[Solved] Adding comments and work notes via JSONv2

[robinm]

Hi,

Solution posted at the end.

Apologies for the length of this; I want to be thorough in what I've tried.

I'm struggling to INSERT comments and work notes for incidents via JSONv2. The user account I am using for this is the creator of the incident and can edit comments and work notes through the web interface without issue.

The following works for a JSONv2 GET request to query for an incident:

Uri Format: https://instancename.service-now.com/incident.do?JSONv2&sysparm_query=number=INC1234567

(it also works when using sys_id=580b112cf95a6500cf462e82aa6dfe1b )

It returns data for the incident to my script, and is visible in a web browser.

I have successfully updated the following fields using a JSONv2 POST request:

• u_alternate_contact
• u_machine_name

Uri Format: https://instancename.service-now.com/incident.do?JSONv2&sysparm_query=number=INC1234567&sysparm_acti...

Example JSON: { "u_alternate_contact": "Contact pushed via PowerShell" }

Using the above Uri format however, adding comments/work notes doesn't work.

After some reading around on other threads it seemed I should be adding these to sys_journal_field, performing the match on this table by using sys_id from the incident in incident.do, and using that for element_id. Testing this via a JSON GET request:

Uri Format: https://instancename.service-now.com/sys_journal_field.do?JSONv2&sysparm_query=element_id=580b112cf9...

... returned all existing work notes and comments for the incident via both the web UI and within my script. The comments/work notes that I tried to POST to incident.do were not visible either in the incident.do table or this. The only comments / work notes visible are those added via the web interface, so I suspect the POST to incident.do is definitely not working.

Minor success:

Attempting to update sys_journal_field.do:

Uri Format: https://instancename.service-now.com/sys_journal_field.do?JSONv2&sysparm_action=update&sysparm_query...

JSON:

{

      "element": "work_notes"

      "name": "task"

      "value": "This is a work note added via PowerShell"

}

Rather than INSERT a record, this UPDATED every result (2 x work note, 1 x comment) to become a work note with the value "This is a work note added via PowerShell".

I tried sysparm_action=insert instead, but this didn't change anything.

At the moment the only thing I can think to do (somehow) is retrieve the existing values for comments and work notes in JSON format, append a new one, and then sysparm_action=update / POST the whole thing back. This is far from ideal however.

Help much appreciated!

Regards,

Robin

Solution to insert a new work note:

I had to use INSERT to sys_journal_field.do table as mentioned above, but using the sysparm_query=element_id=xxxxxxxxxxxxx is not required.

However, element_id must be specified in the JSON object, and this is the incident's sys_id value.

Uri Format: https://instancename.service-now.com/sys_journal_field.do?JSONv2&sysparm_action=insert

JSON:

{

      "element": "work_notes"

      "element_id": "580b112cf95a6500cf462e82aa6dfe1b"

      "name": "task"

      "value": "This is a work note added via PowerShell"

}

To insert a comment it would be "element": "comments"

[robinm]

Hi Karl. Unfortunately I haven't made any progress before my original post (although I haven't tried since).

[robinm]

I have solved this (I think) and will try and post in complete tomorrow.

[karlbarek]

So, we figured our issue anyways.   This is the code for Android:

request.addProperty("name", "task");

request.addProperty("element", "comments");

When we add those fields into our SOAP call, the comments are displayed properly in the Web Portal that are created via the mobile app.

[robinm]

Aha, funny that didn't work for me, but glad you got it sorted. I have to explicitly pass element_id in the JSON object, with the value of the incident's sys_id. Will add this to the original post.

[karlbarek]

We have to do that as well. However, we aren't calling the JSONv2 feature you are using.

So, the entire SOAP request object (using ksoap library for Android):

SoapObject request = new SoapObject(NAMESPACE1, METHOD_NAME1);

request.addProperty("element_id", incidentSysid);

request.addProperty("value", commentValue);

request.addProperty("name", "task");

request.addProperty("element", "comments");