Playbooks roles

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
    • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Playbooks roles

    Playbooks roles in ServiceNow Zurich release enable users to manage and interact with playbooks, triggers, and activity definitions. Assigning the appropriate roles allows users to perform specific tasks within the Playbooks framework, such as creating, editing, viewing, or managing playbooks and their components. These roles also control access to Workflow Studio and various Playbooks-related tables.

    Show full answer Show less

    Roles and Their Capabilities

    • playbook.admin: Full administrative permissions including creating, updating, and deleting triggers, playbooks, and activities; launching Workflow Studio; and managing translations.
    • pdauthor: Can launch Workflow Studio to create, activate, edit, and delete playbooks, and view all activity definitions and shared Playbooks tables.
    • pdcontentauthor: Can create, edit, and delete activity and trigger definitions, plus view shared Playbooks tables.
    • pdtriggerauthor: Can create, update, and delete trigger definitions only.
    • pdoperator: View-only access to process executions, activity executions, and execution logs.
    • pdshared.user: View access to shared Experience activity types and properties tables.
    • pdshared.admin: Edit access to shared Experience activity types and properties tables.
    • pdcancel: Permission to cancel running playbooks without requiring full admin or write access to parent records.
    • pdrestarter: Permission to restart active playbooks.
    • playbook.write: Allows users with content filtering restrictions to create, activate, edit, and delete playbooks and view shared tables.
    • playbook.designeraccess: Allows users with content filtering restrictions to view playbooks in Workflow Studio.
    • playbook.activitydefread: Grants view access to all activity definitions unless restricted by Required Roles.

    Important Considerations

    • Assigning Playbooks roles does not automatically grant access to Workflow Studio; Workflow Studio access requires additional permissions.
    • Playbook authors can apply filters to control runtime user access when building playbooks in Workflow Studio.
    • For managing per-user subscriptions and content filtering, customers should refer to Subscription Management and content filtering documentation respectively.

    Grant users one or more Playbooks roles to enable them to create triggers, playbooks, and activity definitions.

    Roles

    To learn more about managing per-user subscriptions, see Managing per-user subscriptions in Subscription Management and contact your account representative.

    System administrators can grant users access to Playbooks by assigning delegated development permissions or directly assigning Roles. Additionally, playbook authors can create additional filters for runtime user access as they build a playbook in Workflow Studio. The following user roles are available for Playbooks:

    Role Description
    playbook.admin Enables users to:
    • Create, update, and delete trigger definitions.
    • Launch Workflow Studio to create, activate, edit, and delete playbooks.
    • Create, edit, and delete activity definitions.
    • View the Experience activity types (sys_pd_activity) and Experience activity properties (sys_pd_activity_type_prop) tables that are shared by Playbooks and Playbook Experience.
    • Add translations for a playbook.
    pd_author Enables users to:
    • Launch Workflow Studio to create, activate, edit, and delete playbooks.
    • View all activity definitions.
    • View the Experience activity types (sys_pd_activity) and Experience activity properties (sys_pd_activity_type_prop) tables that are shared by Playbooks and Playbook Experience.
    pd_content_author Enables users to:
    • Create, edit, and delete activity definitions.
    • Create, edit, and delete trigger definitions.
    • View the Experience activity types (sys_pd_activity) and Experience activity properties (sys_pd_activity_type_prop) tables that are shared by Playbooks and Playbook Experience.
    pd_trigger_author Enables users to create, update, and delete trigger definitions.
    pd_operator Enables users to view process executions, activity executions, and execution logs only.
    pd_shared.user Enables users to view the Experience activity types (sys_pd_activity) and Experience activity properties (sys_pd_activity_type_prop) tables that are shared by Playbooks and Playbook Experience.
    pd_shared.admin Enables users to edit the Experience activity types (sys_pd_activity) and Experience activity properties (sys_pd_activity_type_prop) tables that are shared by Playbooks and Playbook Experience.
    pd_cancel Enables users to cancel running playbooks without the playbook.admin role or write access to the parent record. For example if you want to grant an agent manager the ability to cancel playbooks, but not an agent.
    pd_restarter Enables users to restart active playbooks.
    playbook.write Enables users who have content filtering restrictions to:
    • Launch Workflow Studio to create, activate, edit, and delete playbooks.
    • View the Experience activity types (sys_pd_activity) and Experience activity properties (sys_pd_activity_type_prop) tables that are shared by Playbooks and Playbook Experience.
    To learn more about content access filtering, see Content filtering for playbooks
    playbook.designer_access Enables users who have content filtering restrictions to launch Workflow Studio to view playbooks. To learn more about content access filtering, see Content filtering for playbooks.
    playbook.activity_def_read Enables users to view all activity definitions as long as there aren't Required Roles.
    Note:
    Granting users Playbooks roles does not automatically allow them to access the Workflow Studio design environment. Granting users access to Workflow Studio may be helpful when creating activity definitions. For more information on Workflow Studio roles, see user access to Flow Designer.