Passing Variables to Task "Description" Field

ahsan4 · ‎04-25-2016

Hello All,

I hope you are having a wonderful Monday! I needed to reach out to the community for some assistance and see if anyone can help me figure my problem out. I need to take all the variables and pass them in to the "Description" field in the task (in the workflow). I need to make sure make sure they display in the "description" field in a certain order, skip anything that is null, and each variable is in a new line, etc. The variables are all types (reference, integers, check box, string, etc.) This item has about 35/40 variables but I will provide how I have coded a few of them below. I am getting syntax errors and also the code is not really working.

1) is there a better way that what I have present below?

2) Can you please help me perfect my code below and explain what I might be doing wrong?

Example of my code (have to code this for about 38 variables due to them being displayed in a certain order):

//create a variable that will be appended to as you check each request variable for a value

var new_description;

var event_name = current.variables.event_name;

var event_date_start = current.variables.event_date_start;

var event_time_start = current.variables.event_time_start;

var requested_by = current.variables.requested_by;

if (null !=event_name) {

new_description = (new_description && "Name of Event: " && event_name.toString());

}

if (null !=event_date_start) {

new_description = \n(new_description && "Date Event Will Begin: " && event_date_start.toString());

}

if (null !=event_time_start) {

new_description = \n(new_description && "Daily Start Time: " && event_time_start.toString());

}

if (null !=requested_by) {

new_description = \n(new_description && "Requested By: " && requested_by.toString());

}

current.description = new_description;

***not passing the actual variables over because the page looks too busy for our customer and is overwhelming. that would have taken seconds to do but they wanted me to pass the value into the description field for their full-fillers to be able to read. ***

Community Alums · ‎04-25-2016

I just did a similar type of thing in a workflow, creating a task with the summary of the variables in the description field:

   var gr = new GlideRecord("sc_req_item");

   gr.addQuery("request", current.request.sys_id);

   gr.query();

   while(gr.next()) {

       // Get Owned Variables for Requested Item and sort by Order

       var ownvar = new GlideRecord('sc_item_option_mtom');

       ownvar.addQuery('request_item.number', gr.number);

       ownvar.addQuery('sc_item_option.value','!=','');

       ownvar.orderBy('sc_item_option.order');

       ownvar.query();

   var items = "Summary of " + gr.number + ":   " + gr.cat_item.getDisplayValue() + "\n\n";   

       while(ownvar.next()) {

           var field = ownvar.sc_item_option.item_option_new;

                         var fieldValue = ownvar.sc_item_option.item_option_new.name;

                         // Print variable name

             items += field.getDisplayValue() + ": " + gr.variables[fieldValue].getDisplayValue() + "\n";

         }

   }

task.description = items;

Try that and see if it works for what you need. It does skip null variables and does an 'OrderBy' based on the Order number of the variable. It ends up looking something like this:

++++++

Summary of RITM0016419: Unitize Rental/RPO Unit

Equipment Number: 0987

ETM Order Number: 0987

Tag Number: 05-698

Is this an asset?: No

Characteristic Value: Test

Characteristic Name: Test

Equipment Description: Test

Brand Name: Test

Model Number: Test

Model Year: Test

Serial Number: Test

++++++

Hope that helps!

Cheers,

Tim

View solution in original post

Community Alums · ‎05-05-2016

Yes, that actually makes sense. The boolean fields would never have a null value, they would always be either true/false, yes/no, or 1/0.

I'm actually not sure how to get around this If I can think of anything, I will post an update.

Cheers,

Tim

max_danielewicz · ‎11-19-2017

Hi Tim,

i have been using your code successfully to populate the description field based on variables..

The only problem is that it works for those catalog items where i use variables, but not for catalog items with variable sets.

i get the following error:

variables table for this item:

any clue?

regards,

max

Community Alums · ‎11-20-2017

Max,

That's odd, as I am sure it works with variable sets for me, though I could be wrong. Check out the OOB mail script called 'requested_items_summary_with_options'. This is another example of how to accomplish the same thing.

The method (GlideappVariablePoolQuestionSet) is not documented in the API, but this post may help:

https://community.servicenow.com/message/1284962?_ga=2.61070764.1895608802.1511195163-330529951.1490...

You can modify the script to omit blank/empty values if required as well. Hope that helps!

Tim

max_danielewicz · ‎11-20-2017

Hi Tim,

That script is great, but for notifications. I tried to apply the same for catalog task activity (with the following changes) but did not work.

Any clue?

var descr = "Summary of Requested items: " + "\n\n";

var item = new GlideRecord("sc_req_item");

item.addQuery("request", current.sys_id);

item.query();

while(item.next()) {

descr += item.number + ": " + item.quantity + " X " + item.cat_item.getDisplayValue() + "\n";

descr += " Options: " + "\n";

var keys = [];

var set = new GlideappVariablePoolQuestionSet();

set.setRequestID(item.sys_id);

set.load();

var vs = set.getFlatQuestions();

for (var i=0; i < vs.size(); i++) {

if(vs.get(i).getLabel() != '') {

//template.space(4);

descr += ' ' + vs.get(i).getLabel() + " = " + vs.get(i).getDisplayValue() + "\n";

}

task.description = descr;

ahsan4 · ‎05-05-2016

OK Sounds good. I know I am stuck and can not seem to know what to do next. However, I appreciate you being very responsive and supporting me through this hump!

thank you