Workspace Fundamentals: Understanding UI Actions and Declarative Actions on a Next Experience workspace record (form) page - Support and Troubleshooting

Workspace Fundamentals: Understanding UI Actions and Declarative Actions on a Next Experience workspace record (form) page Summary The goal of this article is to establish a fundamental understanding of Form Actions within Workspace on the Next Experience. The term "Form" as known in Classic/Core UI largely equates to what are known as standard "Record" page/variant(s) in Next Experience and UI Builder terms.*

* We will focus on this implementation for our understanding, but it's worth annotating that similar support is possible by the more granular "Form" component itself in UIB.

Let's settle in with more details below, having the assumption we're working directly from a Standard Record Page, whether it be a new variant or one provided out of the box for your Next Experience.

Facts Your record is displaying a number of Actions at the top of the Form, similar to UI16. What are the supporting mechanisms as they relate to UI Actions, Declarative Actions, etc...? An expected UI Action or Declarative Action on the record page is not displaying on the Form. What can you check? Release Washington DC

Xanadu

Instructions Preface With the Washington family release, ServiceNow released some Declarative actions configuration improvements with regards to Actions in Next Experience/Workspace that streamlines the process. Many prior requirements and confusing elements have been addressed. The documentation for this improvement touches on some items we'll be discussing, and reads as follows:

"Collection of improvements to address declarative actions configuration experience including automatic creation of UXF Form Action and UX Form Action Layout Item records to reduce the number of manual disparate steps required to set up declarative actions, updates to navigation access to declarative actions, and support for icons and more button colors."

Secondary to these improvements, there are older community answers - and possibly some pockets of documentation - you might encounter that do not reflect the current configuration options and processes. I'll work to provide accurate details and links as we continue along.

UI Actions and Declarative Actions In configurable workspace, users can either choose to add UI Actions [sys_ui_action] or Declarative Actions [sys_declarative_action_assignment] to a record page's Action Bar component. So here we have our 2 base tables:

UI Action [sys_ui_action] Declarative Action [sys_declarative_action_assignment] What is the Action Bar component? This is a Now Experience UI Builder component. It can be found in the Record Page component hierarchy within UI Builder(see screenshot), and is the primary mechanism for supporting the display and use of these Actions. By nature of Next Experience component, we must accept there is no table for the Action Bar component itself for curious examination.

In order to treat the 2 base types of actions the same way, under the hood ServiceNow introduced the UX Form Actions [sys_ux_form_action] table. The Action Bar component uses this table versus working directly with the base action tables. This is a common point of confusion for users. In prior versions (before Washington), there was a manual process to Set up a form action in configurable workspace . This involved creating a new UX Form Action and 'tying it' together with a UI Action. However, on current platform family releases (Washington+) when a Declarative Action or UI Action configured for workspace is created, the UX Form Action [sys_ux_form_action] is automatically generated by way of Business Rule(s) for the respective action. ServiceNow does not expect a user to have a need to access or modify the [sys_ux_form_action] records directly, which is quite the jump from the previous required steps!

Furthermore, the Action Bar component uses a couple additional tables to help organize and display the [sys_ux_form_action] records. Mainly:

Form Action Layout [sys_ux_form_action_layout] Form Action Layout Item [sys_ux_form_action_layout_item] Luckily enough, the names here do the job in relaying that yes: a Form Action Layout is essentially a container with a subsequent Related List of Form Action Layout Items. This is an oversimplification for the purpose of fundamentals. The [sys_ux_form_action_layout] table is very important and can specify which table(s) have which action layouts. And the [sys_ux_form_action_layout_item] record is where you primarily control the appearance (order, label, group, overflow, etc...) as handled by the Action Bar component. Both of these tables can be explored further from the Filter Navigator under Now Experience Framework > Declarative Actions > Form Action Layouts - or - Form Action Layout Items.

Now if we understand that the Record page is utilizing an Action Bar component to handle UI Actions and Declarative Actions by way of juggling all of UX Form Actions, Action Layouts, and Action Layout Items, we can focus on how to get each 'base' action type to that point and what differences we may notice.

UI Action for configurable workspace Create or edit a UI Action - Just like creating a UI Action previously. Once you check 'Workspace Form Button' (which will also auto-check 'Format for Configurable Workspace') the processes to create UX Form Action and a Form Action Layout Item are automated. As long as the specific table and conditions are met, this UI Action will appear in the Action Bar component across Workspace Experiences. This is consistent with behavior established with UI Actions in Core UI. Example steps may be:

Go to System UI > UI Actions Select 'New' Fill out data for Name, Table, etc... In Workspace form section, ensure 'Workspace Form Button' and 'Format for Configurable Workspace' boxes are checked. Submit. Now if you open workspace (ex: SOW) and view a record for the specified table, the UI Action should be appearing in the Action Bar. Declarative Actions for configurable workspace Customizing your workspace with declarative actions - Similar to UI Action in that once the Declarative Action is created, the processes to create UX Form Action and Form Action Layout Item are automated. There is a key difference here, however, in how the Action Bar component will handle the Declarative Action compared to the UI Action. And it depends on the following factors:

'Enable for all configurable experiences' checkbox on the [sys_declarative_action_assignment] Form Existing Form Action Layout [sys_ux_form_action_layout] for the same target table Example steps to create the Form Declarative Action may be:

Go to Now Experience Framework > Declarative Actions > Create New Action Type: Form Fill out data for Action label, Action name, Table, etc... Save and remain on this [sys_declarative_action_assignment] Form Notice checkbox for 'Enable for all Configurable Experiences (checked or un-checked?) Notice related list 'Layout Items' contains a [sys_ux_form_action_layout_item] Record for this Declarative Action. If the [sys_declarative_action_assignment] 'Enable for all configurable workspaces' is checked, once you open workspace (ex: SOW) and view a record for that table, the Declarative Action should be appearing. However, if it is not, the first assumption should be to check the following:

Navigate to Now Experience Framework > Declarative Actions > Form Action Layouts Filter the List where Table = the table from your Declarative Action [sys_declarative_action_assignment] record from previous steps. You most likely will find an existing [sys_ux_form_action_layout] for your impacted table and/or Experience (Application, Action Config columns may be helpful in diagnosing). In this case, open the existing [sys_ux_form_action_layout] Form and utilize the Related List of Action Layout Items to add your Declarative Action's [sys_ux_form_action_layout_item] using the Edit button. Once your Declarative Action is surely added to the Action Layout by means of its Action Layout Item, the Action Bar should now be displaying it.

Summary and Final Words From this provided analysis, we understand the Actions displayed on a given Workspace Form could be UI Actions, Declarative Actions, or a mix of both simultaneously being organized and processed by the Action Bar component. To cover a couple more nuances with the topic at hand, the component within UI Builder does have some configuration properties that could alter or impact the Form Actions you might expect to see on a Page/Variant based on the fundamentals discussed in this article. Finally, I encourage all the Modules found under Declarative Actions to be explored to gather a further insight into not just Declarative Actions on Forms, but how they can be utilized as List actions and Related list actions. Those implementations are not covered in this article.

Related Links Action Bar component reference