question Interactive filter based on REFRENCE in Developer forum

Interactive filter based on REFRENCE

sagarcbanou — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 13:44:39 GMT

Hello community, I want to create a Reference filter on a column of SYS_USER_GROUP table. Now within this table when I try to create a reference filter, it will only return group names under default value. But I want to show another column name Tower under the default value instead of "group name". Is it possible to do using reference?

Why I am using Reference filter is because in the dashboard I have multiple views based on different tables- like sc_task, incident, task_sla, problem, kb, etc. and I want this tower filter to work on all the visuals in one shot.

Re: Interactive filter based on REFRENCE

Rafael Batistot — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 13:55:45 GMT

Hi @sagarcbanou

1. Why you only see “Group Name”

A reference field always points to a single record in a table.
By default, ServiceNow displays the Display Value of the reference table.
For sys_user_group, the Display Value is name. That’s why your filter shows Group Name.

2. What you can do

If you want the filter to use Tower instead of Name:

Change Display Value of sys_user_group

Go to System Definition > Tables, open sys_user_group.
Change the Display Value from name → u_tower.

Be careful — this impacts everywhere in the platform where Group is referenced (forms, lists, filters, reporting, dashboards). Usually not recommended unless you want Tower to always be the primary identifier.

Re: Interactive filter based on REFRENCE

sagarcbanou — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 06:11:42 GMT

Thankyou for the solution, however I should not do any changes to the default display value of sys_user_group. Is there another way to do some sort of "insert and stay" and get the job done. Also I am making all this in Prod instance, so I don't want to take any risk of changing references of base tables.

Re: Interactive filter based on REFRENCE

Syed14 — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 12:10:09 GMT

Scroll below and you can see Interactive filter references related list, When you are creating record on Interactive filter references related list, You can select the reference field there. See this link:

https://pathwayscg.com/how-to-configure-and-use-interactive-filters-on-homepages-and-dashboards/