Dot-walking in forms and lists in ServiceNow

 

Dot-walking in forms and lists

Dot-walking got its descriptive name because, when dot-walking, you reference a field by building a chain of field names separated by dots. For example, incident.change_request.state references the state of the change request associated with an incident. Dot-walking is commonly used when personalizing forms and lists, so I'll discuss the two together in this post.

Personalizing Forms

Important To Know

Configuring a form means that everyone will see the changes. Personalizing it, on the other hand, means that you are the only one who is going to see the changes.

Configuration

Right-click a form header and select Configure > Form Layout. 

This feature enables administrators and users with the personalize_form role to customize a form. The base system Incident form not working for you? Configure it. Use the slushbucket to move fields on and off the form and arrange them. For example, select the Business Duration field in the Available list and click the Add button to move the field to the Selected list.

Note: Since Washington DC version you can also personalize a form in the Form Builder.

In the slushbucket, notice that some of the entires in the Available list are displayed in green and have a plus sign next to them. These entries represent related tables. Click the plus sign to dot-walk and access all the fields on the related table. For example, click Change Request [+] and then click the Expand selected reference field sign.

The Available list now shows the Change Request fields:

Select any field in the Available list and click Add to add the field to the Incident form. This enables you to, for example, more closely track change requests created from incidents. 

Personalization

You can personalize a form via the Personalize Form icon:

Select which fields you want to display on the form.

Personalizing Lists

The same logic applies to lists.

Configuration

Click or Right-click on any column header and select Configure > Form Layout. 

Similar to configuring forms, you can configure lists by using the slushbucket feature to  move fields on and off the form and arrange them (see configuring forms).

The same logic applies for dot-walking and accessing all the fields on the related table. For example, click Change Request [+] and then click the Expand selected reference field sign (see configuring forms).

Remember: customization means everyone will see the changes. Personalization means you are the only one who see the changes.

Personalization

To personalize a list, click on the Personlize List gear icon.

The Personalize Lists Columns now shows up:

Just as with personalizing forms here you can also use the slushbucket to move fields on and off the form and arrange them. 

Trick

You can also personalize a list [by dot-walking (accessing) other related fields] through SN Utils. This can espacially be handy when you don't have admin role.

How?

Double click anywhere in the whitespace, it will change the popup a bit. Amongst others, bottom right "Add dotwalk field" will be visible. 

Here you can literally type the field to dotwalk.

That's a wrap!

Sources:

• https://www.servicenow.com/community/developer-blog/dot-walking-and-personalizing-forms/ba-p/2270800
• https://www.servicenow.com/community/developer-forum/how-do-i-make-dot-walked-fields-always-available-in-personalize/m-p/1605226/page/3
• https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-platform-user-interface/page/use/navigation/reference/dot-walking-examples.html