Smart assessments with Third-party Risk Management

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Smart assessments with Third-party Risk Management

    The integration of the Smart Assessment Engine (SAE) into Third-party Risk Management (TPRM) enhances assessment capabilities by supporting both Classic and SAE assessment engines. SAE allows ServiceNow customers to create and manage internal and external questionnaires using configurable templates within the Vendor Management Workspace. Enabling SAE requires setting thesnvdrriskasmt.saeenabledproperty, after which only SAE templates and assessments can be created.

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    Key Features

    • Enhanced navigation and user experience: Simplifies assessment completion for users.
    • Unified assessment support: Manage both internal and external assessments in a single interface with TPRM-specific template extensions like risk area tagging and inclusion of previous responses.
    • Organizational tools: Group questions into subsections and sections, attach files to individual questions, and add inline reference information to assist assessors and respondents.
    • Efficiency improvements: Auto-save functionality for questionnaires and filters to identify unanswered questions quickly.
    • Customizable risk rating scales and assessment durations: Override default scales at the template level and define assessment timeframes.
    • Risk scoring and normalization: Standardize risk evaluation across assessments using flexible scoring settings.
    • Portal support: Internal users access assessments via the GRC portal, while external users use the third-party portal.
    • Issue management automation: Issues are created via rules rather than manual creation by assessors.

    Limitations and Considerations

    • All new assessments must utilize SAE templates; Classic engine templates cannot be used for new assessments.
    • Third-party risk assessors cannot create issues from response views or comment on individual questions—comments are limited to the questionnaire level.
    • The signature feature is not supported within SAE assessments.
    • Automatic questionnaire attachments based on inherent risk questionnaire responses are not supported.
    • Certain question types (percentage, ranking, image scale, custom metric) are unsupported and require conversion or re-creation before migration.
    • Empty sections resulting from unsupported questions must be addressed before publishing templates.
    • Repeating assessments are unsupported; event-driven management rules are recommended instead.
    • Duration information must be manually exported and imported when transferring templates between instances.
    • Management rules dependent on non-SAE templates may not function correctly if templates are not updated.
    • TPRM scoring migration only proceeds if template migration is error-free.

    Practical Implications for ServiceNow Customers

    By adopting SAE for TPRM assessments, customers gain a more streamlined, organized, and automated assessment process that improves accuracy and efficiency in managing third-party risks. However, customers must plan migration carefully, address unsupported question types, and understand the limitations around issue creation, comments, and certain features. The enhanced portal support and risk scoring capabilities enable consistent and transparent risk evaluations across internal and external assessments.

    Customers are encouraged to review related configuration and migration documentation to optimize their use of SAE within TPRM and ensure smooth transitions from Classic to Smart Assessment Engine templates.

    With the integration of Smart Assessment Engine (SAE), TPRM now supports both the Classic assessment engine and SAE. You can create questionnaire templates and add instructions, questions, and reference information by creating templates using SAE in the Vendor Management Workspace.

    SAE overview

    The Smart Assessment Engine in Vendor Management Workspace enables you to create both internal and external questionnaires using configurable templates, logical grouping of questions, inline guidance, and automations.

    For more information about the Smart Assessment Engine application, refer to Exploring Smart Assessment Engine.
    Note:
    To use Smart Assessment Engine, you must enable the Smart Assessment Engine enabled [sn_vdr_risk_asmt.sae_enabled] property. After setting this property, you can't create new assessments and questionnaire templates using the Classic assessment engine.

    Benefits of using the Smart Assessment Engine experience

    The new assessment experience offers the following benefits.

    • Enhanced navigation: Use the improved navigation for a better user experience.
    • Assessment support: Conduct assessments for both internal and external parties in one standard UI. TPRM SAE questionnaire templates are extended to include additional attributes such as the risk area and the option to include previous responses, which aren’t available in the base SAE templates. TPRM SAE templates must be created directly within the Vendor Management Workspace to ensure that they include the necessary attributes and can be used for TPRM assessments.
    • Organize questions: Group questions into subsections and sections for better organization.
    • Add attachments: Attach the files directly to the individual questions.
    • Add reference information: Add reference information to a questionnaire template to help ensure that assessors and respondents can access the necessary information they need while completing a questionnaire.
    • Filter questions: Quickly identify and filter unanswered questions.
    • Auto-save for questionnaires: Save your work automatically as you complete each question within a questionnaire.
    • Standardized risk rating scale definition: Override the default risk rating scales at the template level for both internal and external assessments.
    • Assessment duration: Define the duration of an assessment when creating a questionnaire template.
    • Combine assessments: Respond to questionnaires by using the same SAE template in a single, streamlined view.
    • Risk scoring and score normalization: Standardize the risk scores for a consistent evaluation using the more flexible scoring settings available in SAE.
    • Support for the GRC and third-party portals: Internal assessment responders can use the GRC portal to access and complete internal assessments and external assessment responders can use third-party portal to complete external assessments.

    Smart Assessment Engine limitations

    SAE with TPRM has the following limitations.
    • All new assessments must use SAE questionnaire templates.
    • Third-party risk assessors can no longer create issues from the View responses page. Issues generation rules can be used to create issues automatically.
    • Third-party risk assessors can no longer create comments on individual questions. They can only use the comment section at the questionnaire level.
    • The signature feature isn’t supported.
    • Automatic attachment of questionnaires to external assessments based on inherent risk questionnaire (IRQ) responses or IRQ-calculated risk tiers is currently not supported in Smart Assessment Engine.
    • The following question types aren’t supported: Percentage, ranking, image scale, and custom metric aren’t supported. You must either convert these question types to supported formats before migration or create new questions in the template designer after migration.
      Note:
      For the percentage and image scale question types, customers can use the Number type and Radio button type, respectively. Ranking and custom metric question types aren't supported.
    • If a section in the classic template contains only unsupported questions, an empty section is created in the TPRM SAE template. TPRM SAE templates with empty sections can’t be published; therefore, you must either add replacement questions to these sections or delete the empty sections before publishing.

      For more information on migration results, migration limitations, and creating TPRM SAE questionnaires, see Results of migrating a template to a TPRM SAE template and Create a TPRM SAE questionnaire or document request template.

    • Repeating assessments aren’t supported. You can use Event-driven management rules.
    • When transferring TPRM SAE questionnaire templates between instances, the update set won’t include the duration information. Users must export the duration information manually from the sn_smart_asmt_duration table and import it into the target instances.
    • If an assessment template isn’t updated to support SAE assessments, the related tier-based, provider-based, and event-driven management rules won’t run as expected.
    • The TPRM scoring migration proceeds only if there were no errors during the template migration. If there were errors, the TPRM scoring migration doesn’t occur.
    Note:
    For more information on migration results and migration limitations, see Results of migrating a template to a TPRM SAE template.

    What to explore next

    To learn more about configuring and using SAE with Third-party Risk Management, see: