Assign user personas, roles, groups, and responsibilities in Grants Management

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Assign user personas, roles, groups, and responsibilities in Grants Management

    In ServiceNow Grants Management, you can assign predefined roles, personas, groups, and responsibilities to users to control access and delegate tasks effectively throughout the grants lifecycle. This enables organizations to manage grants efficiently by defining who can perform specific actions and access certain data within the platform.

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    Assigning User Roles

    • Roles grant users access to Grants Management features and data relevant to their function.
    • Identify which users will work on grant cases and assign appropriate roles accordingly.
    • Roles can be assigned individually to users or collectively through user groups, allowing flexible management of permissions.
    • To assign roles, create or open a user record under All > User Administration > Users, edit the Roles related list, select desired roles, and save.
    • Admin role is required to assign roles and manage users.

    Using Assignment Groups

    • Groups can be created to organize users and assign roles collectively, simplifying role management at the organizational level.
    • Create distinct groups such as an administrators group to control admin privileges.
    • Assign users to groups and assign roles to groups so all members inherit those roles.
    • Groups are created and managed via All > User Administration > Group, where you add members and assign roles.
    • Assignment groups support organizational team structuring and delegation but are separate from internal program teams within grant programs.

    Internal Program Team Responsibilities

    • Responsibilities are roles assigned specifically at the grant program level within the playbook and differ from user roles.
    • They control user permissions within individual grant program cases and can be assigned once a program exists.
    • A user may have multiple responsibilities across different grant programs without affecting their overall user roles.
    • Default responsibilities include Approver, Collaborator, Observer, Program Lead, and Program Co-lead.
    • These are assigned via dropdown menus in the internal program team activity of the playbook.

    Grants Management Personas and Access Configuration

    • Personas represent key user types involved in Grants Management and help define their responsibilities.
    • Admins can configure read/write access for internal program team members on a case-by-case basis by mapping roles to access levels.
    • This granular access control helps ensure users have appropriate permissions for their specific roles within grant programs.

    Practical Implications for ServiceNow Customers

    By using roles, groups, and program-level responsibilities effectively, you can:

    • Delegate access and tasks accurately across your grants organization.
    • Maintain security and proper access control by assigning only necessary permissions.
    • Streamline user and team management with groups and role inheritance.
    • Customize user access within individual grant programs to reflect real-world team structures and workflows.

    This structured approach enables your organization to manage grants more efficiently and with clear responsibility assignments tailored to your operational needs.

    By default, Grants Management comes with roles, personas, and responsibilities that can be assigned to existing users on the platform.

    Assigning user roles

    Assign roles to members of your grants organization Grants Management application so that your users can have delegated access to Grants Management features, capabilities, and data.

    There are a few guidelines when assigning roles to users:
    • Determine the roles who would be working on the grant cases for the agency, and what user would do what. For more information on the roles available in Grants Management and to determine which makes sense for each user, see Grants Management roles and Grants Management Personas
    • Create as many users as needed in your organization.

    Role required: admin

    To assign roles to a user within an organization:

    1. Make sure a user record has been created within the organization. Navigate to All > User Administration > Users to create a user record, or open an existing user record.
    2. In the Roles related list, select Edit.
    3. In the Collection list, select the desired roles, and then select Add
    4. Select Save.
    5. Repeat as many times as needed until all desired users are added to and associated with the organization and have the desired role.
    You can also create user groups and assign roles to them. Users assigned to the group inherit the roles.

    Using assignment groups to create organizational teams

    There are a few guidelines for creating groups:
    • Create one group for administrators and assign the admin role to this group only.
    • Create as many groups as needed in your organization. Assign the necessary users to those groups, and then assign the necessary role to those groups if you haven't already. You can create groups first, assign a role to the group, and add users, or you can add user roles individually and then add them to the group. All users in a group will inherit the group role.

    To delegate access to grants programs and create organizational teams, you can create assignment groups. This is different from creating internal program teams within a grant program in Grants Management. These are responsibilities that are assigned at the grant program level within the playbook, and adding a user to either of these grant program-level groups do not affect roles at the user and agency level. For information on how to create an internal program team and external reviewer group, see Add members to a Grant Program internal program team and Add external reviewer groups in Grants Management.

    To create a user assignment group:
    1. Navigate to All > User Administration > Group to create group record.
    2. Select a group Name.
    3. In the Group Members related list, select Edit.
    4. Select one or more names in the Collection list.
    5. Select Add and Save.
    6. Repeat as many times as needed until all desired users are added to the group.
    7. In the Roles related list, select Edit.
    8. Add the desired roles to the group.
    9. Select Save.

    For more information on the roles available in Grants Management and to determine which makes sense for each user, see Grants Management roles and Grants Management Personas

    Internal Program Team Responsibilities

    The following is a list of all internal program team responsibilities that are provided with the Grants Management application by default. You can assign these using the dropdown menus in the Internal Program team activity of the playbook. For information on creating internal program teams, see Add members to a Grant Program internal program team

    Program team responsibilities are different than user roles; responsibilities are tied to the grant program only and determined at the grant program case level. These can only be assigned once a program has been created. A user can have multiple responsibilities across grant programs, per program, and a user's responsibility within a program does not affect a user role.

    The following is a list of all internal program team responsibilities that are provided with the Grants Management application by default.

    • Approver
    • Collaborator
    • Observer
    • Program Lead
    • Program Co-lead