Resolving Permission and Custom Field Issues When Creating ServiceNow Records via ControlUp Flows

When attempting to create an event in ServiceNow via a flow, a common issue encountered is the error message stating, “You don’t have permission for this action(edit_ai_agent).” Despite this message, extra fields can be added in the flow, but these custom fields do not appear in the REST message received by ServiceNow. This issue is often accompanied by the problem where fields such as short description, description, or custom fields (e.g., “company”) show up empty or without values on the created record, especially when the target is a custom table extended from the task table.

The root cause of the permission error “edit_ai_agent” was identified as a bug on the integration side, which was scheduled to be fixed in an upcoming release. Importantly, this error itself does not affect the actual payload sent to ServiceNow. Rather, the missing field values within ServiceNow are typically due to two main configuration issues on the ServiceNow instance side. First, custom fields must be referenced using their internal column names, which start with the prefix “u_” (for example, “u_company”) rather than their field labels. ServiceNow ignores unknown or incorrectly named fields silently without showing an error. Second, the integration user account used by the flow requires proper Access Control List (ACL) permissions: specifically, it needs create ACL rights on the custom table and write ACLs on the individual fields. Without these permissions, ServiceNow will create the record but omit values for fields lacking write permissions, resulting in empty fields.

To validate what data is actually received by ServiceNow, administrators can use the inbound REST transaction logs (found under System Logs > Transactions) to inspect incoming requests. If there are errors like “ACL Exception Insert Failed” in the flow’s run history, it confirms that ACL permissions need adjustment for the integration user. Ensuring these conditions—correct internal field names with the “u_” prefix and appropriate ACL permissions—will allow custom fields to populate correctly in ServiceNow records created via the flow.

Relevant documentation for working with ServiceNow’s field naming conventions and ACL settings can be found in ServiceNow’s official resources, and for troubleshooting integration issues, ControlUp‘s knowledge base and support channels offer further guidance. The fix for the “edit_ai_agent” permission bug was targeted for the next product release following this report.

Read the entire ‘Resolving Permission and Custom Field Issues When Creating ServiceNow Records via ControlUp Flows’ thread below:

We are trying to built a flow to create an event in ServiceNow. But when adding extra fields we get the message ‘You don’t have permission for this action(edit_ai_agent)’
The extra field are added, but the action doesn’t show the custom added fields in the REST message to ServiceNow. Does anyone have tips or recommendations?

FYI

To add on top of this: we’re trying to create a record in a custom table (extended from the task table), but neither short description or description are getting any value in ServiceNow. We tried adding custom fields as well, like ‘company’, but this is also not getting any value when the record gets created.

We suspect the error above has something to do with this, but of course we’re unsure…

Hi,, quick update:

1. The `edit_ai_agent` permission error is a bug on our side, fix is planned for tomorrow’s release. It doesn’t affect what the flow sends to ServiceNow.

2. For the fields not arriving: we reproduced your setup and confirmed the node sends everything correctly. Two things to check in your ServiceNow instance:
– Custom field names must be the internal column name with the `u_` prefix (e.g. `u_company`), not the field label, ServiceNow silently ignores unknown field names without any error.
– Your flow’s run history shows 3 “ACL Exception Insert Failed” errors — the integration user needs create ACL on the custom table, plus write ACLs on its fields (missing field-level ACLs cause fields to arrive empty even when the record is created).

You can verify what we send in ServiceNow’s inbound REST transaction log (System Logs > Transactions). Let us know if anything still doesn’t land after these checks.

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