Additional Comments field not available into Service portal Incident

[Deepa12]

Hi,

we had upgraded australia version into test environment recently.

during testing, i raised incident into serviceportal page.

After incident submission, i found that additional comments field not available for ITIL, Business Stake holder role instead of that worknotes field available into Service Portal incident. 

end user only view additional comments field. below is the screenshot 

ITIL\Business Stake holder\Admin Service portal incident display:

End user screenshot:

I want to update Additional comments should be visible for ITIL\business stakeholders license users also instead of worknotes field. please assist me how to modify. thanks.

[BharatC]

Hello @Deepa12 

Service Portal shows Work notes only if the user has write access to work_notes. This is gated by:

The ACL on <table>.work_notes (write) — usually restricted to the itil role.
Sometimes a hardcoded role check in the Activity/Journal widget's server script (e.g. gs.hasRole('itil')), independent of the ACL.

Since a custom role isn't literally itil, both checks fail and it falls back to end-user behavior.

Fix:

1) System Security > Access Control (ACL) → table = incident, field = work_notes, operation = write. Check "Requires role."

2) Clone the ACL (don't edit OOB) and add your custom role. Test as that role.

3) If still not showing, find the widget rendering Activity on your Incident portal page (Service Portal > Widgets).
4) In its Server Script, look for something like data.canSeeWorkNotes = gs.hasRole('itil'); and update to:

data.canSeeWorkNotes = gs.hasRole('itil') || gs.hasRole('business_stakeholder');
Test with a real login as that role, not Impersonate.

Hope this helps!

If this response helped, please mark it as Helpful.
If it resolves your issue, please Accept it as Solution.

Kind Regards,

Bharat C

[Ankur Bawiskar]

@Deepa12 

additional comments is for end user so that they see what comments agent added and they see it from portal

work notes is for communication between agents, so ideally it should not show up in portal

Check the Field level READ ACLs for both the fields and compare against other instance.

💡 If my response helped, please mark it as correct ✅ and close the thread 🔒— this helps future readers find the solution faster! 🙏

[VaibhavG9388863 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I am facing the similar issue. Could you please check the below link from ServiceNow. This resolution works for me.

Unable to Publish Comments via Service Portal; Only Work Notes Are Saved - Support and Troubleshooti...

[ajmalmuhamm]

Hi @Deepa12 ,

This is most likely related to the write ACL on incident.work_notes and how the Service Portal Activity/Journal widget determines whether to display Work Notes or Additional Comments.

I would first check:

1. System Security → Access Control (ACL) → incident.work_notes → write and verify which roles are required.
2. Check whether the ITIL/business stakeholder users have write access to work_notes.
3. If the ACL is correct but the portal still shows Work Notes, check the Activity/Journal widget used on the Incident Service Portal page. Some OOB widgets contain role-based logic that determines whether Work Notes should be displayed.
4. I would avoid modifying the OOB widget directly. If customization is required, clone the widget and adjust the logic so that your business stakeholder role is handled appropriately.

However, if the actual requirement is that ITIL/business stakeholder users should only be able to enter Additional Comments and never Work Notes, I'd recommend reviewing the journal field ACLs and portal widget logic together rather than simply granting them work_notes access. This will avoid exposing internal Work Notes to those users.