Autocomplete contains search is not working in a reference field - Support and Troubleshooting

Autocomplete contains search is not working in a reference field Issue  Autocomplete contains search is not working in a reference field

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Cause This issue is seen because, by default, the reference auto-complete uses a starts with search. A user preference can be created to implement a contains search.

Resolution Disable the glide.ui.ref_ac.startswith system property.

For more information, see <a title="By default, all reference fields use a starts with query to search for matching text in the reference table. This prevents auto-complete from executing inefficient contains queries every time a user searches a reference field. You can require all reference fields to use a starts with query." href="https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?topicname=c_AutoCompleteForReferenceFields.html&version=latest#t_ImproveAutoCompleteQueries">Improve auto-complete queries .

Note: Setting the glide.ui.ref_ac.startswith system property to true overrides any existing "autocomplete.contains" settings in both user and system-level preferences. This property changes the auto-complete query method for all users regardless of preferences.

Navigate to User Administration > User Preferences.

Select the preference "' .autocomplete.contains"'.

Set the value field to true. Related Links https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?topicname=c_AutoCompleteForReferenceFields.html&version=latest#t_ContainsAutoCompleteSearch