Is there a way to add a form section to multiple CI's without having to go into the form design on every CI you want to change and adding it manually?

[Vivek Verma]

 I am currently working on a project in ServiceNow that requires me to configure around 500 descendants of the Configuration Item table by adding multiple form sections to the CI's with around 10-20 fields in each of these form sections. I currently am doing this by going into the Form Design for each CI, and manually adding these form section and fields for every CI individually, which takes far too long to do for 500 CI's. 

Is there a way to add a form section to multiple CI's without having to go into the form design on every CI you want to change and adding it manually?

[Nishit Prasad]

Have you tried Form Layout?

You can find the form sections defined in a table called sys_ui_section (System UI -> Form Sections).

If you open one of the records, for example, a record that has table 'incident' and caption 'Notes' (section name), you will see a related list called Form Sections that shows which table(s) has/have this particular section.

Thank you.

[Erik Stolberg]

Technical answer: yes, because all of that form layout data is stored in tables (sys_ui_form_section, sys_ui_section, sys_ui_element, etc) that you could script to insert relevant records. However, due to the complexity (form sections, form elements, ordering) and the potential to run into conflicts (forms differ between tables), I would recommend this only as a last resort.

I think the real question is why is it required to have all of those fields displayed on the forms? If you're populating data from Discovery or a large import, can those fields just be visible by a list page, or just be available to use in filters? Will users actually be clicking to view a CI record and need to see that data on the form? The other part to consider is which view you are adding all of these form sections and fields to. As an example, a user won't see the data on a reference field hover if you're only making changes to the Default view, and won't see any of the fields on a mobile device if you don't add to the Mobile view.