Force-Include Any Record Into an Update Set

While most of the records in ServiceNow that you might want to track in an update set are already tracked, due to a dictionary attribute called update_synch, you might just be surprised at how many types of records are not tracked in update sets! For example, scheduled jobs and scheduled script executions are not tracked in update sets, so you either need a tool like this, or you'll need to move these records over manually! Skip to the bottom of this article for a link to the download page. 

Since manual work is for Peons from Warcraft III and not for developers, let's build a better solution while we laugh at the mere mortals that export-then-import their records as XML. 

Note: This is a tool meant to help developers, and is really just meant to be installed into your development instance(s). 

What we've built is a UI action named Include in Update Set that allows you to force a record (whatever record you're currently on) into an update set.
However, rather than requiring you to add a separate UI action for each and every table that we might want to have this functionality on, we've instead done the opposite - made a Global UI action, and restricted it from appearing on certain tables (such as incident, problem, change, and other common tables that you'd virtually never want to capture in an update set). This means that if you see the Include in Update Set link, then you can know that looking at a record that wouldn't be captured in an update set, which is certainly useful information for a developer! 

We've also given admins the ability to restrict or allow the button to show on any table they choose using the Include in Update Set Properties module, under the System Update Sets application header. 

In addition to the form link UI action, we've also added list choice UI actions, so you can select multiple records from a list and dump them all into an update set. 

We've also added some error checking and handling, and the ability to turn the whole application on or off easily using a system property. You can see our source code in the application file, as it's not protected and is available in the Global scope. 

If you'd like to know more, or download and deploy this application in your instance, you can click here or navigate to Tools -> Include in Update Set Tool from the navigation bar at the top of this page. 

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