Access observer
concept australia Updated Sep 10, 2026 1 min read access-observer.md
Use Access Observer to understand people and processes access data on your instance.
With Access Observer security administrators can:
- Understand which entities like users, roles, scoped apps, and scripts that access your data.
- Use this foreknowledge to know how best to apply security to limit unnecessary access to your data, while confirming those requiring access and still operate normally.
- Avoid broken automation by seeing a clear view of how your data is accessed before making security changes.
- Address the need to provide information regarding how encryption is applied on your instance.
Configure Access Observer by creating Access Observer configuration records. Within these records, you define a specific table and column to be observed and the time in which the column is observed.
[Omitted image "data-obs-1.png"] Alt text: Access Observer configuration record
Find the results of your observations on the Access Observer log record table. On this table you can see a record detailing each time the specified column is accessed.
[Omitted image "data-obs-2.png"] Alt text: Access Observer log records showing details of an observation
- Configure access observation
Create an access observation record to review access to a data column during a specified time window. - Review Access Observer logs
Use information in the Access Observer log records for insights on how your data is accessed.
36 lines · 2.0 KB
--- title: Access observer description: Use Access Observer to understand people and processes access data on your instance. locale: en-US canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/platform-security/access-observer.html release: australia topic_type: concept last_updated: "2026-09-10" reading_time_minutes: 1 --- # Access observer Use Access Observer to understand people and processes access data on your instance. With Access Observer security administrators can: - Understand which entities like users, roles, scoped apps, and scripts that access your data. - Use this foreknowledge to know how best to apply security to limit unnecessary access to your data, while confirming those requiring access and still operate normally. - Avoid broken automation by seeing a clear view of how your data is accessed before making security changes. - Address the need to provide information regarding how encryption is applied on your instance. Configure Access Observer by creating Access Observer configuration records. Within these records, you define a specific table and column to be observed and the time in which the column is observed. \[Omitted image "data-obs-1.png"\] Alt text: Access Observer configuration record Find the results of your observations on the Access Observer log record table. On this table you can see a record detailing each time the specified column is accessed. \[Omitted image "data-obs-2.png"\] Alt text: Access Observer log records showing details of an observation - **[Configure access observation](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/platform-security/config-access-observation.md)** Create an access observation record to review access to a data column during a specified time window. - **[Review Access Observer logs](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/platform-security/review-access-obs-logs.md)** Use information in the Access Observer log records for insights on how your data is accessed.
| title | Access observer |
| description | Use Access Observer to understand people and processes access data on your instance. |
| locale | en-US |
| canonical_url | https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/platform-security/access-observer.html |
| release | australia |
| topic_type | concept |
| last_updated | 2026-09-10 |
| reading_time_minutes | 1 |