Background Script and Catalog UI Policy Conflicts

[neil_b]

I have a record producer that has a catalog UI policy in place. Here is an example of how it works:

If someone selects a type such as 'Employee' (which is part of a selection list) for Variable 1 'Type'

Then Variable 2 'Employee Request' appears with its own set of selections (such as, add an employee or deactivate an employee)

If someone selects a type such as Contractor (which is part of a selection list) for Variable 1 'Type'

Then Variable 2 'Contractor Request' appears with its own set of selections (such as, add a contractor or deactivate a contractor)

Eventually, the 'Contractor' type and 'Contractor Request' variables were deactivated but there were existing records that used that selection, so I had to create a background script to update existing records to point to the Employee type in Variable 1 and Employee Request in Variable 2 since the Contractor variables have been deactivated but for some reason, I'm unable to update Variable 2. Not only will it not update, but the field won't even appear on the target record. 

This is the background script I put together, which works for the most part:

var user_record = new GlideRecord('request');

user_record.addEncodedQuery('number=12345');

user_record.query();

while(user_record.next()){

    user_record.variables.type = 'Employee';

    user_record.variables.request = 'Add an Employee';

    user_record.setWorkflow(false);

    user_record.update();

}

The first variable was successfully updated from Contractor to Employee but the second variable is not updating AND it is hidden from the screen (due to the catalog UI policy). I'm not sure how I can update the second variable for existing records. If I create a new record, the catalog UI policy works just fine and shows the second variable as expected but I can't get the second variable to appear for existing records that were updated via background script.

[neil_b]

This was mostly great, because it added the missing variable that I needed to the table, but I still ran into a few issues. I copied the code verbatim into my background script and after running the script, it ended up duplicating my requests, so now I have (2) 12345's. I was able to get around this without a background script and just manually inserting a new record to the question_answer table. Thank you!