--- title: Create an observation for an engagement description: Create an audit observation to present a summary of problems, discoveries, and recommendations. The audit team can then review the observations to determine if the observation is a reportable issue. locale: en-US canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/governance-risk-compliance/audit-management/create-observation-audit-ws.html release: australia product: Audit Management classification: audit-management topic_type: task last_updated: "2026-03-12" reading_time_minutes: 3 breadcrumb: [Audit observations in Audit, Audit Supervisor Workspace, Audit Workspace Overview, Audit Management, Governance, Risk, and Compliance] --- # Create an observation for an engagement Create an audit observation to present a summary of problems, discoveries, and recommendations. The audit team can then review the observations to determine if the observation is a reportable issue. ## Before you begin Role required: sn\_audit.manager, sn\_audit\_ws.supervisor, sn\_audit.user, sn\_audit\_ws.auditor ## Procedure 1. Navigate to **All** > **Audit** > **Audit Workspace**. 2. Select the lists icon \(\[Omitted image "ListsIcon.jpg"\] Alt text: List icon\). 3. Select **All engagements** in the Execution list. 4. Select the link to the engagement record in the **Name** column. 5. Select the **Observations** tab. 6. Select **New**. 7. On the form, fill in the fields.

Field	Description
Number	Unique identification number.
Name	Name of the observation.
Engagement	Engagement associated with this observation.
Source	Source or origin of the observation.
Issue type	Reason for creating the observation. The choices are:- Control design effectiveness failure - Control operative effectiveness failure - Control does not exist - Control doesn’t meet requirement - Other observation
State	State of the observation.
Substate	Substate of the observation.
Priority	Priority of the observation. Choices are:- 1 — Critical - 2 — High - 3 — Moderate - 4 — Low
Description	Detailed description of the observation.
Action plan	Plan for resolving the resulting issue.
Assignment
Owner	User who creates and is responsible for the observation.
Peer reviewer	One of the auditors responsible for peer review.
Respondent	User responsible for completion of the action plan.Respondent can be the owner of the entity or control associated with the parent engagement.
Reviewer group	Group assigned to review the observation.
Reviewer	User responsible for reviewing the observation.
Watch list	Users interested in following updates to the observation.
Details
Control	Control associated with the observation.
Control Objective	Control objective associated with the observation.
Entity	Entity associated with the observation.
Audit task	Audit task associated with the observation.
Results
Result	Result of the observation. The choices are as follows:- Track as an observation - Track as a recommendation - Track as a best practice - Confirmed as a new issue - Confirmed as an existing issue - No action required
Explanation	Explanation for the selected result.
Activity
Work notes \(Private\)	Notes about the observation. Work notes are visible to users who are assigned to the observation.
Additional comments	Public information about the observation.
Security
Confidential	Option to enable confidentiality of the record. Only the assigned confidential users or confidential groups of users can access the record.

- **Confidentiality flag to control access of audit records** You can set the confidentiality flag at the record level for an issue, engagement, observation, control test, activity, interview, and walkthrough records. The users whom you determine to view and update these records are confidential users. When the **Confidentiality** option is selected, a list of users who can be an engagement lead, auditors, and approvers are auto-populated as **Confidential users**. You can add more audit users or GRC business users to the list or remove some of the existing users based on your access control criteria and can set them as confidential users. Additionally, you can also add random users to the record, who are neither audit users nor GRC business users. However, an email notification is sent to all confidential users who have neither an audit user nor a GRC business user role intimating them to acquire the confidential role \(sn\_grc.confidential\_user\) from the admin if they are to access the record. You can also select groups as **Confidential groups** who can access the record as well. For more information, see Confidential records in GRC common features. To enable the Confidentiality property at the system level: 1. Navigate to **System Properties** > **All Properties**. 2. Select **sn\_grc.enable\_record\_confidentiality** system property. 3. Enter **true** in the **Value** field. This action enables record level confidentiality. 4. Select **Update**. 8. Select **Save**. You can monitor the state of the observation record in the **State** banner of the default Overview page as the record progresses through the different states.