Delete scheduled Events

MacSWW · ‎07-16-2014

All,

I've followed this article: Creating a Simple Reminder Email - ServiceNow Wiki and created a new Event called change.reminder so that I can trigger an email to remind people when their Change Request 'Planned End Date' has passed. This is working perfectly, but can't figure out how to delete these Events if the Planned End Date is changed before the email is triggered.

For example, if the Planned End Date was originally set on the Change Request for 1pm on 17/07/2014 and the Change is submitted, an Event is logged and sits in the 'Ready' state until that time. If the Planned End Date is then changed to 12:30pm on 17/07/2014, a new Event is created, but the old one stays in the Event queue. Basically, the user will end up getting two emails, one at 12:30pm and one at 1pm.

Is there a way I can delete the first Event when the second one is created? I'm not very good at javascript, so any examples of how to add to the Business Rule to delete or re-schedule these Events would be really helpful!

Thanks,

Mac

tltoulson · ‎07-16-2014

Hi Mac,

Deleting scheduled events is just like deleting any other record once you understand how Events work in ServiceNow. When you queue an event through gs.eventQueue or gs.eventQueueScheduled, it actually creates a record on the sysevent table. The key fields to note on this table are:

Name: The name of the event

Table: The table from which the event fired

Instance: The sys id of the record from which the event was fired

State: Whether or not the event has processed

Process on: When the event should be processed

The last one is very important. A scheduled job actually processes the event queue by periodically retrieving all the events whose Process on date/time has already passed and processing the event's actions. So until the scheduled job processes it, the event record will remain in the Ready state. Here is how we can leverage this information:

Business Rule

When: After

Update: True

Condition: current.end_date.changes()

Script:

// Self executing anonymous function is not necessary but a good practice in Business Rules


(function() {


         var gr = new GlideRecord('sysevent'); // We need to query the sysevent table


         gr.addQuery('state', 'ready');   // We only want the event in the ready state


         gr.addQuery('name', 'EVENTNAMEHERE'); // Change the event name to the event name you are using


         gr.addQuery('table', 'change_request');


         gr.addQuery('instance', current.sys_id + ''); // Get the event that has been created for this record


         gr.setLimit(1); // Assuming there is only one ready event active for this record at a time, this can improve performance


         gr.deleteMultiple();


         


         /* Schedule your new event here*/


})();

In theory, you could also simply update the Process on field instead of deleting the event but I would do it this way to be on the safe side. Also, instead of deleting the event, you could update the state to processed.

View solution in original post

tltoulson · ‎07-28-2014

Hi Mac,

I see the problem. On Line 2 of my script, current.end_date.getNumericValue() is evaluating to undefined. The reason is simple, a GlideRecord/GlideElement does not have a getNumericValue function. I forgot to add one piece:

current.end_date.getGlideObject().getNumericValue()

The getGlideObject will return a GlideDateTime object. I will edit my script above for others.

MacSWW · ‎07-29-2014

I really appreciate your help on this one Travis. Just used your revised script and tested it with a 5 minutes delay - works perfectly. All I need is to add this to the bottom of my 'Change Request End Date Reminder -update' business rule and I'm good to go.

Thanks again for your help,

Mac