Case Study
UST streamlines regional operations for a prominent grocery retailer with a tailored ServiceNow domain separation solution
OUR CLIENT
The U.S. grocery retailer has served communities for over a century, operating hundreds of stores in Texas and northeastern Mexico. Known for high-quality, locally-sourced produce, innovative private-label brands, and exceptional customer service, the company also champions education and disaster relief through charitable initiatives. As a digital transformation leader, it offers online shopping, curbside pickup, and delivery services, blending convenience with its core values of community connection and sustainability.
THE CHALLENGE
ServiceNow multi-region deployment challenges caused bottlenecks, data integrity, and compliance issues
The company struggled to manage its ServiceNow application across its two distinct geographic regions—the U.S. and Mexico. Users in each country needed a customized view and access to ServiceNow modules, requiring clear boundaries to prevent data overlap and ensure compliance with country regulations. Service management activities, including incident, change, and problem management, were intended to be country-specific. However, the existing system allowed cross-location data access, causing confusion and risking accidental updates to the wrong data set. This cumbersome ServiceNow configuration increased the chances of unauthorized access and mismanagement of information, undermining data integrity and compliance.
This lack of domain separation meant there was no clear mechanism to restrict user permissions based on geographic boundaries, making it challenging to ensure each region could independently manage its data and workflows. This situation created operational inefficiencies because users had to manually filter through irrelevant records to find information related to their location. Catalog and record producers, which should have been tailored to each region, were also shared, leading to further confusion and operational bottlenecks. Users often experienced delays in service-request processing and inaccuracies in ticket routing because of the overlap, negatively impacting customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
In addition, users in Mexico also encountered cross-location access issues, affecting productivity and data governance. These issues prevented the company from expanding because adding new regions would exacerbate these challenges. The grocery retailer needed a skilled partner with deep ServiceNow expertise to implement a domain separation structure that could restrict data visibility, ensure compliance, and enable seamless, efficient workflows for both U.S. and Mexico-based teams.
THE TRANSFORMATION
ServiceNow configuration changes alleviated challenges and laid foundation for growth
UST implemented a comprehensive domain separation solution within the company’s ServiceNow platform. The strategy targeted key modules: incident, problem, change, service catalog items, and knowledge management. We achieved this separation by configuring the “opened by” field in service management tables, creating a reliable mechanism to filter data based on the user’s location in the U.S. or Mexico. This field acted as a primary indicator, enabling ServiceNow to identify and route records based on the user’s country, ensuring data was confined to its designated geographic domain.
To support this configuration, UST applied multiple advanced customizations across the ServiceNow environment, such as configuring related fields and lists within core tables associated with each module and ensuring users saw only the records relevant to their location. UST implemented view and business rules for each module, creating customized views restricting data access and interactions to region-specific users. These configuration changes eliminated cross-region visibility and enhanced data privacy.
Furthermore, reusable scripts were developed to manage domain-specific logic, ensuring service management processes were executed according to the respective country’s configurations. UST performed entry overrides within the task table at the dictionary level, allowing each domain to have tailored configurations without impacting the global schema. The dictionary-entry overrides enabled us to define field behaviors and visibility rules based on location, further strengthening data boundaries.
By introducing client scripts, we enabled real-time validation and controls at the user interface level. This strategy ensured that only authorized actions could be performed on records, streamlining the user experience and minimizing the risk of accidental data mishaps. Meanwhile, fix scripts were used to update and correct historical records, ensuring legacy data aligned with the new domain-separation structure and were appropriately segmented between the U.S. and Mexico.
For enhanced workflow management, business rules were tailored to automatically assign tasks and route tickets to the correct country-specific team, significantly improving ticket-handling efficiency. We also customized the service catalog to present items specific to each region, ensuring users in the U.S. and Mexico only saw relevant catalog items. The knowledge management module was segmented to allow country-specific knowledge articles, enabling users to access contextually appropriate information that is compliant with local regulations.
The company can now effectively manage and segregate data for U.S. and Mexico teams, ensuring each region accesses only the relevant data, configurations, and incidents. At the same time, this domain separation structure allows U.S. and Mexico users to share common configuration items across regions while maintaining strict data boundaries—without additional subscription fees or separate ServiceNow instances for both countries. The solution improved data security, streamlined processes, and ensured regulatory compliance across country regions.
THE IMPACT
Domain separation project led to a plethora of business benefits
The company enhanced operational efficiency and laid the foundation for growth to seamlessly add new geographic regions with consistent, location-specific service management practices. It also achieved these additional benefits:
- Reduced costs—Shared configuration items between the U.S. and Mexico eliminated the need for separate ServiceNow instances in the two regions, significantly reducing infrastructure and operational costs. Additionally, since the domain separation feature in ServiceNow does not incur a subscription cost, the company gained significant functional improvements without additional costs.
- Accelerated issue resolutions and enhanced compliance—Service requests are now automatically directed to the appropriate regional teams based on the user’s location, streamlining processes and accelerating resolution times. These distinct regional workflows also ensure processes are aligned with U.S. and Mexico audit requirements, boosting compliance.
- Increased productivity—Since each service team member can focus on relevant tickets without sorting through irrelevant tickets, productivity has greatly improved. The region-specific service catalog and knowledge management module also enable users to find the information they need more quickly.
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RESOURCES
https://www.ust.com/en/servicenow