Demand 2 Due Date Fields and auto-population

[Adam Johnson2]

In Demand there are 2 due date fields.
1. Due Date (requested_by)

2. Due Date (due_date)

When you populate Due Date (requested_by) this auto-populates Due_Date (due_date), but I have not been able to find what populates this. I have watched the field and no business rules show and I am trying to understand how this populates and ultimately the difference in use between these fields. 

Any information is greatly appreciated

[SebastianKunzke · Accepted solution]

Hi Adam,

On the demand you have the business rule "Sync Due Date with Requested By" that is responsible for this logic. This business rule will not due any check, that Due_Date (due_date) is empty or not, so it will always sync the field from the Due Date (requested_by). So I assume ServiceNow has a logic in using two fields, but for my understanding you should not use both fields for different use cases. If so you would need to deactivate the business rule and check other dependencies.

[Adam Johnson2]

Thank you Sebastian, this was exactly correct.
I missed this when initially using the business rule debugger, but I see it logging correctly now and as a test deactivated the rule to test and it worked as you stated. Reactivated to re-assess and understand dependencies as you stated.

One question and I am not sure if you will know the answer.
Any idea why this wouldn't show in Field Watcher?
I watched the Due Date field to try and identify Business Rules being run and it didn't show anything.

My assumption is that it's because it is leveraging a script to update this field, but just want to build my understanding.
Thanks for the quick response and your help!

[Jon Miller1]

Personally, I've always thought that ServiceNow messed up when they introduced both fields a few versions ago and can't fix it because of backwards compatibility issues for some clients. One of the Due Dates is a standard Task field so inherits to all Task sub-classes such as Demand. Due Date was renamed from the Demand Requested By field and is what created the duplication. I believe one field is date/time and the other is date-only. That has it's uses in reports depending on whether the time of a due date is really relevant in a particular use-case.

[Adam Johnson2]

Thanks for the additional information Jon.