Full-text search in a catalog item in the Service Portal
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
yesterday
Which setting needs to be changed so that in the following environment:
"/sp?id=sc_cat_item&table=sc_cat_item&sys_id=" (Service Portal), a variable (reference) that points to sys_user allows full-text search to work?
For example, "Max Muster" should be found.
Search with "Max" works
Search with "Muster" does not work
Search with "*Muster" works
i created the following entry in: now/nav/ui/classic/params/target/sys_properties.do
glide.ui.reference.uses_contains == true
but it has no effect
referenced qualifier on that variable is "simple"
and variable attributes is empty.
i tried with: ref_auto_completer=AJAXTableCompleter
but that has also no effect.
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
yesterday
@thoemu_s Refer below
You need to define the fields which need to be search and shown.
Please mark the answer correct/helpful accordingly.
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
yesterday
The documentation about Service Catalog variable attributes does not directly help with the issue where a reference field in a Service Portal catalog item doesn’t find results when searching by a substring (e.g., typing “Muster” doesn’t find “Max Muster” unless you use *Muster*).
This is because:
The listed attributes (like ref_auto_completer, ref_ac_columns, ref_ac_order_by, etc.) only affect classic UI forms or backend catalog forms, not the Service Portal.
In the Service Portal, reference fields are rendered by the SC Reference Field widget, which performs lookups through the /api/now/sp/reference endpoint.
That endpoint is hardcoded to perform a “starts with” search (LIKE 'term%') and ignores both the system property glide.ui.reference.uses_contains and all reference-related variable attributes.
In short:
These attributes can influence how results are displayed, but not how they’re matched in the Service Portal.
To achieve “contains” behavior there, you’d need either:
a client script workaround (automatically adding * to the search term),
a customized reference widget that uses LIKE instead of STARTSWITH, or
the Now Experience Record Picker, which supports “contains” search natively.
