How to delete 100 or 1000 records at a time in ServiceNow.

[priyajames]

Hi friends,

I was wanting to delete some 23,387 records from the requested item table based on a certain criteria as below. I have my code as seen below but please help me with how I can tweek the code more so that I can ask it to delete a few hundred or 1000 records at a time as if i just run deleteMultiple() it hangs.

the code:

var delRec = new GlideRecord("sc_req_item");

var queryRec   = (("requestISEMPTY") && ("request.u_requested_byISEMPTY") && ("request.requested_forISEMPTY"));

delRec.addEncodedQuery(queryRec);

delRec.deleteMultiple();

Please assist.

[danpatino]

Priya,

I've used a similar query to delete 50k+ records from a table before (although my encoded query looked different).   The delete just takes a while because it cascade deletes. I think you'll have to be patient with it.   There are other solutions like gs.sql('TRUNCATE TABLE .... but that can leave you with a much bigger mess than what you have.   This article explains in further detail.

[russell_miller · Accepted solution]

you could add this just before the deleteMultiple

delRec.setLimit(1000);

To limit to a thousand... (or however many you wish)

RM

[tony_barratt]

Hi Priya,

Probably when you thought the query was "hanging" it was busy deleting records.

Have you checked with getRowCount(); to see how many rows are still awaiting deletion?

Maybe you have actually succeeded?

Best Regards

Tony

[bernyalvarado]

Hi Priya,

I would suggest you try to delete the records using an on demand schedule job. That way the process would not be associated to a UI session and would run in the background without interruptions.

Thanks,

Berny