📦 Working with JSON in ServiceNow Scripts

[garyopela]

📦 Working with JSON in ServiceNow Scripts

I keep a few useful code snippets in a fix script on my personal instance for reference, and I find myself returning to them frequently. One technique I've been using more and more is organizing data using JSON objects rather than multi-dimensional arrays. JSON makes data more readable, maintainable, and easier to work with when accessing nested values.

🔧 Creating a JSON Object

To begin, we instantiate a new JavaScript object using curly brace {} notation:

var jsnObj = {}; // Instantiate a new object

🔍 Querying the Incident Table

Next, let’s use a simple GlideRecord query to fetch data from the incident table. In this example, we’re retrieving a limited set of active incidents that have an assignment group.

var grInc = new GlideRecord('incident');
grInc.setLimit(3); // Limit to 3 records for testing
grInc.addQuery('active', true);
grInc.addNotNullQuery('assignment_group');
grInc.query();

Let’s initially inspect the results using a simple if (grInc.next()) structure to make the output easier to read:

if (grInc.next()) {
    var sys = grInc.getValue('sys_id');
    var number = grInc.getValue('number');
    var priority = grInc.getValue('priority');
    var state = grInc.getValue('state');
    var group = grInc.getDisplayValue('assignment_group');
    var groupManager = grInc.getDisplayValue('assignment_group.manager');

    gs.info('Sys ID: ' + sys);
    gs.info('Number: ' + number);
    gs.info('Priority: ' + priority);
    gs.info('State: ' + state);
    gs.info('Group: ' + group);
    gs.info('Group Manager: ' + groupManager);
}

Output:

*** Script: Sys ID: 01c01200d7002100b81145a3ce610389

*** Script: Number: INC0006831

*** Script: Priority: 5

*** Script: State: 2

*** Script: Group: Financial Systems Support

*** Script: Group Manager: Jacinto Gawron

🧱 Building the JSON Object

To organize this data into a structured JSON object, let’s switch from if to while, and build the object with nested members for each record:

var jsnObj = {}; // Instantiate a new object

while (grInc.next()) {
    var sys = grInc.getValue('sys_id');
    var number = grInc.getValue('number');
    var priority = grInc.getValue('priority');
    var state = grInc.getValue('state');
    var group = grInc.getDisplayValue('assignment_group');
    var groupManager = grInc.getDisplayValue('assignment_group.manager');

    jsnObj[sys] = {
        number: number,
        priority: priority,
        state: state,
        group: {
            name: group,
            manager: groupManager
        }
    };
}

We're using each incident's sys_id as a unique key in the top-level object. Inside each, we add fields like number, priority, and a nested group object containing the assignment group name and manager.

Finally, we output the full JSON structure in a pretty-printed format:

gs.info(JSON.stringify(jsnObj, null, 2));

🧾 Example Output

{
  "01c01200d7002100b81145a3ce610389": {
    "number": "INC0006831",
    "priority": "5",
    "state": "2",
    "group": {
      "name": "Financial Systems Support",
      "manager": "Jacinto Gawron"
    }
  },
  "03a05a22dba3155003ef43ea1396192c": {
    "number": "INC0402390",
    "priority": "5",
    "state": "1",
    "group": {
      "name": "Software",
      "manager": "Melinda Carleton"
    }
  },
  "04407ac165feef00964fc62d7eab1e36": {
    "number": "INC0010051",
    "priority": "5",
    "state": "1",
    "group": {
      "name": "",
      "manager": ""
    }
  }
}

🧩 Use Case: Generate a Summary Report by Manager

Once you’ve built your jsnObj, you can process it to count how many incidents are assigned to each group manager, as an example. I wanted to show how you would access the data, as that's the whole point of this, right? 

var incidentSummary = {};

for (var sysId in jsnObj) {
    var manager = jsnObj[sysId]["group"]["manager"];

    if (!incidentSummary[manager]) {
        incidentSummary[manager] = 0;
    }
    incidentSummary[manager]++;
}

// Output the summary
for (var mgr in incidentSummary) {
    if (!gs.nil(mgr)){
		gs.info(mgr + ' has ' + incidentSummary[mgr] + ' incident(s).');
	} else {
		gs.info(incidentSummary[mgr] + ' incident(s) have no manager for their assignment group.');
	}
}

This will give us the following results:

*** Script: Jacinto Gawron has 1 incident(s).
*** Script: Melinda Carleton has 1 incident(s).
*** Script: 1 incident(s) have no manager for their assignment group.

💡 Why JSON?

This approach makes it incredibly easy to access data by key, structure nested information cleanly, and even export to external systems if needed. Compared to multi-dimensional arrays, this format is more readable and scalable — especially when dealing with real-world data sets that can get very complex.

Full Script

var grInc = new GlideRecord('incident');
grInc.setLimit(3); // Limit to 3 records for testing
grInc.addQuery('active', true);
grInc.addNotNullQuery('assignment_group');
grInc.query();

var jsnObj = {}; // Instantiate a new object

while (grInc.next()) {
    var sys = grInc.getValue('sys_id');
    var number = grInc.getValue('number');
    var priority = grInc.getValue('priority');
    var state = grInc.getValue('state');
    var group = grInc.getDisplayValue('assignment_group');
    var groupManager = grInc.getDisplayValue('assignment_group.manager');

    jsnObj[sys] = {
        number: number,
        priority: priority,
        state: state,
        group: {
            name: group,
            manager: groupManager
        }
    };
}

//gs.info(JSON.stringify(jsnObj, null, 2));

var incidentSummary = {}; // key = manager name, value = count

for (var sysId in jsnObj) {
    var manager = jsnObj[sysId]["group"]["manager"];

    if (!incidentSummary[manager]) {
        incidentSummary[manager] = 0;
    }
    incidentSummary[manager]++;
}

// Output the summary
for (var mgr in incidentSummary) {
    if (!gs.nil(mgr)){
		gs.info(mgr + ' has ' + incidentSummary[mgr] + ' incident(s).');
	} else {
		gs.info(incidentSummary[mgr] + ' incident(s) have no manager for their assignment group.');
	}
}