If you're an ancient & decrepit geezer like me and grew up in the 1980's, you probably remember seeing advertisements for these in your Archie comics...

XRay specs! Giving you vision into untold secrets.

This month, I rediscovered an administrative "XRay Spec" for ServiceNow: Show XML. With it, you can see the invisible, and glean valuable secrets. Here's 3 use cases to capitalize on Show XML

USE CASE 1: DISCOVERY OF INVALID REFERENCES

Ever been in this situation? You're looking at a form with a blank reference field, but for some reason the preview icon is still visible?

It happens when you have an invalid reference. There's an invalid sys_id in the Affected CI field, or a record that has a sys_id but no display. You'll see this in cases like...

- When you're populating stuff via manual sys_id's in a record producer or inbound action

- When you've used bad code migration strategies and have different sys_id's between instances THEN imported/exported data depending on those references.

- A rookie has populated a reference field in a script by using display value instead of sys_id

So lets use Show XML to figure out what's wrong.... (Right click in header -> Show XML).

This pops open a new window with the entire record in XML format.

OOPS! Somehow Affected CI populated without a sys_id!

USE CASE 2: FINDING THE SYS_ID OF A RECORD LIKE A BOSS!

You're looking at an incident for Prostetnic Vogon-Jeltz. For whatever reason, you need his sys_id. How do you get it?

If you said "click the preview, then right-click the user record header & copy sys_id" you're correct, but also slow! Show XML right from the Incident!

USE CASE 3: FINDING VALUES OF FIELDS NOT ON THE FORM

How many times have you needed to see the value of a field and actually modified the form to get access to it? Don't be ashamed, we've all done it (but go ahead and slap yourself once, just to be sure). If you've ever put a field on a public form exclusively for admin usage, slap yourself twice. From now on, Show XML is all you need. Lets say I have an eBonding relationship with a vendor. I don't have correlation ID on the form, but I want to know if my Incident is related to an external ticket. Right Click -> Show XML.

HOLY COW!!

SUMMARY

Remember... with Show XML, the *entire* record is at your fingertips. Why bother with background scripts, form/list personalization, or record transitions when that powerful little Action is just a click away!