Best practice - remove UI action from extended table

[Daniel A-C]

Looking for advice on best practice regarding UI actions

Requirement: Remove 'Add to visual task board' UI action from context menu in a change request.

This UI action is defined against the 'task' table. We don't want to remove it from anywhere else. I know of a number of ways to achieve this but have been unsure whether there's a 'best practice' way or at least a ServiceNow recommended way.

Options (that I know of):

1. Add extra condition to existing task-based UI action - current.sys_class_name != 'change_request'

2. Duplicate the UI action, set the new record to active= false and use the 'overrides' field to specify the original action to override

3. Duplicate the UI action, set the new record to active = false and give it a lower order value whilst maintaining the same action name (and adding a unique one to both records if empty)

4. Duplicate the UI action, set the new record to active = false and set the table to change_request whilst maintaining the same action name (and adding a unique one to both records if empty)

5. Duplicate the UI action, set the new record to   condition = false and use the 'overrides' field to specify the original action to override

6. Duplicate the UI action, set the new record to condition = false and give it a lower order value whilst maintaining the same action name (and adding a unique one to both records if empty)

7. Duplicate the UI action, set the new record to condition = false and set the table to change_request whilst maintaining the same action name (and adding a unique one to both records if empty)

Notes/Observations:

- Option 1 seems simplest but amending an OOTB ui action ultimately causes more work during system upgrades. It can also have a horrible impact in a qualified and validated environment as you're potentially amending something which is used by multiple applications (incident, problem, change etc).

- Leaving a UI action active means the condition will get evaluated, but leaving it inactive may leave it vulnerable to being removed by a future developer

- I like the idea that defining a UI action with the same 'action name' in an extended table will override a UI action defined against a parent table as it feels closer to an object-oriented approach - but then what's the point of the 'overrides' field? and are there any downsides?

It's a nice problem to have though. I'd hate to be sitting here saying "why can't I achieve this!"

Thanks guys

Dan

[Anurag Tripathi · Accepted solution]

Hi Daniel,

As you rightly said that there are multiple ways to do this and all of them will provide the 'RIGHT' result.

Burt generally speaking in such scenarios i go with the override the ui action option. Its neat, limited to a table or scope and you will save yourself from touching a global object that might have cross stream impact.

i got confused with so many options so ill just write it down:

So create a UI Action on change_request with same name, same action name and same order and condition = false.

[Daniel A-C]

Hi Anurag,

That's the approach I thought would probably win. Where this doesn't work is when the global (or in my case task) based record doesn't have an action name to begin with. 😞

This one here as an example:

https://instance.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=sys_ui_action.do?sys_id=b5a56f321b031100e90d928f3d071...  

But after a bit more searching and I've just found ServiceNow's recommended strategy which explains what to do when there is no action name...

[https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/istanbul-servicenow-platform/page/administer/list-administration/...]

Override or remove a UI action for an extended table

This example describes how to override or remove a UI action for a table that is extended from another table.

About this task

When a UI action is defined for the Task table, it applies to all tasks, including incidents, changes, problems, and any other tables that extend the Task table. Similarly, a global UI action applies to every table. However, you can override a UI action for a specific table. This example demonstrates how to override or remove a UI action on the Task [task] table for only the Incident [incident] table.

Procedure

1. Complete the following steps to override a UI action on the Task table for just the Incident table.
   1. Create a UI action on the Incident table with the same Action name.If the Action name is not defined, use the same Name.
   2. Enter a script that is specific to the Incident table.
2. Complete the following steps to remove a UI action on the Task table for the Incident table.
   1. Navigate to the UI action definition for the Task table.
   2. Add the condition current.getRecordClassName() !='incident'.

- ServiceNow Platform Form Designer, Istanbul

[Anurag Tripathi]

To avoid all of this only i just keep everything same, name, action name, function, script...all same

I just open the original record, change the table name and condition, and so 'Insert and Stay' from the top menu.

[k0a1a]

In my case i.e. Istanbul, none of (Overrides | Condition | Active | Order) had any effect while "Action name" remains empty. So you'll have to modify parent action if you're out of luck and your parent action has empty "Action name".