What Are Tables and Forms?

[LFleming]

The objective of this post is to learn how tables and forms are defined and relate to one another in ServiceNow.

The questions are based on the three images below, which present details of ServiceNow interactions. The questions appear after the images.

QUESTIONS

Is every form in ServiceNow a table?  Why might an experienced Service Now developer believe "a form is a table?"

Can a form be tied to more than one table?

[J Siva]

Hi @LFleming 

1. In ServiceNow, everything has been stored in the tables.

2. Table is a collection of records, similar to a database. ex. User table contains user records, company table contains company records.

3. Form is nothing but a record from the table. It displays fields from the table and allows users to view, create, update, or delete specific records. 

4. (Last picture) In ServiceNow, a table can have one-to-one or one-to-many relationships with other tables. These relationships are displayed as a related list at the bottom of the for

m. 

For more details please check the below doc:

https://www.servicenow.com/docs/bundle/xanadu-platform-administration/page/administer/general/concep...

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Siva

[shun6]

Hi @LFleming ,

Each field displayed in the form corresponds to a columns in the table.

For exmaple about User [sys_user] table,

Please access System Definition > Tables > Search User[sys_user] table and open the record.

Then you can see every fields in the form is configured as table column.

You can also configure which table columns are displayed on the form.

Now Platform® field administration

Now Platform® form administration

A tab, known as a related list, allows you to display data from another table that has a relationship with the current table.

For example about User - User Role relationship,

Please access System Definition > Tables > Search User Role[sys_user_has_role] table and open the record.

There is a column with a field type of 'Reference' that refers to the User [sys_user] table.

These two tables have a relationship and can be displayed as a related list in the User form.

Related lists

Thanks.

[Ankur Bawiskar]

@LFleming 

each table has it's own form view.

1) So yes this is a form of sys_user table

2) these are related tables which are associated to the main form via relationship, most of the times those belong to other table but sometimes it shows data from the same table if relationship is defined

ServiceNow create custom Related List | ServiceNow Related list using relationship | Servicenow ease 

3) Not every form is a table -> Example, there are catalog items which are used to submit requests and those hold variables in it, but the structure is different for those things, data is stored in different tables

It looks like this in native

Looks like this in portal

If my response helped please mark it correct and close the thread so that it benefits future readers.