SC_Task vs TASK table

[brandimore]

Hello

I am reporting on the SCTASK level and I've seen two sceanrios; one were the sample reports pull from the SC_TASK table and other on the TASK table. I have developed reports on the SC_TASK table for the SCTASKxxxx level and the data appears correctly but I wanted to ask, what is the difference between the two? Also, do you have documentation that has descriptions of all the tables so we can understand it better.

[Brad Tilton]

The TASK table is the generic table that many of the other tables in ServiceNow extend from. Incident, problem, change, request, request item, catalog task (sc_task), and others all extend from the task table. The task table has the more generic fields like short description, description, assignment group, and assigned to that are used across a lot of the other tables. If you report on the task table you'll get records from all of the extended tables.

Table extension and classes

[brandimore]

Thanks Brad.

So what is best practise then? From your answer it seems that there's no wrong table between the two. We are doing specific reporting on the SCTASKXXXX tickets which is why I choose the SC_TASK table.

[Brad Tilton]

Reporting on task would allow you to have incidents and catalog tasks in the same list, whereas reporting on sc_task would give you more data specific to the catalog task table. Basically if you need to include other types of tickets in your list/report you can report on task, otherwise it's better to report on the specific table.

[brandimore]

Thank you. That makes more sense.

I clicked on the link and I'm going through the documentation but I can't see a simple grid that explains the tables and the purpose. Does that exist?