What is the purpose of Display field on each table?

[shabbir5]

Hi All,

we are having OOB field called Caller on the incident form --> reference to USER table.

and on user table for all fields diplay is showing as false

but when i click that caller field i can see ( NAME , FIRST NAME , LAST NAME , EMAIL)

how we are  getting as default lookup (NAME , FIRST NAME , LAST NAME , EMAIL)?

then I made "name" field as Display TRUE , then there is no difference in the caller lookup

can someone please explain what is the real purpose of DISPLAY field ?

Thank you,

Shabbir Shaik

[Sandeep Rajput]

@shabbir5 In ServiceNow, the Display Field of a table serves as the human-readable identifier for records in that table. Here's a detailed explanation of its purpose:

• When you reference a record from another table (through a reference field), the system will display the value of the Display Field instead of the system-generated sys_id.
• This makes it easier to identify records at a glance in forms, lists, and reference fields. For example, if you reference a user in a form, instead of seeing a cryptic sys_id, you will see the user's name (if the "Name" field is set as the display field in the user table).

By default the name field on any table is the display field for any table (if not specified already). Since caller references sys_user table where there is already a name field hence it is by default showing the name of the user as caller.

Hope this answers your question.

[shabbir5]

Hi @Sandeep Rajput ,

Thank you for the quick reply , i can see 4 fields ( NAME , FIRST NAME , LAST NAME , EMAIL) , where this is configured to show all these 4 ?

i just want to see email id while lookup , is that possible ?

Thank you,

Shabbir Shaik

[Sandeep Rajput]

@shabbir5 You need to check the reference qualifier of the caller field, on incident table.

Apart from the display field, the additional columns are displayed using ref_ac_columns attribute

Source: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/utah-platform-administration/page/administer/reference-pages/conc...

Remove those additional columns from ref_ac_columns and only keep email in it. Also, make email as a display field on the sys_user table.

Hope this helps.

[shabbir5]

Hi @Sandeep Rajput 

just now created  a new custom field and reference to user table

and in dictionary attribute , i have only :encode_utf8=false

still the same 4 fields are showing 

not sure how to fix this , 4 fields are showing as default

//Thank you,

Shabbir Shaik