Exploring Cloud Account Management

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Exploring Cloud Account Management

    The ServiceNow Cloud Account Management application within Cloud Workspace streamlines cloud account lifecycle processes such as creation, suspension, reactivation, and certification. It automates administrative tasks to improve efficiency and compliance by confirming the integrity and security of user accounts in your cloud environment.

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    As an administrator, you have access to a Home tab dashboard that presents key account statistics, including critical and high severity accounts, suspended accounts, accounts pending certification, and accounts with undefined budgets.

    Key Features

    • Dynamic Entitlements: Access to features depends on your license entitlements. The ITOM Cloud Accelerate license enables Cloud Account Management, while the Cloud Governance Suite (CGS) license is required to use Cloud Workspace. Combining CGS with Cloud Account Management entitlements (CGS + CAM) unlocks capabilities such as submitting and approving account requests, certifying accounts, viewing compliance dashboards, and configuring request policies.
    • Compliance Dashboard: Provides a unified view combining data from ITOM Visibility and Cloud Account Management, facilitating security and compliance reporting.
    • Cloud Terminology Alignment: The application aligns terminology with major cloud providers—Azure (subscriptions), AWS (management/member accounts), and GCP (projects)—and standardizes access mechanisms as IAM service accounts across platforms.
    • User Personas and Roles: Supports defined roles including Requester, Approver, Admin, Certifier, Asset Viewer, and Account Manager, each with specific permissions to initiate requests, approve, configure, certify, or view account data.
    • Request Policies and Automation: Enables creation of policies to automate account request approvals, budget checks, and the account lifecycle process.

    Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Standardized and Compliant Account Creation: Ensures consistent procedures and role-based permissions that align with security policies.
    • Lifecycle Management: Simplifies suspending, reactivating, and adding unmanaged accounts, reducing manual effort and errors.
    • Visibility and Control: Dashboards and reports provide actionable insights into account statuses and compliance, supporting governance and audit needs.
    • Security and Compliance Verification: Data certification processes help verify legitimate account ownership and control, supporting regulatory requirements.

    Additional Considerations

    Cloud Account Management integrates with other ServiceNow components and cloud provider APIs to facilitate permissions and provisioning modes. Understanding the predefined roles and responsibilities helps optimize the configuration and use of the application to meet organizational needs.

    The ServiceNow Cloud Account Management in Cloud Workspace application provides a framework to streamline the cloud account creation and management process.

    Cloud Account Management overview

    The automation capabilities of Cloud Account Management in Cloud Workspace simplify administrative tasks related to account management, such as creation, suspension, reactivation, and certification. Data certification confirms the integrity and security of user accounts within the organization's cloud environment.

    As a Cloud Account Management admin, you can view the account statistics displayed on the Home tab, which include critical severity accounts, high severity accounts, suspended accounts, accounts due for certification, and accounts with undefined budgets.

    Cloud Account Management overview infographic

    About Cloud Workspace entitlements

    Cloud Account Management dynamically adjusts the features available to you based on your entitlements.
    • Cloud Account Management entitlement becomes available with the ITOM Cloud Accelerate license.
    • The Cloud Governance Suite (CGS) license is a prerequisite to have Cloud Workspace. The CGS license provides the following capabilities:
      • Access the home page
      • Access the asset explorer, which provides an overview of your cloud assets and asset details
    • The Cloud Governance Suite with the Cloud Account Management entitlements (CGS + CAM) provides the following additional capabilities:
      • View an overview of your accounts and account details
      • Submit, view, or approve account requests
      • Certify an account
      • View the compliance dashboard
      • Configure Cloud Account Management or view configuration details
      • Create request policies to automate the complete account creation and suspension process

    Compliance dashboard in Cloud Workspace

    The compliance dashboard consolidates data from ITOM Visibility, Cloud Account Management to provide a unified view of cloud data and key metrics critical for security and compliance reporting.

    For more details, see Viewing the compliance dashboard.

    Cloud account terminology

    Cloud Account Management uses the term "cloud account," but other cloud providers use different terms for similar concepts. The terms are as follows:
    • Microsoft Azure Cloud (Azure) refers to subscriptions
    • Amazon AWS Cloud (AWS) refers to management and member accounts
    • Google Cloud Platform (GCP) refers to projects
    Cloud providers offer two main access mechanisms for performing operations:
    • Console user access
    • Programmatic user access
    For Cloud Account Management, these operations are referred to as IAM service accounts. However, other cloud providers use different terminology:
    • AWS refers to the IAM user
    • Azure refers to service principals
    • GCP refers to service accounts

    Cloud Account Management user personas

    Table 1. Personas used in Cloud Account Management
    User Description
    Requester Initiates cloud account creation requests and requests for suspension or reactivation of their own accounts.
    Approver Reviews account requests and either approves or denies them.
    Admin Confirms that the Cloud Account Management configurations align with cloud configurations. Customizes the default data certification policy. Onboards accounts created outside the Cloud Account Management application.
    Certifier Approves an account as certified or failed. Acts as a verification entity by confirming the accuracy and integrity of the data.
    Asset viewer Can view all the configuration items (CIs) in Asset Explorer and access the compliance dashboard.
    Account manager Can view all account details and associated assets. Account managers have edit access to accounts with primary ownership and read-only access to those with secondary ownership.

    For more information about Cloud Account Management groups and responsibilities, see Cloud Account Management ACL groups, roles, and responsibilities.

    Cloud Account Management Benefits

    The Cloud Account Management provides several benefits.

    Table 2. Cloud Account Management Benefits
    Benefit Feature Users
    Simplifies subscription account creation by defining standardized procedures and user roles and permissions to promote consistency and compliance with security policies.

    Request a cloud account

    Cancel a Cloud account request

    		 Requester

    Enables suspending or reactivating accounts, and adding unmanaged accounts.

    Offers a visualization dashboard to manage accounts and request policies to automate account creation, approvals, and budget checks.

    Suspend a Cloud account

    Reactivate a cloud account

    Add an unmanaged cloud account

    Creating configurations

    About data visualization in Cloud Account Management

    Review request policies

    		 Admin
    Streamlines performing verifications that a person or entity has legitimate ownership or control over an account for security, compliance, and regulatory purposes.

    Certify an account

    		 Certifier