Goal form

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Goal form

    The Goal form in ServiceNow is designed to help customers create and manage goals aligned with their organizational strategic priorities. It supports detailed goal tracking within various workspaces such as Operational Sustainability Workspace and Strategic Planning, enabling clear visibility and alignment of goals across portfolios and business units.

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    To view all fields in the workspace, including those not in the default or custom form view, customers must configure the form layout accordingly.

    Key Features

    • Goal Identification: Define the Name and Description of the goal, with options to refine description further if the ServiceNow Otto for SPM application is installed.
    • Status and Progress Tracking: Set and monitor State (e.g., Draft, In Progress, Approved) and Status (Red, Yellow, Green) to reflect current goal health. The Progress field auto-calculates percentage completion if sub-goals or targets exist.
    • Categorization: Assign goals to relevant Categories such as Total Applications, Cost types, Compliance, or Strategic levels to facilitate reporting and alignment.
    • Parent Goal Relationships: Link goals to a Strategic Priority or a Parent Goal and define their relative impact on parent goals when weighted averages are enabled, enhancing hierarchical goal management.
    • Ownership and Assignment: Specify the Assigned entity type and Assigned entity (such as Business Unit or Department) to ensure goals display correctly in portfolio plans. Assign an Owner and include Contributors for collaborative goal achievement.
    • Duration Management: Define Start and End Dates for goals, with defaults set to the current quarter or inherited from parent goals for sub-goals, supporting timely tracking.
    • Collaboration and Classification: Add Comments for detailed collaboration. Optionally assign a Team responsible for goal activities and classify goals as Environmental, Social, or Governance for Operational Sustainability users.

    Practical Use and Benefits

    ServiceNow customers can leverage the Goal form to systematically create, assign, and track strategic and operational goals across their organization. By clearly defining goal categories, ownership, timelines, and progress, customers gain real-time insight into goal health and alignment with strategic priorities. The form’s flexibility to link sub-goals and assign relative impact supports nuanced portfolio management and prioritization.

    Configuring the form layout to surface all relevant fields enhances usability in workspace environments, enabling users to manage goals efficiently within their operational context.

    Use the Goal form to create goals for your organizational strategic priorities.

    Note:
    For Operational Sustainability Workspace and Strategic Planning users, to view the other fields (that are not added to the default or your custom form view) on the form in the workspace, configure the default/custom form layout. For information on how to configure the form layout, see Configuring the form layout.
    Table 1. Goal form
    Field Description
    Name Name of the goal.
    State State of the goal. The state can be Draft, In progress, Approved, Complete, Pending, Achieved, Not Achieved, or Cancelled.
    Category Category of the goal. The available options are:
    • Total Applications
    • Total Cost
    • Opex
    • Capex
    • Cloud Applications
    • Homegrown Applications
    • Support Cost
    • Labor Cost
    • Standards Compliance
    • Strategic
    • Operational
    • Tactical
    • Artificial Intelligence
    Status Status of the goal. Status can be Red, Yellow, Green, or None.
    Progress Percentage complete for the goal. The progress value is calculated automatically if the goal has sub-goals or/and targets.

    For more information on how the progress value is calculated, see Progress value calculation.
    Description Brief description of the goal.

    You can refine goal description using the Refine records skill, if the ServiceNow Otto for SPM application is installed.
    Table 2. Parent information section of the Goal form
    Field Description
    Strategic priority Name of the strategic priority that this goal is created for.
    Parent goal Name of the parent goal that this goal contributes to.
    Impact on parent goal A numerical value that represents the importance of this goal relative to sibling goals or other goals under its parent goal. By default, the value is (1) Neutral.
    The available options are:
    • (0) No impact
    • (1) Neutral
    • (2) Moderate
    • (3) High
    • (4) Very high
    • (5) Maximum
    Note:
    This field is available only when the sn_gf.weighted_average_enabled system property is set to Yes.
    Table 3. Owners & Contributors section of the Goal form
    FIeld Description
    Assigned entity type Entity type to which the goal is assigned. For example, Business Unit, Department, Company, or Portfolio.
    Assigned entity Entity to which the goal is assigned. For example,if the portfolio plan is created with Business Units, HR and IT, populate the Assigned entity type as Business Unit and Assigned entity type as HR or IT.
    Note:
    Populating the Assigned entity type and Assigned entity fields are required to display the goals in the portfolio plan.
    Owner Owner of the goal. By default, the name of the user creating the goal is populated.
    Contributors Users who contribute to the achievement of the goal.
    Table 4. Duration section of the Goal form
    Field Description
    Start date Start date for the goal. By default, the start date of the current quarter is populated. For a sub-goal, start date of its parent goal is populated.
    End date End date for the goal. By default, the end date of the current quarter is populated. For a sub-goal, the end date of its parent goal is populated.
    Table 5. Other section of the Goal form
    Field Description
    Comments Detailed comments for the goal to facilitate collaboration.
    Team Assignment group responsible for different activities in achieving the goal.
    Classification Goal classification type. The available options are Environmental, Social, and Governance. This field is applicable only for the Operational Sustainability Workspace users.