Inconsistent Display of List Field Values as Links or Strings Based on Choice Label Content

[Saraswathi Devi]

Dear Community,

I've encountered an issue with a list field in ServiceNow that I'm hoping someone can shed some light on. The problem is that the field displays values inconsistently: some appear as links, while others as strings.

Upon investigation, I noticed that the discrepancy seems to be related to the choice label content. Specifically, when the choice label contains a comma, the value is displayed as a string instead of a link.

Has anyone else experienced this issue? And if so, is there a workaround or a solution to ensure consistent display of values as links regardless of the choice label content?

Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

[Sandeep Rajput]

@Saraswathi Devi A List field in ServiceNow can store two types of values.

1. Reference to other table (in form of sys_ids)

2. Choice values

Here is an example 

Here Employee type and Names are List type fields, however employee type has values with hyper links where as Names field have values in form of comma separated strings.

#1 Values as hyper links: In the first example the employee type fields stores references to other table, then clicking on the link the record opens up in a separate tab. Here is how you can specify a reference on a List field.

#2 Values as string: Apart from storing reference to other table, you can also store multiple choices inside the list field. Selected choices will be stored in form of a comma separated string. Here is how you can configure choices on a List field.

 

Hope this clarifies you confusion. 

Please mark the answer helpful and correct if it manages to answer your question.

[Saraswathi Devi]

Hi @Sandeep Rajput ,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my question. My problem arises from utilizing a list field of reference type, which displayed the links correctly.

However, when attempting to alter the reference's label from "Business Intelligence & Salesforce" to "Business Intelligence, Salesforce" by replacing "&" with "," the display changed unexpectedly.

I am not even changing the value of that field but still it shows like this.

I believe I've explained the situation clearly. If you have any further questions or need additional information, please don't hesitate to ask. 

[Sandeep Rajput · Accepted solution]

@Saraswathi Devi Thanks a lot for sharing the further details, I tried to reproduce this issue and found that the link breaks if the string contains comma (,) in it.

Also, found a support article stating that , in name of elements in list should be avoided as it is used to separate the elements in the list. Here is the link to the article https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0622075

Here is what the resolution section in the aforementioned article states.

• Remove commas from the display name of the relevant records.

• Set the glide_list field with the relevant sys_id of the target records.

• Use a string field to populate the required value.

• Use a custom separator for values with commas that is then processed using logic within the instance.

  glide_list field parses values set as a comma-separated list. The display value from getDisplayValue() can be customized with a separator by setting the property glide.ui.glide_list.separator to a string.

You can also try and use a custom separator by setting the property  glide.ui.glide_list.separator.

Hope this helps.