What's the intended origin of the "Affected User" field on Incident table?

[Joe Walters]

I've seen multiple references recently to a field called "Affected User" on the Incident table, usually referring to a customer creating a custom field (e.g. u_affected_user) or the like.

Most recently, though, I see it specifically referred to by ServiceNow in out of the box Guided Setup instructions (ITSM Guided Setup --> Incident Management --> Create from self-service (Record producer)).

Within those instructions it says to add an 'Affected user' variable to the Create Incident record producer and map it to the "Affected user" field on the Incident table. The problem is this field doesn't exist.

It isn't present in my OOB San Diego PDI. It's also not present an OOB Tokyo PDI, nor in a brand new OOB Customer instance (San Diego).

I don't want to go and create a manual field for this, since I suspect it either ought to be available OOB (perhaps installed with a specific plugin or store app??) or maybe the Guided Setup instruction are either wrong or need updating (also ??).

My question is, if you were wanting to follow ServiceNow's Guided Setup advice on this, where is this field supposed to come from?

[Tony Chatfield1 · Accepted solution]

Hi, I don't see it OOB in my PDI either.

Servicenow seem to be a bit loose on definition and the term appears to be used for 'caller' in this KB (and in various other documentation)

Affected Users List mismatch for child incidents in Madrid version - Support and Troubleshooting (se...

But in the guided set up a few steps before the record producer changes.

ITSM Guided Setup > Incident Management > Create from application.

Near the bottom of the page (in the fine print) it recommends creating this field as best practice, so not OOB.

To configure the incident form based on proven practice recommendations:

1. Click the context menu and select Configure > Form Layout.
2. Create a new field Affected user of type reference, which should be a reference to the User [sys_user] table. If the Affected user field is empty, auto populate the field with caller information.

[Joe Walters]

Good eye, Tony. I somehow skipped right over that without noticing it. Thanks!

-Joe

[Tony Chatfield1]

All good Joe, I do it all the time. edit (miss things)