Filling in the parent field in the task table
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2 hours ago
Problem with the Parent field in the Task table when using the parent/child relationship of Incidents
Hello Community,
I'm facing a problem related to the parent/child relationship of Incidents and the Task table, and I would like your help to confirm the best practice in this scenario.
Current Behavior
In our instance, Incidents can be related as a primary (parent) incident and child incidents.
This relationship is being done through a custom field in the Incident table (for example, "Primary Incident").
The custom field works visually within the Incident form and other tables that have this customization.
However:
The default task.parent field is not being populated.
When viewing the records in the Task View (task table), the Parent column (reference) appears empty.
As a consequence, Task-based views, reports, and hierarchy resources do not recognize the parent/child relationship.
Even within the Incident table itself, the default Parent field remains empty.
Observed Impact
The parent/child hierarchy is not recognized at the Task level.
Filters, reports, and dashboards that depend on the task.parent field do not function correctly.
The relationship exists only logically through the custom field, and not through the standard ServiceNow hierarchy model.
Understanding to date
From what we understand, ServiceNow natively recognizes parent/child relationships only through the task.parent field. Because the relationship is being controlled by a custom field, the system does not treat these incidents as hierarchically related tasks.
Questions
Is it considered good practice to always populate the task.parent field when implementing parent/child relationships between Incidents?
Are there supported alternatives to using task.parent in this scenario?
Are there any known risks or side effects of populating the task.parent field in existing records?
How can I transfer this information from a custom field to the standard field without major impacts?
