As you may aware of that you can store more than just text within ServiceNow, in the form of attachments. You can store binary data as well, including pictures, audio, and even executable files.

There are two tables which is dealing with attachments.

• Attachments (sys_attachment)
• Attachment Documents (sys_attachment_doc).

When you upload an attachment file to ServiceNow, a record is created in the Attachments table with some metadata, including the file name, content type, and the size of the attached file.

Important Classes / API’s: used :

• GlideExcelParser() :You can parse .xlsx formatted Excel files. The GlideExcelParser methods can be used in global and scoped scripts. The API name space identifier "sn_impex" must be used when creating a GlideExcelParser object.
• getColumnHeaders(): Returns a list of column headers from the parsed document.
• getContent(GlideRecord sysAttachment): Returns the attachment content as a string.
• getContentStream( String sysID) : Returns a GlideScriptableInputStream object given the sysID of an attachment
• getRow(): Get the current row values and headers.

1. Fetching Contents from Excel File Attached to your record:

var parser = new sn_impex.GlideExcelParser();

var attachment = new GlideSysAttachment();

// use attachment sys id of an excel file attachment

var attachmentStream = attachment.getContentStream('f18e8e0a1b2f3300364d32a3cc4bcb99');

parser.parse(attachmentStream);

//retrieve the column headers

var headers = parser.getColumnHeaders();

var key = headers[0];

var value = headers[1];

//var obj = {};

while(parser.next()) {

var row = parser.getRow();

//print row value for both columns

gs.log(row[key] + ': ' + row[value]) ;

// obj[row[key]] = row[value];

}

2.Fetching Contents from CSV File Attached to your record:

• getBytes() : This returns the raw bytes of the file -- that means binary data.
• java.lang.String() : we convert that data into a string using.

var gr = new GlideRecord('sys_attachment');

gr.addQuery('sys_id', '24021a4e1b2f3300364d32a3cc4bcb69'); // sys_id of attachment record

gr.query();

if(gr.next()){

var gsa = new GlideSysAttachment();

var bytesInFile = gsa.getBytes('incident', 'b98d17f11ba73300364d32a3cc4bcb29');

var originalContentsInFile = Packages.java.lang.String(bytesInFile); // originalContentsInFile

originalContentsInFile = String(originalContentsInFile);

gs.print("Contents of Attached CSV File: "+originalContentsInFile);

}

3. Fetching Contents from TEXT File Attached to your record:

var tableName = 'incident';var sysIdOfRecord = 'b98d17f11ba73300364d32a3cc4bcb29';

var fileNameWithoutExtension = 'Demo'; //Full file name: example text doc.txt

var grWithAttachment = new GlideRecord(tableName);

grWithAttachment.get(sysIdOfRecord);

var gsa = new GlideSysAttachment();//ONLY works in global

var dataInTextFile = gsa.get(grWithAttachment, fileNameWithoutExtension);

gs.print("Information Available in Text File: "+dataInTextFile);

#Copying an Attachment from One Table/Record to Anothet Table/Record:

Copying all of the attachments associated with a given record is fairly straightforward. You simply call the copy method of the GlideSysAttachment class, and pass in four parameters:

• The table you want to copy the attachment from (incident, change_request, etc.).
• The sys_ID of the record you want to copy the attachment from.
• The table that you want to copy the attachment to.
• The sys_ID of the record you want to copy the attachment to.

This might look something like this:

var donorTable = sc_req_ite’;//

var donorID = '2b6644b15f1021001c9b2572f2b47763';

var recipientTable = sc_task; //

var recipientID = '78e47fe94f31d200bf004a318110c7d4';

GlideSysAttachment.copy(donorTable, donorID, recipientTable, recipientID);

#Attachment-related System Properties:

The following are list of attachment-related properties that you can access and modify in ServiceNow. You can either modify the value of a property in that list, or if you don't see a given property in the list, create it and set the value specified below.

Property	Values	Description
glide.ui.attachment_drag_and_drop	true/false	Enable/disable drag-and-drop to attach a file
com.glide.attachment.max_size	Integer (MB)	The maximum size (in megabytes) for individual file attachments. Leaving this field blanks allows attachments up to 1GB.
glide.attachment.role	Comma-separated list	Enter a comma-separated list of the roles that can attach files. Enter names, not sys_ids. Entering "Public", or leaving this blank means that anyone can attach files.
glide.attachment.extensions	Comma-separated list	Enter a comma-separated list of attachment file extensions (not including the 'dot') which should be allowed. To allow all, leave this property value blank. Note that unless this is blank, any attachments not listed here will be blocked.
glide.ui.disable_attachment_view & glide.ui.attachment_popup	true/false	To hide the "[View]" link next to an attachment, set the disable_attachment_view property to true and the attachment_popup property to false. Users can still view attachments by clicking the attachment file name.
glide.ui.attachment. force_download_all_mime_types	true/false	This property, when true, makes it so that all attachment file types will be downloaded rather than viewed in the browser, when clicked. This is especially helpful for filetypes like text or HTML files, where the browser may attempt to render them rather than download them.

That's it!!!! Thanks for reading and do comment with your suggestion/improvements if any.

Hope you will find it as helpful. Dont forget to Mark it Helpful, Bookmark.

Thanks,
Abhishek Gardade

EDIT : Added code for getting attachment content from TEXT File