Did You Know? - Table level auto-complete

[Kieran Anson]

Did You Know?
Table level reference field auto-complete

A common UX enhancement within ServiceNow is to enable users to search on multiple columns rather than just the display field by using an auto-completer. However, did you know that you can set this behaviour for an entire table rather than per field?

Example Use Case

As part of Customer Service Management (CSM), the account field is one of the most used fields as part of record creation, ensuring data is correctly aligned and visible to the right organisations. As part of an implementation, there are often multiple columns you want to enable auto-complete search to run on, but how painstaking is it to run through all the dictionary fields that reference a table to modify its attributes? You could simply just do it on the tables which users will frequently visit....but then that isn't a consistent UX.

How To

1. Navigate to the table's collection that you wish to set a global default on.
2. Switch to the advanced view to set the attributes via the text field (a reference qualifier prevents you from doing it via the related list)
3. Add the auto-complete attributes for your requirements

Now, every reference field that points to that table will have a default auto-complete setup!

What if I want to override the behaviour for a particular field?
Don't worry - any auto-complete attributes defined at the reference field dictionary record will supersede that of what's defined on the collection.