Normal values
Summarize
Summary of Normal values
Normal values in ServiceNow help standardize field values that may appear in multiple, ambiguous forms across records. This is essential when data comes from varied sources—such as Discovery, external imports, or manual user entries—leading to inconsistent values for the same attribute. For example, a CPU Type field might contain diverse entries like "E3350 (Intel) 4.5.2234," "Intel Xeon 5.4.554," or simply "L3350," which all represent the same CPU type.
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Without normalization, such discrepancies can cause duplicate entries, poor search results, and overly complex queries or business logic. Creating a normal value record consolidates these variations into a single standardized value, like "Xeon," improving data quality and usability.
Key Features
- Aliases: Used to define a short list of known variant values that map directly to a normal value. When a normalization job or query encounters an alias, it replaces it automatically with the normal value. Aliases function like simple equality rules and are processed before rules.
- Rules: Define conditions, including complex or regex-based matches, for identifying variant values. Rules are useful when many variations exist or more sophisticated logic is required. These are processed after aliases during normalization.
- Combination of Aliases and Rules: Both can be used together to comprehensively normalize field values, ensuring flexibility in defining normalization behavior.
- Normalized Queries: Administrators can enable normalization on queries against normalized fields, allowing filter conditions to use raw values but return results with normalized values substituted. However, breadcrumbs retain the original query conditions for clarity.
- Scripting Integration: GlideRecord scripts that insert or update normalized fields automatically convert input values to their normal equivalents. Queries in scripts can also be configured to return normalized values instead of raw values, ensuring consistency in programmatic data operations.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
Implementing normal values enables ServiceNow customers to:
- Reduce data duplication and inconsistencies across configuration items and other records.
- Improve search accuracy and performance by standardizing field values.
- Simplify business logic and queries by working with consistent, normalized data.
- Leverage automated normalization in both UI queries and scripting, reducing manual data correction efforts.
- Configure normalization precisely using aliases for simple mappings and rules for complex matching scenarios, ensuring adaptability to diverse data environments.
Testing normalization configurations before applying them broadly is recommended to ensure accuracy and minimize unintended data changes.
A normal value replaces similar but ambiguous field values with one standard value.
Field value variations
- Automated entries made by Discovery.
- Automated entries made by importing records from external systems or files.
- Manual entries made by users.
- E3350 (Intel) 4.5.2234
- Intel Xeon 5.4.554
- Xeon L3350
- L3350
- Duplicate CPU types
- Poor search results
- Complex queries and conditions to apply business logic
Creating a normal value record solves these issues by consolidating on one standard value such as Xeon.
Identifying variations with aliases and rules
Each Normal value record specifies how to identify variations of a normal value using a combination of aliases and rules.
- Aliases
Aliases are known variations of an input value that normalization converts to the normal value. Use aliases when there is a short list of variant values.
For example, you could create a normal value Xeon that has these aliases.- E3350 (Intel) 4.5.2234
- Intel Xeon 5.4.554
- Xeon L3350
- L3350
Whenever a normalization data job or normalized query sees a field value matching an alias, it automatically replaces the field value with the normal value. Normalization data jobs and queries process aliases before rules.Note:Aliases are logically equivalent to rules using the [is] operator in a condition where [Field name][is][Alias value]. For example, the sample aliases are equivalent to these rules: [CPU Type][is][E3350 (Intel) 4.5.2234] OR [CPU Type][is][Intel Xeon 5.4.554] OR [CPU Type][is][Xeon L3350] OR [CPU Type][is][L3350]- Rules
Rules specify the conditions under which normalization replaces an input value with the normal value. Use rules when there are a large number of possible variant values, or when you must create complex conditions.
For example, the normal value Xeon could have this rule.
[CPU Type][matches regex][.*\bxeon\b.*]
Whenever a normalization data job or normalized query sees a field value matching a rule, it automatically replaces the field value with the normal value. Normalization data jobs and queries process rules after aliases.
Rules and aliases can be combined to normalize a field. Make sure to test your normalization methods before applying them to all the existing records in the database.
Normalized queries
An administrator can configure normalization to apply to queries issued against normalized fields in lists. Select the Normalize query check box on the Normalization form to enable this functionality. In a list containing normalized values, Filters and breadcrumbs using the original (raw) value for the normalized field in the query condition.
The filtered list returns records with the normal value substituted for the raw value. However, the breadcrumbs for the filter display the original query conditions.
Scripting and normalization
Scripts that update or insert records into the database (GlideRecord) are normalized automatically when field normalization is applied. For example, if a script to insert a CI record contains a CPU type of Xeon L3350, the script is normalized to insert the CI with a CPU type of Xeon instead. Scripts that query the database for normalized field values (using the conditions of equals or not equals) can be configured to return the normal value (such as Xeon) rather than the original (raw) value.