How to implement an always‑visible (expanded) tooltip for 5 WHY RCA questions on Problem Task (PTASK

nameisnani
Mega Sage

2 hours ago

Hello Community,

I’m looking for best‑practice guidance on implementing an “always‑expanded tooltip” (i.e., permanently visible contextual guidance) on the Problem Task (PTASK) form in ServiceNow.

Business Requirement

  • Display 5 WHY Root Cause Analysis questions inside the Root Cause tab of PTASK
  • The questions are for guidance only
  • They should be always visible (expanded) — not hover‑based
  • Root Cause Summary should be a mandatory free‑text field
  • Individual questions must NOT be mandatory
  • This approach is approved by the Product Owner (Hari)

5 WHY Questions:

  1. Why did this problem occur? (Identify the immediate cause.)
  2. Why did that cause happen? (Identify the underlying factor.)
  3. Why was that factor present or not prevented? (Process/system gaps.)
  4. Why did the process/system allow this to happen? (Controls, procedures, resources.)
  5. Why was the root condition not identified or addressed earlier? (True root cause & improvement opportunity.)

Clarification on “Tooltip”

The business uses the term “tooltip”, but the actual expectation is:

✅ Guidance that is permanently visible / always expanded, not hover‑only.

I understand that native ServiceNow Help Text tooltips cannot stay expanded, so I’m looking for the recommended alternative pattern.

What I Have Implemented So Far

  • Created an HTML field on the problem_task table
    • Label: Root Cause
    • Type: HTML
  • Added the 5 WHY questions as static instructional content in the Default Value of the HTML field
  • Placed this HTML field in the Root Cause tab, above the Root Cause Summary field
  • Made Root Cause Summary (separate field) mandatory via UI Policy

This ensures:

  • Guidance is always visible
  • No hover action required
  • Users enter RCA in a single free‑text field

Questions to the Community

  1. Is using an HTML field as an always‑visible guidance block the recommended / best‑practice approach to replace an “always‑expanded tooltip”?
  2. Is there any better or standard ServiceNow alternative, such as:
    • UI Formatter
    • Dictionary Help Text (non‑hover)
    • Any Now Experience / OOTB pattern
  3. Are there any downsides or upgrade risks of using an HTML field for this purpose?

 

 
 

Screenshot 2026-04-07 085124.png

 

 

can any one please help me here 

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2 REPLIES 2

nameisnani
Mega Sage

20m ago

@Ankur Bawiskar  need your hlep here .

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Naveen20
ServiceNow Employee

6m ago

Yes, it's one of the most widely used and accepted patterns for always-visible instructional content on classic (Workspace/Platform UI) forms. It's simple, admin-maintainable, requires no custom code, survives cloning, and works across form views without scripting. For a static guidance block like your 5 WHY questions, it's a pragmatic and low-risk choice.

That said, "best practice" depends on your UI target. If your users are primarily on Next Experience (Agent Workspace), the HTML field renders differently (it's honored, but styling can be inconsistent with the Workspace design system). For Platform UI / classic form usage, you're in good shape.

2. Are there better or standard alternatives?

Here's how the main options compare for your specific use case:

UI Formatter (Recommended upgrade from HTML field)

This is arguably the more "architecturally correct" approach. You create a UI Formatter (a UI Macro wrapped in a form section) that renders your 5 WHY guidance as styled HTML. The advantages over a raw HTML field are that it doesn't occupy a dictionary column on the table, it's reusable across forms, and it gives you full control over markup and styling (you can use ServiceNow's $sp or standard CSS classes to match the form's look and feel). The downside is slightly more setup — you need a UI Macro and then register it as a Formatter, then drag it onto the form layout. But for something like permanent instructional content, this is the pattern ServiceNow's own platform uses internally (think of the "Related Records" formatter or the "Activity" formatter).

How to implement it:

  • Create a UI Macro (e.g., rca_five_why_guidance) with your styled HTML content — an info-box with the 5 questions, using a light blue or grey background callout style.
  • Register a UI Formatter pointing to that macro, associated with problem_task.
  • Add the Formatter to your form layout in the Root Cause section, above the Root Cause Summary field.

This keeps your table schema clean (no extra HTML column) and is the approach most ServiceNow architects would recommend.

Dictionary Help Text

As you've already noted, this is hover-only in Platform UI and rendered as a small icon tooltip. It cannot be made permanently visible without client-side scripting hacks (which are fragile and not recommended). So this doesn't meet your requirement.

Annotation / Field Message (g_form.showFieldMsg)

You could use an onLoad Client Script to call g_form.showFieldMsg('root_cause_summary', '...', 'info') to display an inline message near the field. This renders as a small info banner attached to the field. The limitation is that it's tied to a single field, doesn't support rich HTML formatting well, and can be dismissed by the user. Not ideal for a structured 5-question guidance block.

Now Experience / UI Builder (Workspace)

If your users work in Agent Workspace, the long-term direction is to use UI Builder with a custom declarative component or a Rich Text component placed in the form layout via a Form Section Configuration. This gives you native Workspace styling and full control. However, this is more effort and only relevant if Workspace is your primary consumption surface.

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