How can we control when empty values in a list display as (empty) vs. just an empty column?

[SusanWinKY]

We've recently upgraded to London Patch 4.  In some of our lists (apparently depending on which view is used by the list), we are now seeing empty values in the list display as either (empty) or blank values.  Previously, we did not see (empty).  I am also seeing this in my OOB London personal developer instance.  Do we have a way to control how empty values are displayed in a list?  Meaning, if we didn't want to see (empty) in any list, could we do that for all lists?  And is this a recent change with London, or has it been around for awhile and we're just now seeing it?

Examples:

"My Ideas" list with the default view - This one is showing (empty) for empty values.

"My Ideas" list with the My Ideas view - This one is showing blank values.

[SusanWinKY · Accepted solution]

I found this KB article that explains this new behavior in London...  https://hi.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sys_kb_id=ebe1651ddb61a3002737e15b8a9619c9

[James Fricker]

Hi Susan,

You appear to have more elevated access right than I do. I get "You do not have sufficient privileges to access this knowledge item" even after I have logged in.

Any clues as to what this article says?

cheers

James

[SusanWinKY]

This was an intentional change made to resolve a problem PRB1004508, which was a longstanding bug that was preventing the text from rendering previously. The addition of "(empty)" was to help make it clear that the cell is actually empty/valueless rather than just an empty string value.

This is helpful in general but it's especially valuable for accessibility purposes since screenreader users used to get silence about the cell's value instead of being told explicitly that it is empty.

Updated link:

https://hi.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0716584

[sbh]

@James Fricker, I got the same result you did when I tried to vew the KB. But this community post has an explanation for the behavior: https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_question&sys_id=4cf0f0ffdbcfeb401089e15b8a96...