question Re: Approver comments on Task in ITSM forum

Approver comments on Task

brianlan25 — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 22:53:55 GMT

I have a request to make it so that the approvers comments they put in the comments section. How to I go about placing the approver comments into the task?

Re: Approver comments on Task

User140988 — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 10:33:41 GMT

Hi Bricast,

It is not possible to place the approvers comments in task, because the relation ship between Task --> approval table is m:1. You can place the approver comments in a related list on task or write a business rule to copy the approver comments and update the journal field on task or create a new field for the same.

Re: Approver comments on Task

brianlan25 — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 16:38:45 GMT

could you provide more details on how to go about this?

Re: Approver comments on Task

brianlan25 — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:40:33 GMT

Can anybody give me more info on how to do any of this. I am really new with servicenow.

Re: Approver comments on Task

david_legrand — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 16:41:17 GMT

Hi,

I think the easiest way for you will be "to write a business rule to copy the approver comments and update the journal field on task." (as chandz098 said)

If you want an example, please take a look on the OOB "Update Child Incidents" business rule.

If you want to propose a code and ask for a review feel free

For doing this feature, I think the "system admin" course is necessary (or a good knowledge of coding + some hours on the wiki) and if you're not confident, the "scripting course" will help you a lot.

An hint: If you have more than 5 lines of code (excluding "spaces" or "brackets"), ask yourself the question "Is it ok?", if you have more than 10, you'll highly probably on a wrong way to perform it.

Basically, I say to my new coworkers: "Where is the source of the information, where is the target, do you need to transform the information between the source and the target"

Regards,

Re: Approver comments on Task

eican — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 16:43:37 GMT

Actuallz there should be no need to script at all.

On task is a field called "approval_history" which gets the comments already copied over vie a business rule on the approval table.

Try adding it to the activity log and you should see the content.

Re: Approver comments on Task

brianlan25 — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 16:54:35 GMT

Hello eican,

When I add approval_history to the form it is a blank comments box. I am looking at one in our dev that I added comments to when I approved it.

Re: Approver comments on Task

eican — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 16:57:41 GMT

The approver_history box is a journal field and therefore works the same way as comments or work_notes.

Looking at the business rule on the approval table it copies over the comments when the approval is approved or rejected.

Re: Approver comments on Task

Wendy Peterson — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 17:00:06 GMT

I have a couple different scripts i use for approval comments this one puts it in the TASK Description or else change description to say work_notes and you can add it in there. It goes before any field items you have on the advanced feature of the Task. In the WF. Let me know if you have any questions.

Workflow - Adds Approval Comments in TASK for Worknotes and Descripton

//Adds approver comments to Description Area

var apv = new GlideRecord('sysapproval_approver');
apv.addQuery('sysapproval',current.sys_id);
apv.addQuery('comments','!=','') // add this to only find approvals that have comments on them
apv.query();

while (apv.next()) { // change if to while so it will go through all approvals with comments
task.description += "\nApproval Comments: from " + apv.approver.name + "\n" + apv.comments.getJournalEntry(-1); // add approver name here
}

Re: Approver comments on Task

david_legrand — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 17:01:00 GMT

You made me retry (just in case) but the comments don't come to the activity log or approval history log (I tried on a sc_request table on a demo)

Maybe you modified the approval_history field directly or made this business rule, no?

Re: Approver comments on Task

eican — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 17:03:11 GMT

Looking at your screenshot the activity log shows the approval history field.

Did I misunderstand something?

Re: Approver comments on Task

david_legrand — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 17:06:17 GMT

I'm maybe wrong but I understood the important part was the "comments" itself (like "I rejected the item request because ....").

That is why I proposed to push the comments to the "task" from the approval, as it makes senses and it's the faster way (I think) for someone new on ServiceNow.

Regards,

Re: Approver comments on Task

eican — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 17:15:37 GMT

Looking at the business rule it should do it:

if (current.state.changes() && current.state=='approved') {
   updateTask(current, current.approver.getDisplayValue() + " approved the task.", current.comments);
}

And the function "updateTask" is basically getting the task for this approval request and adds the text to the approval_history field.

As far as I can tell the Business Rule is unchanged and out-of-box.

I double checked his with a demo instance and we have the same script.

However, the script also checks a system property — maybe that is set to "false" in your case?

glide.workflow.user_approval_history

https://demo022.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=sys_script.do?sys_id=aea34678c61122710151b1b7fdf65762

Also I tried it and even though the comment is added to the field "approval_history" it shows up as a "Additional Comments" entry … not sure why but didn't do any deep digging yet either

Re: Approver comments on Task

brianlan25 — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 17:23:23 GMT

What is the name of the business rule. I don't see that code in my business rules. At least not the ones on the approval table as mentioned before.

Re: Approver comments on Task

eican — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 17:25:15 GMT

It is called "Approval Events (Task)"

Did you follow the link I provided?

Re: Approver comments on Task

brianlan25 — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 17:31:31 GMT

Ok found it but it doesn't seem to be working or maybe I'm just adding it incorrectly to the activity log. I right click and did personalize Activities and added Approval history but no additional info is showing in my activity logs.

Re: Approver comments on Task

eican — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 18:00:08 GMT

Do you also display "Additional Comments" in the formatter?

Also make sure you have not a filter set for it either.

Next go to an approval record, add a comment and approve it.

Now open the referenced record of that approval; task and the comment should show

Re: Approver comments on Task

brianlan25 — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 19:00:52 GMT

This is what my personalize activity looks like

This is what my formatter looks like. Additonal comments is not visible.

Re: Approver comments on Task

eican — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 19:08:10 GMT

Did you try this also in a demo instance?

Maybe there was some code changed in your own instance?

Re: Approver comments on Task

eican — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 19:29:40 GMT

Seems like there is an issue with the field type.

You need to update its dictionary record to have a type of "Journal" (basically set the type again) and then it shows up within the activity formatter.