how to show/hide ci relationship formatter ?

[Sachin Jain1]

In our CMDB certain CIs having more than thousand related CIs and hence when we load a CI form it takes a lot of time to open that form. I was trying to remove the CI relationship formatter from the form and displaying it as a Pop-up in the click of an UI action. But I'm not able to find ci_relations.xml under UI macro. It seems it's written in source code. Any suggestions to achieve this functionality ? How to invoke ci_relations.xml   as a pop-up from UI Action ? I tried calling it as a UI macro from a UI page   but it didn't work.

[giora_tamir]

You can find it under System UI > Formatters.

To remove permanently, personalize > form layout and remove User CI Relations (later named CI Relations) from the slushbucket.

Not the popup solution, but to show/hide via a client script (very hacky)

var p = $$('#root_node_xml')[0].parentNode;

p.style.display = 'none';

To turn back on:

p.style.display = '';

[Sachin Jain1]

Hello Giora,

this   will hide the relationship from the form but still load it, which will not solve the problem.

any other sokution ?

[will_leingang · Accepted solution]

Hi Sachin, I think GT is providing 2 different solutions in his answer - giving you some choices.

I spent quite a bit of time researching this for you and there is actually no way to put the ci relationship element in a popup or to load it after the form context. The way that it's built requires global jelly variables from GlideContext that can't be recreated in another context. so... here are a couple of alternatives.

1. Good Idea: Create a different view, and put the ci relationships in that view but switch back to the default view when you don't want to see them.
2. Better Idea: Create a new formatter that acts as a wrapper for the CI Relations formatter. This wrapper would control whether or not to show the CI Relations based on a querystring parameter. Here's an example:
3. Create a new ui macro called: Load CI Relationships
   With the following XML:
   

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <j:jelly trim="false" xmlns:j="jelly:core" xmlns:g="glide" xmlns:j2="null" xmlns:g2="null">
   <tr>
   <td>
   <j2:if test="$[sysparm_show_relations == 'true']">
   <g:inline template="ci_relations.xml"/>
   </j2:if>
   
   <j2:if test="$[sysparm_show_relations != 'true']">
   <button id="load_ci_relations">${gs.getMessage('Load CI Relations')}</button>
   <script>
   $('load_ci_relations').on('click', function(event){
   Event.stop(event);
   var redirectLocation = window.location.href;
   var hashLocation = redirectLocation.indexOf('#');
   if (hashLocation > 0)
   redirectLocation = redirectLocation.substr(0, hashLocation);
   window.location.href = (redirectLocation + '$[AMP]sysparm_show_relations=true');
   });
   </script>
   </j2:if>
   </td>
   </tr>
   </j:jelly>

4. Follow this guide to create a new formatter following this guide: Creating a Formatter - ServiceNow Wiki
   1. Name: Load CI Relationships
   2. Table: Configuration Item [cmdb_ci]
   3. UI Macro: Load CI Relationships
      
   4. Type: Formatter
5. Add this formatter to your CI form by modifying your form layout like GT suggested:
   

Then you will see a form like this:

And when you click on that button... shazam...

Not a perfect solution, but you should be able to make it work reasonably well.

[Sachin Jain1]

Thanks a lot Will Leingang. you provided me a perfact solution. you saved me