References fields, sys_popup views and the Service Portal

[kobby_adu-nti]

The sys_pop view is widely used, but little thought of feature in the ServiceNow platform. I would compare it to the music in a movie. When done right film music enriches your movie experience but you hardly notice it, when it is done wrong, or when it is not there at all, all of a sudden you are aware that something is off.

In the frameset user interface of ServiceNow, on a form where a reference field is present depending on whether or not the field is not configured to be readOnly, there will be a reference pop-up icon on the field. Note that reference pop-ups and clickthroughs are hidden by default if a Client Script, UI Policy or ACL makes the field read-only.

On a base system instance, there are several default sys_popup view records that are configured to only display with specific views OOB. Try opening the following URL on your instance:

https://<yourInstanceName>.service-now.com/sys_ui_view_list.do?sysparm_query=nameLIKEsys_popup

The URL above will query the sys_ui_view table. Reference icon sys_popup view can be identified in the listed records following naming convention below:

                  Name: sys_popup,<viewName>

Example of sys_pop view in action in the frameset

The sys_popup views typically display a limited version of the default view of a table. a ServiceNow administrator can configure the sys_popup view displayed when an end user creates an onMouseOver event on a reference icon in a couple of ways.

For example take a base system instance and navigate to the incident table, there you will find we have a view named "portal". Therefore if you wanted to create a unique sys_popup for the portal view you would name it sys_popup, portal

You can create your own view record following the convention above. Or configure the form layout of default sys_ui_view sys_popup records that are pre-existing in your instance. For instructions on the best ways to achieve this please review articles linked to below.

http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Customizing_the_Reference_Icon#gsc.tab=0

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/geneva-servicenow-platform/page/administer/field_administration/c...

So how does this affect the Service Portal?

Now to the point of this article, the Service Portal does away with all of this. Early in the design process of the Service Portal, a decision was taken to display the complete form in the modal popup when an onClick event occurs on a reference icon (Note: In the Service Portal there is a requirement to click on the icon rather than hover over it). Instead in the Service Portal, we display either the current, inherited view (if it exists), or you will see the Default view for the displaying the records for a given table.

Example of the sys_pop view in the Service Portal