Capture the template being used in record chosen from the template bar

Every now and then we get a customer question if it is possible to report on the use of templates. Usage like the number of times templates are used and by whom.

Tracking this has become a bit more challenging since the ServiceNow has locked down the code of the template bar functionality. The following solution is not 100% bulletproof. You probably should check for multiple occasions of the class ‘outputmsg_text’ but it should give you a good idea of what is possible). Also for demonstration purpose I made use of a synchronous GlideRecord query which you should always avoid (so no need to leave comments for that).

1. Create a new reference field ‘u_template’ (reference table = sys_template) on the incident form.

2. Create a new client script with the following code:

function onSubmit() {
//Type appropriate comment here, and begin script below
try {
var template_html = $j(".outputmsg_text").html().split("<\br>")[0];
//alert("template_html [" + template_html + "]");

var patt = new RegExp("(.*?) Template Applied");
var template = patt.exec(template_html);

alert("template [" + template[1] + "]");

var rec = new GlideRecord('sys_template');
rec.addQuery('name', template[1]);
rec.query();
if (rec.next()) {
alert("template name/sys_id [" + rec.name + "] [" + rec.sys_id + "]");
g_form.setValue('u_template',rec.sys_id);
}

} catch(err) {

}
}

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