Multi-Row Per Record SQL Statement

Question

I'm not sure this is possible but my manager wants me to do it...

Using the below picture as a reference, is it possible to retrieve a group of records, where each record has 2 rows of columns?

So columns: Number, Incident Number, Vendor Number, Customer Name, Customer Location, Status, Opened and Updated would be part of the first row and column: Work Notes would be a new row that spans the width of the report. Each record would have two rows. Is this possible with a GROUP BY statement?

Record 1

Row 1 = Number, Incident Number, Vendor Number, Customer Name, Customer Location, Status, Opened and Updated

Row 2 = Work Notes

Record 2

Row 1 = Number, Incident Number, Vendor Number, Customer Name, Customer Location, Status, Opened and Updated

Row 2 = Work Notes

Record n

...

Answer 1

I don't think that possible with the built in report engine. You'll need to export the data and format it using something else.

You could have something similar to what you want on short description (list report, group by short description), but you can't group by work notes so that's out.

Answer 2

One thing to note is that the work_notes field is not actually a field on the table, the work_notes field is of type journal_input, which means it's really just a gateway to the actual underlying data model. "Modifying" work_notes actually just inserts into sys_journal_field.

sys_journal_field is the table which stores the work notes you're looking for. Given a sys_id of an incident record, this URL will give you all journal field entries for that particular record:

/sys_journal_field_list.do?sysparm_query=name=task^element_id=<YOUR_SYS_ID>

You will notice this includes ALL journal fields (comments + work_notes + anything else), so if you just wanted work notes, you could simply add a query against element thusly:

/sys_journal_field_list.do?sysparm_query=name=task^element=work_notes^element_id=<YOUR_SYS_ID>

What this means for you!

While you can't separate a physical row into multiple logical rows in the UI, in the case of journal fields you can join your target table against the sys_journal_field table using a Database View. This deviates from your goal in that you wouldn't get a single row for all work notes, but rather an additional row for each matched work note.

Given an incident INC123 with 3 work notes, your report against the Database View would look kind of like this:

• Row 1: INT123 | markmilly | This is a test incident |
• Row 2: INT123 | | | Work note #1
• Row 3: INT123 | | | Work note #2
• Row 4: INT123 | | | Work note #3