You can update the UCF documents you use in GRC manually or configure the system to do
it automatically whenever a new UCF version is available.
By default, GRC downloads the most recent version of the UCF authority documents, which are
updated quarterly. The ServiceNow system
places these files in staging tables until they are imported into GRC. When you import a new
document version, these entities are updated:
- Authority documents
- Citations
- Controls
GRC observes these general rules when importing updated documents from UCF:
- If UCF authority documents or citations are updated, both entities are imported into GRC and
versioned.
- If only the UCF controls are updated, then only the controls are versioned. In this case, a
new link is created between the updated control and the existing citation that uses it.
- Older versions of updated controls are automatically deactivated and do not appear in lists
of controls.
The control test definitions, policies, and risks that use these updated entities are reset to
use the latest version. Any control test instances tied to a control from the previous version
remain linked to that control. You must generate new control test instances based on the latest
UCF version. The system deactivates all previous versions of an imported UCF document and retains
them in their respective GRC tables.
Figure 1. Automatic updates to UCF links

Changes to these UCF authority document fields trigger versioning in GRC.
Table 1. Authority document fields
UCF Field |
GRC Field |
ucf_ad_common_name |
name |
ucf_ad_id |
source_id |
ucf_ad_version |
source_version |
ucf_ad_date_modified |
source_last_modified |
ucf_ad_release_version |
source_release_version |
ucf_ad_url |
url |
Table 2. Citation fields
UCF Fields |
GRC Fields |
ucf_citation |
reference |
ucf_citation_guidance |
key_areas |
ucf_citation_id |
source_id |
ucf_citation_date_modified |
source_last_modified |
ucf_citation_release_version |
source_release_version |
Table 3. Control fields
UCF Fields |
GRC Fields |
ucf_ce_control_title |
name |
ucf_ce_control_statement |
description |
ucf_ce_id |
source_id |
ucf_ce_date_modified |
source_last_modified |
ucf_ce_release_version |
source_release_version |