
Special Handling Note Components and States
Each special handling note includes a message, status, priority, and expiration date.
- Status:
- Active: Displays on lists or pop-ups until set to Inactive or Expired.
- Inactive: Set manually when the note is no longer useful; removed from active displays but can be viewed in records.
- Expired: Automatically set when the expiration date is reached; notes become read-only except for system administrators.
- Priority Levels: Four priority levels (Critical, High, Moderate, Low) have associated colors that vary between the platform interface and the Customer Service Management (CSM) workspace.
- Effective and Expiration Dates: Notes can be set to become effective immediately or at a future date and have expiration dates managed by a scheduled job.
Displaying Special Handling Notes
Special handling notes can be shown on forms as embedded or related lists, which display the message, expiration date, and priority. Alternatively, they can appear in a pop-up window when a user opens a record with active notes. The pop-up shows the message and priority and allows users to dismiss individual notes, removing them from the pop-up but not deleting them.
Automated Management and Domain Separation
A scheduled job runs daily to activate notes when their effective date arrives and expire notes when their expiration date is reached. This ensures notes are current and appropriately managed without manual intervention.
The application supports domain separation as a process-separated table, prioritizing the picker domain scope during insert or update operations to maintain data segregation in multi-domain environments.
Practical Considerations for ServiceNow Customers
- Use special handling notes sparingly for exceptional cases rather than routine workflows to avoid performance issues.
- Configure notes display to best suit your users’ needs—choose between embedded lists or pop-up windows for visibility.
- Assign appropriate priorities and manage note lifecycle with effective and expiration dates to keep information relevant and actionable.
- Leverage role-based access to control who can create, update, or view notes, ensuring data integrity and security.
- Be mindful of domain separation settings if your instance uses multiple domains to maintain proper data isolation.
The Special Handling Notes application enables you to create notes that bring important information about individual records, such as a case or account record, to the user's attention.
Configuring special handling notes
Creating, updating, and deleting special handling notes
Special handling notes display important information to the user. In addition to a message, a special handling note also has a status, an assigned priority, and an expiration date.
| Status | Definition |
|---|---|
| Active | The note is active. Active notes appear on the Special Handling Notes list or pop-up window. Active notes remain on the list until they are set to Inactive or Expired. Active notes remain on the pop-up window until dismissed or until they are set to Inactive or Expired. |
| Inactive | The note is no longer active. Users with the sn_shn.admin or sn_shn.editor role can set a note to Inactive if the information in the note is no longer useful. When a note is set to Inactive, it is removed from the Special Handling Notes list or pop-up window. Inactive notes can be viewed by navigating to . |
| Expired | The note has reached it's expiration date or it has been expired manually. If a note is expired, the form becomes read-only for all user roles other than the system administrator. A note is expired automatically by a scheduled job when it reaches it's expiration date. The scheduled job also sets any inactive notes to expired if the inactive notes have reached their expiration date. |
| Priority | Platform interface | CSM workspace interface |
|---|---|---|
| 1 - Critical | Red | Red |
| 2 - High | Orange | Orange |
| 3 - Moderate | Green | Purple |
| 4 - Low | Blue | Gray |
When creating a special handling note, you can make it effective right away or you can select a date when it becomes effective. You can also select an expiration date.
Special handling notes list
- Message
- Expiration date
- Priority
- Table
Special handling notes pop-up window
- Message
- Priority
To display special handling notes in a pop-up window, navigate to and set the related properties.
To dismiss a note, click Dismiss. Once you dismiss a note, it no longer appears in the pop-up window. To close the Special Handling Notes pop-up window, click X.
Expiring special handling notes
- If a special handling note has reached its Effective on date, the scheduled job sets the status of the note to Active.
- If a special handling note has reached its Expires on date, the scheduled job sets the status of the note to Expired.
Domain separation for Special Handling Notes
The Special Handling Notes application supports domain separation as a process-separated table.
When inserting or updating a special handling note, the picker domain scope takes precedence by design with the Overrides [sys_overrides] field on process-separated tables. For more information, see Process administration.