how to list which fields are displayed on which forms?

[Jim L2]

Is there a way to export a list of all the fields and which forms they are displayed on?  We want to standardize the fields presented for like classes.  There has to be a better way than to compare screen images!

[Paul Coste2]

Yes there is!  It is not as straightforward as you might think, but this may help you:

1. Go to System UI > Section Elements (sys_ui_element.list).  This will display a list of all of the elements where a field is displayed.  On this list, the Table shows you the Table of of the field, and the Element gives you the Field name (or separators or begin/end elements) that is being displayed, and the position of that item within the section, for the View that is being displayed.  The Sys UI section shows you the Section that is being displayed in that View.  (It is a reference, but it displays the title of the section.  So if it is null, that doesn't mean there is no Section, it means that the Section has no name.)

2. Go to System UI > Sections (sys_ui_section.list), and you will see a bunch of entries that don't look like much, but they are a key part of defining the Form, as this is the Section that is referenced for a particular View.  Unfortunately there isn't anything easily identifiable.  You'll just need to do some poking around and figure out which objects reference one another, either through scripting or querying or sys_id comparison.

3. Go to System UI > Form Sections (sys_ui_form_section.list), and you will see the form sections, just as you normally see in the form designer.  These should look more familiar to you, and you will see that they reference the Sys UI sections that are displaying the UI elements from above, and also reference the main Form.

4. Go to System UI > Forms (sys_ui_form.list) and you will see the table names associated with the forms.

So, if you wanted to display all of the fields displayed on all sections in all views of all forms where the table name extends a Computer class, you should be able to see how to connect the dots.

Some warnings:

• Don't reuse any of these objects thinking that this will be a shortcut for you.  It may be possible to reference the same UI section by multiple forms, but that's not how it's supposed to be done.  If you can get it to work like that, you'll be stuck with it, and any modification you may want to make to one class will be made to all classes.  And the Form Designer won't follow suit, so you'll end up with unpredictable results and stray fields showing up in the wrong form.
• Make sure that the same field never is displayed in multiple locations on the same form, even if they are in different sections.  ServiceNow will allow this, and it will display correctly, but when updating the record you will get some scary results.

Good luck, and I hope this helps!

[David Casper]

Thanks for the post Paul. However I went to sys_ui_element.list and I don't see a column for table. I'm working in orlando so some things have changed. I checked my PDI as well, but it's also orlando.

Thoughts?

[Vaishnavi35]

Yes I have the same doubt as well i do not see table column in sys_ui_element.LIST .

Even I am working on orlando. I checked the System UI Application if by chance the module is not enabled.

But i do not see the module itself in the list.

Please guide. @Paul Coste 

[CMDB Whisperer]

Sorry it is in sys_ui_section, but you can still view it from sys_ui_element.  Go to Customize > List Layout, expand Sys UI Section, and then add Table from there. 

If you found my responses please mark them as Helpful and/or mark them as a correct answer.  Appreciate it!