Using the ‘Clear the Variable Value’ field
Recent versions of ServiceNow have featured a checkbox field on the UI Policy Action form (for both Catalog UI Policies and standard UI Policies) labeled “Clear the variable value” (or “Clear the field value” on standard UI policies). The use of this checkbox is straightforward: It clears the value held by the associated variable/field when […]
What does deleted restoration data mean, and how to recover deleted records in ServiceNow?
Sometimes ServiceNow records get deleted unintentionally. As harrowing as it can be, dealing with the recovery of deleted records is a circumstance that is likely to be encountered at some point while working with a ServiceNow instance. Luckily, the “deleted” records are typically not genuinely erased from existence but removed from their originating table and […]
JavaScript plugins in ServiceNow Service Portals
The Service Portal often gets compared to web based CMS’s like WordPress or Drupal (“It’s just a website, isn’t it?”). Those of us that are familiar with Service Portal know that it is its own beast. There are a few fundamental differences: 1) There is no strict file structure to interact with on Service Portal […]
Configuring a concurrent import set in ServiceNow
Importing large data sets into ServiceNow and transforming them can be a time-consuming process. Starting with the Madrid release, ServiceNow introduced the Concurrent Import Set feature, which presents a way to essentially “multi-thread” data imports. This functionality is available as a baseline feature and is fairly simple to leverage. Setup: There is one element of […]
Configuring and using Interactive Filters on homepages and dashboards
For many organizations, ServiceNow homepages (and their evolved counterpart, dashboards) offer indispensable insights into platform data and operational health. In fact, ServiceNow’s reporting and Performance Analytics (PA) tools are among its greatest strengths. That said, some advanced reporting and PA tools are often under-utilized, likely due to a lack of familiarity. One of those tools, […]
Easily identifying duplicate records in ServiceNow
A common need within ServiceNow is to identify duplicate records, according to a set of arbitrary criteria. Though the “list view” of a given table offers some advanced search and filtering capabilities, it does not give you the ability to natively identify records that share the same values across multiple columns (i.e. “duplicates”). However, […]
Accessing Multi-row variables set client side in ServiceNow
Multi-row variable sets (MRVS) are a fairly recent addition to the Service Catalog in ServiceNow, having been introduced in the London release. Unlike a traditional variable set, which is a collection of singular variables, a MRVS allows the population of an arbitrary* number of rows of data, displayed in a table format, with a series […]
Avoiding the Pass-by-Reference JavaScript Pitfall in ServiceNow
A commonly encountered and potentially difficult to debug issue associated with writing scripts in ServiceNow is the case of unintentionally working with a reference to a javascript object property instead of the property’s value. This is most commonly encountered in instances where you are iterating through the results of a GlideRecord query. Below you will find an […]
Configuring code linting in ServiceNow
Recently, Pathways has been working to update our coding standards and establish a new code review process internally. In the search for tools to aid us, we came across a great new feature in the New York release of ServiceNow: customizable linting for the script editor. A more detailed explanation of linting can be found […]
Three-tier dependencies in ServiceNow: A common pitfall
Disclaimer: This is an option, but our team at Pathways always recommends refraining from using three-tier dependencies. Sometimes our customers fall into the pitfalls of three-tier dependencies, a common “solution.” This article states why we think you should stay away from this idea. When configuring a three-tier hierarchy, there are several caveats that need […]
