Functionality enhancements for the entities

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Functionality Enhancements for the Entities

    The Australia release introduces several enhancements to the entities within the Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) module, aimed at improving ownership management and entity context. These updates help ServiceNow customers better manage entity ownership, notifications, and synchronization, ensuring accurate and timely assignment of responsibilities.

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    Key Features

    • Email Notification on Owner Changes: When an entity’s owner is updated or newly assigned, an email notification is automatically sent to inform the owner of this assignment.
    • Auto-update Entity Owner: This option enables automatic synchronization of the entity owner with the value from a referenced source field. It is available only for entities created via entity filter with the "Use owner field" option enabled, and can be managed directly from the entity form in the workspace view.
    • Form Design Enhancements:
      • Mandatory fields for Entity class and Default owner ensure that every entity has an assigned owner, even if the "Use owner field" option is cleared.
      • New Department field allows adding organizational context such as department and location to entities.
      • Visibility of Auto-update owner and Source field for owner on forms provides better control and transparency over ownership settings.
    • Activity Journal: Tracks and logs changes made to entity fields, improving auditability and change management.
    • Sync Owner with Source Field Link: Displays on the entity form when the entity owner and source field are out of sync, allowing manual synchronization.
    • Scheduled Synchronization Job: Customers can activate and configure a background job to synchronize entity owners with their source records on a configurable frequency (daily, weekly, or monthly).
    • Batch Size Configuration: Allows setting the maximum batch size for synchronization jobs, optimizing performance for large-scale owner updates.

    Key Outcomes

    • Improved accuracy and timeliness in assigning and notifying entity owners, reducing manual oversight.
    • Automatic synchronization of ownership data between entities and their source records minimizes discrepancies and administrative effort.
    • Enhanced form customization and mandatory fields ensure entities are well-classified and owned within organizational context.
    • Audit trails via the activity journal promote transparency and compliance tracking for ownership changes.
    • Flexible scheduling and batch processing enable scalable and efficient management of entity ownership synchronization.

    You can configure some functionality enhancements for the entities as part of the GRC updates.

    The following enhancements are available for the entities:
    • Email notification: When you update the entity owner value or when you assign a new owner to an entity, an email notification is sent to the entity owner about the assignment of the entity.
    • Auto-update the entity owner: You can select the Auto-update owner option to keep the entity owner in synchronization with the value from its reference (source) field. See the following example.

      The Auto-update owner option is visible only for those entities that you have created by using the entity filter and that you have enabled by using the Use owner field option in the filter.

      You can also view the Auto-update owner option on the entity form in the workspace view. See the following example.

      Figure 1. Entity form in the workspace view
      Entity form in the workspace view.
    • Form design changes: The following form design changes are introduced in the entity and entity filter forms.
      • You must fill in the Entity class and Default owner fields in the form as shown in the following example.
      • You must fill in the Default owner field even if you have cleared the Use owner field. This update ensures that every entity that has been created has an owner assigned to it.
      • The Department field is added to the entity form. You can add context to an entity by selecting the department, location, and class fields.
      • The Auto-update owner and Source field for owner fields are displayed in the form. The Source field for owner is visible only if you have enabled the Auto-update owner.
      • The Activity journal displays the log of the changes that are made to the fields as shown in the following example.
      • The new Sync owner with source field related link is displayed in the entity form as shown in the following example. It synchronizes the owner of an entity with its source record's field value. It is visible on the form only if the value of the source field and the owner of an entity are not in synchronization.

      • Activate the job that synchronizes the entity owner before enabling the property. You can enable the Frequency of syncing the entity owner with the source record property under GRC properties to synchronize the entity owner with its source record on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

        Activate the job that synchronizes the entity owner before enabling the property. You can enable the Maximum batch size while syncing the entity owner with that of its source record property under GRC properties to set the maximum batch size to an integer value. By doing this action, you synchronize the entity owner with its source record value.