Domain separation and Service Mapping

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Domain separation and Service Mapping

    Domain separation in Service Mapping enables ServiceNow customers to logically partition data, processes, and administrative tasks into distinct domains. This separation controls access and visibility, ensuring data is properly assigned and securely managed across multiple tenants or business units. Domain separation is supported at runtime and includes isolation across the user interface, caching, reporting, and data aggregation.

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    Key Features

    • Domain-specific actions: Users must select or be in the relevant leaf domain (lowest-level child domain) to perform mapping tasks such as creating service instances and managing configuration items (CIs).
    • Data assignment: Service instances are automatically assigned to the user’s domain. CIs and connections added must belong to the same domain as the service instance.
    • Automated Service Suggestions: Supports domain separation starting with version 1.9.0, requiring source and target processes to reside in the same domain. Users see only data from their current domain. This feature is not supported on on-premise instances.
    • Multi-tenant setup: The instance owner must configure the application to operate across multiple tenants, enabling service provider scenarios such as tenant-customer chat interactions where data visibility respects domain boundaries.

    Practical Considerations for ServiceNow Customers

    • Ensure you select the appropriate leaf domain when performing Service Mapping actions to maintain domain integrity.
    • Verify after installing Service Mapping Plus with domain separation that all content is correctly assigned to domains; follow the recommended steps in the Now Support Knowledge Base.
    • Understand that domain separation impacts discovery and pattern configuration. Related topics like Discovery patterns, MID Server configuration, and pattern customization are important for operating Service Mapping effectively in domain-separated environments.
    • Domain separation enables service providers to securely manage multiple tenants while ensuring proper data isolation and user access controls.

    Next Steps

    • Review the ServiceNow documentation on domain separation best practices for service providers.
    • Explore the operational topics on enabling discovery, mapping application services, and customizing patterns within domain-separated environments.
    • Contact product management for updates regarding on-premise support and advanced domain separation capabilities.

    Domain separation is supported in Service Mapping. Domain separation enables you to separate data, processes, and administrative tasks into logical groupings called domains. You can control several aspects of this separation, including which users can see and access data.

    Support level: Basic

    • Business logic: Ensure that data goes into the proper domain for the application’s service provider use cases.
    • The application supports domain separation at run time. The domain separation includes separation from the user interface, cache keys, reporting, rollups, and aggregations.
    • The owner of the instance must set up the application to function across multiple tenants.

    Sample use case: When a service provider (SP) uses chat to respond to a tenant-customer’s message, the customer must be able to see the SP's response.

    For more information on support levels, see Application support for domain separation.

    How domain separation works in Service Mapping

    In domain-separated environments, switch into relevant leaf domains to access actions related to mapping performed by Service Mapping. A leaf domain is a child domain of the lowest level, meaning it does not have any child domains itself.

    Domain separation is handled in a slightly different way than simply configuring separate domains. Notice that you must select or specify the relevant leaf domain to perform the following mapping actions in domain-separated environments:
    • When creating an service instance, the service instance is assigned to the user's domain.
    • When manually adding a CI to an service instance, you can choose only CIs that belong to the service domain.
    • When manually adding connections to CIs to an service instance, users must belong to the same domain as the application service.
    • When transferring service definitions between instances, imported service instances and service groups are assigned to the user's domain.

    Domain separation and Automated Service Suggestions

    Automated Service Suggestions supports domain separation. This means that:
    • The source and target process must reside in the same domain to create a connection.
    • The user can view only the data in the current domain.
    Note:
    After installing Service Mapping Plus with domain separation support, verify that all content is in the appropriate domain. For a detailed explanation of the required steps, see the Service mapping plus for domain separated instance [KB1303398] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base.

    Automated Service Suggestions supports domain separation starting with version 1.9.0. No support is currently offered for on-premise instances. Reach out to product management for further information.

    For more context, refer to Discovery patterns used by ITOM Visibility topic and MID Server configuration for Service Mapping. The following topics provide operational information on how to use Service Mapping in deployments with domain separation: