How to Get search results with contains for Reference field .

Rajat27 · ‎07-06-2022

**NOTE :- When I use " * " in reference field it is populate Results but for Without " * " its not . how can I get Same results without * , Thank you.**

I I I I used following 2 Approach But both are Failed.

Approach 1 ) attribute in reference field
ref_auto_completer=AJAXTableCompleter,
ref_ac_columns=name,
ref_ac_columns_search=true

Approach 2) System Property
Disable the glide.ui.ref_ac.startswith system property.
added the property glide.ui.goto_use_contains and set the property value to true.

Aman Kumar S · ‎07-06-2022

Hey,

1. Ensure that the system property "glide.ui.ref_ac.startswith" is set to false.

2. Confirm that the reference field has similar dictionary attributes as the following:

ref_ac_columns_search=true, ref_ac_order_by=column_name, ref_ac_columns=column_name1, column_name2, ref_auto_completer=AJAXTableCompleter

3. Create the following user preference:

Name: table_name_being_referenced.autocomplete.contains (i.e. sys_user.autocomplete.contains)

System: checked

User: leave this blank

Type: true | false

Value: true

4. After the user preference has been created log out and back into the instance for it to take effect

Feel free to mark correct, If I answered your query.

Will be helpful for future visitors looking for similar questions 🙂

Best Regards
Aman Kumar

View solution in original post

Manny11 · ‎12-12-2023

Does this work on Service Portal Catalog item Variable type reference field?

Jeff Jessie · ‎07-07-2023

Will setting up the user preference have to be set up for every user or is it a global preference that can be applied to everyone that accesses the portal?

Mwatkins · ‎07-22-2025

ServiceNow does not recommend setting glide.ui.ref_ac.startswith to false. It changes a system wide behavior to be very inefficient. For the love of Fred, teach your end users to use the asterisk when they want to do contains searches and keep startswith as the default behavior. See the following article for an explanation: https://www.servicenow.com/community/developer-articles/performance-hacks-reference-fields-4-of-4-co...

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