Special handling notes

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of Special Handling Notes

    The Special Handling Notes application in ServiceNow’s Zurich release enables users to create and display important notes on individual records—such as cases or accounts—to highlight special circumstances. These notes help bring critical information to users' attention when accessing records, improving awareness and handling of unique situations.

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    Special handling notes can be created for specific records or sets of records meeting defined conditions, and may also display notes from related records (e.g., account or product linked to a case). They are intended only for special cases, not routine workflows, and should be used judiciously to avoid performance issues caused by excessive or complex notes.

    Key Features

    • Configuration: Administrators with the snshn.admin role can configure which entity tables support special handling notes and how they display—either as pop-up windows or embedded/related lists on forms.
    • Roles and Permissions:
      • snshn.admin users can create, update, and delete notes.
      • snshn.editor users can view and update notes.
      • snshn.user users can view notes only.
    • Status and Priority: Each note has a status (Active, Inactive, Expired) and priority level (Critical, High, Moderate, Low) with color-coded indicators to quickly convey urgency. Notes can be scheduled with effective and expiration dates, and a scheduled job manages status transitions automatically.
    • Display Options:
      • Pop-up window that appears when opening a record with active notes. Users can dismiss individual notes or close the window.
      • Embedded or related list on the form showing message, expiration date, and priority.
    • Resurfacing Notes: Agents can reopen dismissed pop-up notes from the More Actions menu on supported record pages without needing to reload the record.
    • Domain Separation: The application supports domain separation as a process-separated table, ensuring proper domain scope management when inserting or updating notes.

    Key Outcomes

    • Improved visibility of critical, exceptional information on records, enhancing decision-making and case handling.
    • Configurable display options allow seamless integration with existing workflows and user interfaces.
    • Role-based permissions ensure appropriate access control for creating, editing, and viewing notes.
    • Automated status management via scheduled jobs maintains note relevancy and system performance.
    • Support for domain separation enables secure multi-domain deployments.

    The Special Handling Notes application enables you to create notes that bring important information about individual records, such as a case or account record, to the user's attention.

    Figure 1. Special handling notes in CSM Configurable Workspace
    Special Handling Notes pop-up window displaying multiple notes with header, description, and priority illustrated with colours.
    You can create special handling notes for specific records or for a set of records that meet one or more conditions. You can also configure this application to display any special handling notes from related records, such as the account or the product associated with a customer service case.
    Important:
    Use special handling notes for special circumstances and not for the general case processing workflow. It is not recommended to have more than 10k special handling notes on an instance. In addition, avoid complex conditions and use dot walking sparingly when creating special handling notes. Having a large number of notes with complex conditions can affect the load time.

    Configuring special handling notes

    Users with the sn_shn.admin role can configure the desired entity tables, such as the Case table, to use special handling notes. Special handling notes can be configured to display in the following ways:

    Creating, updating, and deleting special handling notes

    Users with the sn_shn.admin role can create, update, and delete special handling notes. Users with the sn_shn.editor role can view and update notes and users with the sn_shn.user role can view notes. For more information about creating special handling notes, see the following topics:

    Special handling notes display important information to the user. In addition to a message, a special handling note also has a status, an assigned priority, and an expiration date.

    The status of a note can be one of the following:
    Table 1. Special handling note states
    Status Definition
    Active The note is active.

    Active notes appear on the Special Handling Notes list or pop-up window.

    Active notes remain on the list until they are set to Inactive or Expired.

    Active notes remain on the pop-up window until dismissed or until they are set to Inactive or Expired.

    Inactive The note is no longer active.

    Users with the sn_shn.admin or sn_shn.editor role can set a note to Inactive if the information in the note is no longer useful. When a note is set to Inactive, it is removed from the Special Handling Notes list or pop-up window.

    Inactive notes can be viewed by navigating to Special Handling Notes > Special Handling Notes.

    Expired The note has reached it's expiration date or it has been expired manually.

    If a note is expired, the form becomes read-only for all user roles other than the system administrator.

    A note is expired automatically by a scheduled job when it reaches it's expiration date. The scheduled job also sets any inactive notes to expired if the inactive notes have reached their expiration date.

    A note can be assigned one of the following priorities. Each priority has an associated color, which is displayed as a colored bar in the pop-up window and as a colored circle in the Priority field in a list. The Core UI and the CSM Configurable Workspace interface use different colors to represent priority.
    Table 2. Special handling note priorities
    Priority Core UI CSM Configurable Workspace
    1 - Critical Red Red
    2 - High Orange Orange
    3 - Moderate Green Purple
    4 - Low Blue Gray

    When creating a special handling note, you can make it effective right away or you can select a date when it becomes effective. You can also select an expiration date.

    Special handling notes pop-up window

    Special handling notes can be displayed on a form in a pop-up window. Users with the sn_shn.admin role can configure a form to display the Special Handling Notes pop-up window. This window appears when you access a record that has one or more active notes. The pop-up window displays the following information for each note:
    • Message
    • Priority

    To dismiss a note, click Dismiss. Once you dismiss a note, it no longer appears in the pop-up window. To close the Special Handling Notes pop-up window, click X.

    Special handling notes list

    Special handling notes can be displayed on a form in an embedded or related list. Users with the sn_shn.admin role can configure a form to display the Special Handling Notes list. This list appears on a form when there are one or more active notes for a record. The Special Handling Notes list displays the following information for a note:
    • Message
    • Expiration date
    • Priority
    • Table

    Resurfacing special handling notes

    Special handling notes are typically displayed in a pop-up window when a record is opened. Agents can view the special handling notes, dismiss individual notes, and close the window. If an agent closes the window, they can open it again and display the special handling notes without closing and reopening the record tab in CSM Configurable Workspace.

    To open the special handling notes pop-up window after it has been closed, select Special handling notes from the More actions menu (agent workspace more UI actions icon) on the action bar. If no special handling notes are available, the system displays an informational message: “No special handling notes are available.”

    The Special handling notes action that agents can use to reopen the special handling notes window is currently available on the following record pages in CSM Configurable Workspace:
    • Front-line case page
    • CSM default record page
    In addition to these pages, the action is also available on records from the following tables:
    • Account
    • Asset
    • Contact
    • Incident
    • Product model
    • Work order task

    Expiring special handling notes

    The Deactivate Special Handling Notes scheduled job, which runs daily at midnight, checks the dates in the Effective on and Expires on fields for each note.
    • If a special handling note has reached its Effective on date, the scheduled job sets the status of the note to Active.
    • If a special handling note has reached its Expires on date, the scheduled job sets the status of the note to Expired.

    Domain separation for Special Handling Notes

    The Special Handling Notes application supports domain separation as a process-separated table.

    When inserting or updating a special handling note, the picker domain scope takes precedence by design with the Overrides [sys_overrides] field on process-separated tables. For more information, see Process administration.