Comment Field in Data Certification policy in CMDB Workspace not editable

[Jim Teller]

We are in the early stages of using the CMDB / SGC Workspace for data certification.  The self-service nature of it is great because with the old process, our people would have to check a box and type in a comment regarding what they wanted done with the field, and then hope that it was read and that the change was eventually made.  The issue I am having with the new process now though is that it's almost completely the opposite..... The certification task has a 'Comment' field that our users cannot access, and even I cannot access.  The field is blank and you cannot double click on it to type in anything.  We would like for our app owners to be able to put in comments if they want to provide info to us in advance on anything like, forthcoming decoms, or upcoming ownership changes, or whatever the case.  If this just isn't possible, then I would like to know what we would need to do to make that column disappear from the certification tasks altogether.  

[Vikram Reddy · Accepted solution]

Hey @Jim Teller,

Okay, that tells me something useful actually, because there are two different "Certify/Fail" buttons in that workspace and only one of them ever shows a comment box. Worth double checking which one you're hitting.

• If you're selecting the row(s) at the record list level and clicking the Certify or Fail buttons sitting above the grid, that's the bulk action. It certifies or fails every field on the selected record(s) in one shot and it does not prompt for a comment at all, by design.
• The comment prompt only lives inside the Review records flow. You select the record(s), click Review records, that opens the field-by-field panel, you check the box next to the specific attribute you're working, and then hit Certify or Fail from inside that panel. That per-field action is what triggers the comment box to pop up.

So if you've been working from the grid-level buttons, that's almost certainly why nothing opens, there's genuinely nothing there to open. Try going through Review records instead and see if it behaves differently.

One more thing to rule out: if the person certifying doesn't have write access to the target field/CI, the platform will auto-fail that attribute and throw a banner about insufficient permissions rather than letting you interact with it at all, comment box included. So if your app owners are certifying CIs they don't have edit rights on, that's a separate reason the row would look locked to them even inside Review records.

And honestly, worth flagging: even when the comment box does work as expected, there have been reports of the comment not reliably surfacing back on the certification-review screen afterward, it just isn't wired to redisplay in that grid consistently. The actual value does get written to sn_cmdb_ws_dm_certification_attribute_status behind the scenes though, so if you want to confirm whether comments are actually being captured for your policy, pull that table directly rather than trusting what the grid shows you.

Let me know which of the two flows you were using and whether the permissions banner shows up, that'll narrow down which of these it is.

Thank you,
Vikram Karety
Octigo Solutions INC

[Hanna_G]

Hello!

Are you able to open the task and edit the field there?

If not the Access Control will need to be updated to allow access to the roles that you wish to fulfil this activity. Your Admin team/developers might have to do this for you - someone with security_admin access.

[Jim Teller]

When we open the task, we are unable to edit the field.  I have a ticket in with our internal ServiceNow team, but only one person has looked at this so far (with no real fix to report yet), and I wanted to attack this one on multiple fronts because this issue aside, I'm basically ready to proceed with our next round of data certifications.

[Vikram Reddy]

Hello @Jim Teller,

That Comment cell is locked on purpose, it isn't a free-type field. It only gets populated as a side effect of actually working the row: check the box on the field you're reviewing, hit Certify or Fail, and that action is what triggers the comment prompt, which then writes back to the sn_cmdb_ws_dm_certification_attribute_status table behind the grid. Nobody, admins included, can double-click into it, so you aren't missing a permission. If you want app owners flagging things like upcoming decoms or ownership changes proactively, that has to land as a CI-level comment or work note before the certification cycle kicks off, since this column only accepts input tied to a certify/fail action, not ad hoc typing. For hiding it, try right-click the header, Configure, List Layout first; if that option is greyed out too, it's hard-wired into the Data Manager review widget rather than a normal configurable list column.

Thank you,
Vikram Karety
Octigo Solutions INC

[Jim Teller]

Thank you Vikram.  I just tried this, and when clicking certify or fail, it still doesn't appear to be opening up that field for me.  I think I'm still missing something...