How to delete a Comment or a Work Note from a record

Sometimes a comment or a work note containing sensitive information needs to be edited or deleted from a record.

The following steps explain how to locate the journal entry in the [sys_journal_field] table and the audit entry in the [sys_audit] table.

1. Right-click on the record and select Copy URL to Clipboard to obtain the unique sys_id of the record. For example: https://<instance name>service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=incident.do?sys_id=85befb1c4a34bb12013b216a9fd5fee8
   
   
2. Copy the sys_id. In the URL example above, the sys_id is: 85befb1c4a34bb12013b216a9fd5fee8.
   
   
3. Update the Journal Entry:
   
   1. Enter the journal entry URL + the sys_id. For example: https://<instance name>.service-now.com/sys_journal_field_list.do?sysparm_query=element_id=85befb1c4a34bb12013b216a9fd5fee8
   2. Locate the journal entry.
   3. Modify the record and update or delete the record.
      
      
4. Update the Audit Entry:
   
   1. Enter the audit entry URL + the sys_id. For example: https://<instance name>.service-now.com/sys_audit_list.do?sysparm_query=documentkey=85befb1c4a34bb12013b216a9fd5fee8
   2. Locate the audit entry.
   3. Modify the record and update or delete the record.
      
      
5. Rebuild the History Set. This is only required when you do not use direct auditing and the System Property [glide.sys.activity_using_audit_direct] is set to false (= default value (this is the value used if the System Property does not exist on the instance).
   
   1. Locate all History Set records for the item whose history needs to be rebuilt by entering the history set URL + the sys_id. For example: https://<instance name>.service-now.com/sys_history_set_list.do?sysparm_query=id=85befb1c4a34bb12013b216a9fd5fee8
   2. Click the Delete button for each History Set. This will delete the History Set, not the audit data. The History Set will be rebuilt with the corrected audit and journal information as soon as a user views the item.
      
      
6. Update the Email Entry:
   
   1. Enter the email entry URL + the sys_id. For example: https://<instance name>.service-now.com/sys_email_list.do?sysparm_query=instance=85befb1c4a34bb12013b216a9fd5fee8
   2. Locate the email entry.
   3. Modify the record and update or delete the record.

If history rebuilding is not possible on a record, it's likely that the reference is broken. While modifying a comment you shouldn't delete the old one, instead the modification should be done in both sys_journal_field and sys_audit table against the same record. Then, you need to build the sys_history_set again to load the new updated comment in the record.