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Release: Australia · Updated: 2026-03-12 · Official documentation · View source

Create a user criteria record in Service Catalog

Create a user criteria record to define conditions that are evaluated against user records.

Before you begin

Role required: admin, catalog_admin

About this task

You can apply several user criteria records to a single catalog item or category. In this situation, users match only one of these criteria records to have access.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to All > Service Catalog > Catalog Definition > User Criteria and create a record.

  2. Fill in the fields on the form, as appropriate.

FieldDescription
NameThe name of the criteria record.
UsersThe individual user records to match.
GroupsThe group records to match.
Roles

The roles to match. Note:

  • The evaluation of a role is cached in the session, so any change in the role requires you to logout and login, similar to roles in ACL (Access Control List).
  • User Criteria is not applicable for elevated privilege roles.
AdvancedA check box to display or hide the Script field.
Script

A script to define any additional criteria, and return true or false. This field is available only if Advanced is selected. Note:

  • The script is evaluated in the scope that the user criteria is created in.
  • The evaluation of the script is cached in the session, so any change in the evaluation requires you to logout and login, similar to roles in ACL.
  • Do not use gs.getUser() or other session APIs since they cause conflict when used in diagnostic tools. Use the pre-defined user_id variable available in the script to get the user id of the user being used to evaluate the script.
  • Because scripts are evaluated dynamically, including scripts in user criteria records can decrease performance.
  • Because answer is a pre-reserved keyword, do not use a function with its name as answer, that is, answer().
ActiveA check box to activate or deactivate this criteria record.
CompaniesThe companies to match.
LocationsThe locations to match.
DepartmentsThe departments to match.
Match All

A check box to determine whether all elements from each populated criteria field must match. If selected, only users who match all criteria are given access. If cleared, the user must meet one or more of the set criteria to be given access. By default, this check box is cleared so that any condition met provides a match.

For example, consider a user criteria record for the following:

  • Locations A or B
  • Company C or D With Match All selected, only users meeting all these conditions are matched. For example, a user with a location A and a company C.

With Match All cleared, users meeting any of these conditions are matched. For example, a user with a location B.

Note: If you select Match All, ensure that you do not create contradictory conditions which can never be met. For example, if all users in location A work for company G, then the conditions in this example can never be met.

A User Criteria record is considered empty if none of the following attributes are defined:

-   Roles
-   Groups
-   Departments
-   Location
-   Company
-   Script \(or any other user attribute conditions\)

    **Note:** An empty User Criteria matches only authenticated users. Unauthenticated users are no longer matched by an empty User Criteria. Note that this behavior applies only to the Australia release.

Parent Topic:Set security for items and categories

Implementing user criteria

When creating user criteria for your system, consider the following recommendations.

  • Design Criteria for Reuse:

    Ensure that you design user criteria for maximum reuse. Create user criteria records with common sets of conditions matching your organization requirements. Allow them to be shared across as many items and categories as possible, rather than creating multiple similar criteria records for individual items and categories.

  • Naming conventions: Give each user criteria record a meaningful name, to help you determine the function for that record. For example,

    • Users in company Cloud Dimensions AND in Madrid
    • Users in company Cloud Dimensions OR in Madrid
    • Users belonging to the Group Development, IT, or Sales
    • Users with role itil, asset_manager, or catalog_admin
  • Test user criteria on a development or test instance, and then transfer the records from the user criteria tables and catalog records to your production instance using update sets.