question Update Short Description When Work Notes Are Updated in Incident Management forum

Update Short Description When Work Notes Are Updated

ZubairQ — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 02:40:55 GMT

Requirement

Whenever Work Notes are updated on an Incident, automatically append the user details to the Short Description field.

Solution: After Business Rule

We can achieve this using an After Business Rule on the Incident table that triggers whenever the work_notes field changes.

Condition: current.work_notes.changes()

If(!current.work_notes.changes()){

return;

}

var usr = gs.getUserDisplayName();

current.short_description = current.short_description +“ ”+ “updated by ” + usr;

Script Explanation

current.work_notes.changes()
Checks whether the Work Notes field was modified in the current update.
gs.getUserDisplayName()
Retrieves the display name of the currently logged-in user.
current.short_description
Appends the user information to the existing short description.

Conclusion

This approach provides a simple way to reflect user activity directly in the Incident short description without additional fields or tables.

Re: Update Short Description When Work Notes Are Updated

PrashantLearnIT — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 02:56:18 GMT

Hi @ZubairQ

This is not completely feasible, imagine there are 10 times Work Notes updated, short description field will not have that size to save these lot of details. I suggest you can try this on Description rather than short description field.

Re: Update Short Description When Work Notes Are Updated

ZubairQ — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 03:07:06 GMT

@PrashantLearnIT Yes, you’re absolutely right. This approach would be suitable only for limited updates to the Short Description and may not be ideal for frequent changes.

Re: Update Short Description When Work Notes Are Updated

glideFather — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 13:05:41 GMT

Hi @ZubairQ,

why would you do that in the first place? Sorry for telling it but this scenario is just nonsense.

If some details are stored in Work notes, then it's visible only to technical stuff (assignment group, agents, managers, admins) and it's hidden from end users on purpose... copying it from WN to ANY other field is just wrong.

Also, the short description field (with limited character length) shall be as concise as possible as it serves for easier identification and categorisation... that would lead to inconsistency and imagine an incident that is WIP has suddenly changed its short description... there is no benefit from this, just chaos. sorry...