One GlideRecord, Many Updates: Mastering insertWithReferences() & updateWithReferences()

[Tushar]

I’ve been working with ServiceNow for years, and every now and then I stumble on a gem that makes me wonder: “Why didn’t I use this sooner?”

Today, I want to share two of my favorite GlideRecord methods that save time, reduce code, and make integrations way cleaner:

With insertWithReferences() and updateWithReferences(), you build the entire object graph in memory, and ServiceNow handles the rest.

// 1. INSERT with references – creates incident + updates/creates caller + location
var inc = new GlideRecord('incident');
inc.initialize();
inc.short_description = "Fresh incident via insertWithReferences";

inc.caller_id.user_name = "Test.User";
inc.caller_id.first_name = "Test";
inc.caller_id.last_name = "User";
inc.caller_id.email = "test.user@example.com";

inc.caller_id.location.name = "Noida Office";
inc.caller_id.location.city = "Noida";
inc.caller_id.location.state = "Uttar Pradesh";
inc.caller_id.location.country = "India";
inc.caller_id.location.zip = "201309";

var newIncSysId = inc.insertWithReferences();
gs.info("Created incident: " + newIncSysId);

• ServiceNow sees caller_id → looks up or creates the user
• Sees location → looks up or creates the location record
• Links everything correctly
• Returns the incident sys_id

var current = new GlideRecord('incident');
if (current.get(newIncSysId)) {
    current.short_description = "Updated via updateWithReferences";
    current.caller_id.email = "test.user01@example.com";
    current.caller_id.location.zip = "201310";

    current.updateWithReferences();
    gs.info("Incident and references updated!");
}

No need to:

• Query the user separately
• Query the location
• Handle setValue() vs setDisplayValue()
• Worry about reference mismatches

Pro Tips 

1. Reference fields must be valid – Use field_name.display_field (e.g., user_name, name) to match records.
2. It creates records if they don’t exist – Great for automation, dangerous in prod without validation.
3. Use in Business Rules? – Only in after rules with current.updateWithReferences().
4. Performance – Faster than multiple queries, but still does DB operations per reference.
5. Debugging – Wrap in try/catch and use gs.error(inc.getLastErrorMessage()) if it fails.

[Niamul Arifin]

I am asking the same question to myself. Why these two methods came across after working on ServiceNow ecosystem for so long? Great finding