Show 'Alias' Column from Business Application to CI Search Pop-up Reference Field

[TheKatherine]

I need some assistance with trying to accomplish the following.

On Problem ticket, we have the 'Configuration Item' field shown.

When a user starts to type text into the field for searching, currently the pop-up box only shows the columns of name and class (see attached image 1 to see the current columns shown).

We would like to add the column 'alias' to this pop-up box when the user starts typing a business application (see attached image 2 to show we have business application CI's with data in the alias field)

I did the following steps already, however the 'alias' column is not showing:

1. opened the problem form
2. right mouse click on the configuration item field > chose configure dictionary
3. in the attributes field, I have the following entered:
   

   • encode_utf8=false,ref_ac_columns=sys_class_name;u_alias,ref_ac_columns_search=true, ref_ac_order_by=sys_class_name,ref_auto_completer=AJAXTableCompleter,ref_contributions=task_show_ci_map;show_related_records

What am I missing or doing wrong? Any help on this would be appreciated.

thank you

Katherine

[Brad Bowman]

Notice. after step 2 the field you are looking at is on the task table.  This means that anything you change here will take effect system-wide anywhere the Configuration item field is shown.  You probably don't want that, but even if you do the way to make it so only for the Problem table may be what is prevent you from seeing the change on the Problem table.  Look in the Dictionary Overrides Related List to see if you have a record for the Problem table.  This is the way that you can override any number of things to make it specific to the table noted.  If you have a problem record, open it and see if Override attributes is checked.  If it is, add u_alias, etc as you did at the task level.  If the problem record is not overriding the attributes, or there isn't a problem record, try creating one and/or checking the Override attributes box then pasting in whatever is applicable from the task-level attributes. 

[TheKatherine]

Brad,

First I went to All > Problem.form, right click on the Configuration item field > Configure Dictionary > Attributes field and removed the text I had entered (;u_alias,ref_ac_columns_search=true).

I then clicked on Dictionary Overrides tab, clicked on the 'problem' table entry and put a check mark in the 'Override attributes' box as it was not checked yet. I then added the following text into the attributes field and clicked the update button twice.

encode_utf8=false,ref_ac_columns=sys_class_name;u_alias,ref_ac_columns_search=true,ref_ac_order_by=sys_class_name,ref_auto_completer=AJAXTableCompleter,ref_contributions=task_show_ci_map;show_related_records

The 'alias' field is still not showing in the pop-up when I start typing in a business application. Am I missing something or doing something wrong with the text I am entering?

thank you

TheKatherine

[Brad Bowman]

A couple of things come to mind for this scenario:

1) Certain field types, like multi-line text, cannot be added to the typeahead search as it is too large.  That doesn't look like the case with u_alias, but I'm wondering if there is also a character limit you're running into with the very long names already making the box wide.  So maybe try removing sys_class_name to see if that makes a difference.

2) As this is on the cmdb_ci table, the field you add has to actually be on that table - not an extended table like cmdb_ci_computer,...  Try adding the category field, and populating it on a few records to confirm it appears and is searchable.  

In case I wasn't clear, once you get this working, if you want the alias to appear everywhere Configuration item is used, then put it back where you had it instead of the override problem record.

[TheKatherine]

Brad,

For #1 - removing sys_class_name and only showing u_alias still did not work - so I don't believe its due to a character limit.

For #2 - you are correct in that the alias field is not on the cmdb_ci table, it only exists on the cmdb_ci_business_app extended table. I added the category field to the attributes and it showed up correctly in the pop-up box.

So since we cannot have the alias field shown, is there anyway we can we adjust the configuration item field search to also look at the extended table and fields when I start typing text into it?

Sorry for so many questions but ServiceNow is still so new to me.

thank you

TheKatherine