Look Up Record step
Summarize
Summary of Look Up Record step
The Look Up Record step in Workflow Studio enables ServiceNow users to retrieve a record from any table by specifying conditions. It is designed to streamline workflows by allowing dynamic or static filtering of records based on criteria defined within the step, supporting automation and integration scenarios.
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Key Features
- Table Selection: Choose any table to search within.
- Conditions: Define static conditions using the condition builder or support dynamic conditions by accepting a Conditions input. Conditions must be properly formatted, especially when referencing Sys ID values for reference fields.
- Ordering: Specify how to sort multiple matching records by selecting a field and sort order (ascending/descending).
- Handling Multiple Matches: Decide whether to return only the first matching record or fail the step if more than one record is found.
- Error Handling: Configure whether the flow should fail if no record is found or continue running. Additionally, customize error evaluation behavior for handling step failures.
Outputs
- Record: The record that matches the conditions.
- Table: The name of the table from which the record was retrieved.
- Status: Indicates success (1) or failure (0) in finding a record.
- Error Message: Provides details if a record could not be found (populated only on failure).
- Action Error Evaluation: Options to control the flow’s behavior if this step fails, such as continuing or triggering error handling.
Practical Use for ServiceNow Customers
This step is particularly useful for automating workflows that require retrieving specific records based on dynamic or predefined criteria. Properly configuring conditions—especially when dealing with reference fields—is critical to ensure accurate lookups. Customers can use the outputs downstream in their workflows for decision-making or further automation steps. The error and multiple-record handling capabilities provide control over flow robustness and behavior under different scenarios.
Look up a record from any table based on defined conditions.
Roles and availability
Available as an Workflow Studio action step. Users with the action_designer role can create a custom action with one or more action steps.
Fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Table | Select a table from the list. |
| Conditions | Set static or dynamic conditions to filter records. To define a static condition applied each time the action runs, define the conditions with the condition builder. To enable flow designers to dynamically apply conditions, define an input of type Conditions and drag-and-drop the input data pill into the Conditions field. When building a condition that looks up the value of a reference field, use a data pill that explicitly provides the Sys ID value. Ensure the condition has the format [reference field][is][Reference type data pill->Sys ID]. For example, both the Change and Incident tables contain a reference field to the User table. To look up change records where the requester is the caller from an incident record, create the condition [Requested by][is][Trigger->incident record->Caller->Sys ID]. [Requested by][is][action->incident->Caller->Sys ID] where incident is an input variable for an incident record. |
| Order by | Determines how to sort results when more than one record matches the defined conditions. Select the field you want to use to sort results. |
| Sort Type | Select whether to sort alphabetically in ascending or descending order. |
| If multiple records are found | Determines what is returned if more than one record matches
the defined conditions.
|
| Don't fail on error | Determines whether to fail the flow if a record can't be found. |
Outputs
These outputs appear in the Data panel. You can use them as inputs elsewhere in your flow.
- Record
- Data type:
Record
Record found based on the conditions you specified in the Conditions input.
- Table
- Data type:
Table
Name of the table associated with the returned record.
- Status
- Data type:
Choice
1 if a record was found successfully, and 0 if there was an error.
- Error Message
- Data type:
String
Message containing details about why the record could not be found.
Note:This output's value is only populated if the Status output's value is 0.
Action error evaluation
- If this step fails
- Data type: Choice
Option to continue running the next step or go to error evaluation. To use the step status code or message for a custom action error condition, see Action error evaluation.