CMDB Instance REST API and Reference fields when creating records from external system

[Yopisn]

Hello,

I have an external system posting data to our ServiceNow instance through the CMDB Instance REST API.

The issue is with Reference fields: I cannot find a way to send the name or display name of a reference field through a POST and have ServiceNow get the proper record in the table referenced to reference it in the CI.

E.g.: the external system is sending a manufacturer along with each CI. The manufacturer is sent in the request body with it's name and not sys_id (manufacturer:XYZ). When API is called, ServiceNow use the name as a sys_id so it doesn't match a record and the manufacturer is empty when the CI created (manufacturer field reference the core_company table), even though a company exists with the name XYZ.

I tried different things to fix that but cannot solve. Note that the external system cannot request the related record sys_id first through another API call.

Thanks for your help!

[Yopisn]

Thanks Patrick, it does go through CMDB API and I don't see how IRE could help with that.

Yeah, my only solution so far: we need to first call the API do get the sys_id of each reference, then insert the CI passing the sys_id of each reference. I hope there is another way, considering the number of CI to be created, API calls will grow exponentially this way...

[Patrick DeCarl1]

I didn't say it would solve the reference field issue but it will make your CMDB whole. Many customers do not use IRE and wonder why they have dups. 

[Yopisn]

Sure, thanks for the recommendation.