--- title: Configuring the form layout description: Administrators or users with the personalize\_form role can configure the form and related list layout.Configure form layout to change what appears on the form. You can perform tasks like changing what fields are visible, embedding lists, and adding sections and annotations.You can configure related lists to appear on forms and in hierarchical lists.Highlight form elements by displaying blocks of colored text or separators between form elements.Users can toggle annotations on a form in Core UI . The glide.ui.show\_annotations user preference controls the visibility of annotations for each user.Create sections on forms to help group related fields together.Change the place where fields split on a form by moving the split section indicators.Tabbed forms offer a useful way to make forms and related lists take up less space by reducing the scrolling that must be done to navigate the form.You can embed lists within a form. When a list is embedded in a form, any changes made to the contents of the list are saved when the form is saved.You can configure the indicator for customer updates, which are changes that update sets, scripts, service catalog items, and other configuration tables track.Add a chart to a form to show your users graphical data related to the form. For example, you could show an incident SLA-related chart on the Incident form so your users can see how well service level agreements are being met. locale: en-US canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/platform-administration/configure-form-layout.html release: australia topic_type: concept last_updated: "2026-03-12" reading_time_minutes: 8 breadcrumb: [Configure, Form administration, Forms, fields, and lists, Configure core features, Administer the ServiceNow AI Platform] --- # Configuring the form layout Administrators or users with the personalize\_form role can configure the form and related list layout. **Important:** Try configuring your forms with Form Builder instead. Form Builder has all of the Form Designer and Form Layout options. It also has other robust features that help you configure each aspect of the form. For more information, see [Accessing Form Builder](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/application-development/access-form-builder.md). ## Show or hide fields on a form Configure form layout to change what appears on the form. You can perform tasks like changing what fields are visible, embedding lists, and adding sections and annotations. ### Before you begin Role required: personalize\_form ### Procedure 1. Navigate to a form. 2. Select the form context menu icon \(\[Omitted image "ContextMenu.png"\] Alt text: Context menu icon\) and select **Configure** > **Form Layout**. 3. Move the fields that you want to be visible from the Available list to the Selected list, and reorder them as needed within the Selected list. Available items that appear in green followed by a plus \(+\) sign represent related tables. To access fields on these tables, use dot-walking. \[Omitted image "ConfigureFormScreen.png"\] Alt text: Configure the form In Core UI, Form Layout is not responsible for the order of the Additional Comments and Work Notes fields. For more information on how to determine the order of these fields, see [Customize activities](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/platform-administration/c_ActivityFormatter.md). 4. Select **Save**. **Warning:** Do not add the same field to more than one section of a form unless the field displays read-only data. Having two or more instances of an editable field can cause data loss and prevent the proper functioning of UI and data policies. ### What to do next Through form configuration, you can also add new fields to the form, which creates columns to the table that underlies the form. See [Add and customize a field in a table](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/platform-administration/t_CreatingNewFields.md) for more information. ## Add a related list to a form You can configure related lists to appear on forms and in hierarchical lists. ### Before you begin Role required: personalize\_form ### About this task Related lists display records in another table that have a relationship with the current record. ### Procedure 1. Navigate to a form. 2. Select the form context menu icon \(\[Omitted image "list-control-menu.png"\] Alt text: Context menu icon\), and select **Configure** > **Related Lists**. 3. Move the related list you want to display from the Available list to the Related list. 4. Select **Save**. Related lists appear at the bottom of the form. ## Add an annotation to a form Highlight form elements by displaying blocks of colored text or separators between form elements. ### Before you begin Role required: personalize\_form ### Procedure 1. Navigate to a form. 2. Select the form context menu icon \(\[Omitted image "list-control-menu.png"\] Alt text: Context menu icon\) and select **Configure** > **Form Layout**. 3. Under **Form view and section**, select a section. 4. Move **\* Annotation** from the Available list to the Selected list. The Annotation Details section displays. \[Omitted image "AnnotationDetails.png"\] Alt text: Annotation details 5. In the Selected list, move the **\* Annotation** item above the field you want to annotate. 6. In the Annotation Details section, select the type of annotation. The available types of annotations include **Info Box Blue**, **Info Box Red**, **Line Separator** \(any text you add appears beneath the line\), **Section Details**, **Section Separator**, and **Text**. \[Omitted image "form-annotations.png"\] Alt text: Form annotation types 7. Select either **Plain Text** or **HTML** for the data type, and enter the annotation in the text box. All valid HTML tags are supported. For example, select the **Text** annotation type, the **HTML** data type, and enter `Select the primary location:`. The text appears red on the form. 8. Select **Save**. ## Toggle annotations Users can toggle annotations on a form in Core UI . The **glide.ui.show\_annotations** user preference controls the visibility of annotations for each user. ### Before you begin Role required: none ### Procedure 1. Navigate to a form. 2. Select the more options icon \(\[Omitted image "IconUI16MoreOptions.png"\] Alt text: More options icon\) to see the annotations icon. The icon is light gray and cannot be toggled when no annotations are available. **Related topics** [User preferences](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/platform-user-interface/c_UserPreferences.md) ## Create a form section Create sections on forms to help group related fields together. ### Before you begin Role required: form\_admin ### About this task Users can expand or collapse form sections to show or hide the fields they need. If you have tabs enabled, each form section appears on a separate tab. The default Change Request form is an example of a form with multiple sections as shown in the following image. \[Omitted image "ChangeFormSections.png"\] Alt text: Change request form sections listed in tabs ### Procedure 1. Navigate to a form. 2. Select the form context menu icon \(\[Omitted image "ContextMenu.png"\] Alt text: Context menu icon\) and select **Configure** > **Form Layout**. 3. In the **Form view and section** area \(below the Available list\), select **New...** from the **Section** list. \[Omitted image "new-form-section.png"\] Alt text: The Form view and section area with the New... option highlighted. 4. In the **Section caption** field, enter a title for the new section, and then select **OK**. 5. Select a form section name and use the up or down arrow to change the section order. **Note:** The caption for the first section on the form becomes the form title. 6. Add fields to the new section by moving fields from the Available list to the Selected list. 7. Select **Save**. The new section appears on the form with the fields you selected. If you do not add any fields to a section, the section stays empty. If you want to delete the form section later, do the following: 1. Navigate to **System UI** > **Form Sections**. 2. Filter for the table that contains the section you want to delete. For example, the Incident table. The name of the form section to be deleted is displayed in the **Caption** field. 3. Select the check box beside the form section to delete, and then select **Delete** from the **Actions on selected rows** menu. 4. Select **OK** to confirm the deletion. **Related topics** [Configure items on forms or in lists using a slushbucket](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/platform-user-interface/t_UseSlushbuckets.md) ## Move form splits Change the place where fields split on a form by moving the split section indicators. ### Before you begin Role required: admin ### Procedure 1. Navigate to a form. 2. Select the form context menu icon \(\[Omitted image "list-control-menu.png"\] Alt text: Form context menu icon\) and select **Configure** > **Form Layout**. 3. Within the Selected list, move any of the following split section indicators using the up and down arrows: - **\|- begin\_split -\|** - **\|- split -\|** - **\|- end\_split -\|** 4. Select **Save**. ## Display tabbed forms Tabbed forms offer a useful way to make forms and related lists take up less space by reducing the scrolling that must be done to navigate the form. ### Before you begin Role required: personalize\_form ### About this task \[Omitted image "TabbedForms.png"\] Alt text: Change request with tabbed forms Form sections and related lists are tabbed separately, each with their own tab line. A user always sees the first form section. All sections after that can be tabbed. Tabbed forms are enabled by default for new instances. A system user preference with the name **tabbed.forms** specifies whether the tabbed interface is used by default for all users. Users can change this preference as described in this procedure. ### Procedure 1. Select the **User Menu \(\[Omitted image "pol-user-menu.png"\] Alt text: User menu icon\)** > **Preferences** > **Display** 2. Adjust the **Organize form sections and related lists into tabs in classic forms** toggle switch to turn the preference on or off. 3. Close the dialog box. **Related topics** [User preferences](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/platform-user-interface/c_UserPreferences.md) ## Embed a list within a form You can embed lists within a form. When a list is embedded in a form, any changes made to the contents of the list are saved when the form is saved. ### Before you begin Role required: personalize\_form ### About this task This allows the embedded list to be treated just like another element on the form. In addition, users can create records in the list view. After a row is added to the list, double-click any cell in the list to edit its value. You can add the same lists to a form as embedded lists or as related lists, depending on the path selected in the form context menu. You can also modify embedded list controls, such as the name of the related list and the roles required to create records in the embedded list. ### Procedure 1. Select a record from the list. 2. Right-click the form header and select **Configure** > **Form Layout**. The slushbucket shows the available fields and the lists that can be embedded in the form. Lists appear in red at the bottom of the **Available** list. 3. Select a list and move it to the **Selected** column. 4. Use the up and down arrow buttons to position the list in the form. 5. Click **Save**. Lists adjust to fit the frames of the adjacent fields. \[Omitted image "ListEmbeddedInAForm.png"\] Alt text: An embedded list of approvers on the Change Request form **Related topics** [Configure list control settings for the list editor](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/platform-administration/list-administration/t_ConfigListEditorControlSettings.md) ## Configure customer updates indicator You can configure the indicator for customer updates, which are changes that update sets, scripts, service catalog items, and other configuration tables track. ### Before you begin Role required: admin ### About this task The customer updates indicator icon \(\[Omitted image "CustomerUpdateIndicator.png"\] Alt text: Customer updates indicator icon\) may appear on the header of forms that have customer updates. Clicking the customer updates indicator opens the update set records for the item. You can configure this indicator to appear for all or for specific administrators using the **owned\_by\_indicator.form** user preference. ### Procedure 1. Navigate to **All** > **User Administration** > **User Preferences**. 2. Perform one of the following actions.
**Enable the indicator for all administrators** Set the **owned\_by\_indicator.form** preference to **true**.
**Enable the indicator for an individual administrator** 1. Make sure the **owned\_by\_indicator.form** system user preference is set to **false**. 2. Create a user preference with the following values: - **Name:** `owned_by_indicator.form` - **User:** Select the administrator for which to enable the preference. - **Value:** `true`
## Add a chart to a form Add a chart to a form to show your users graphical data related to the form. For example, you could show an incident SLA-related chart on the Incident form so your users can see how well service level agreements are being met. ### Before you begin Role required: personalize\_form ### About this task **Note:** The following report types are not supported on forms: List, Pivot, Multilevel Pivot, Calendar, and Single Score. ### Procedure 1. Navigate to **All** > **System UI** > **Forms**. 2. Select the form you want to configure. 3. Click the form context menu icon \(\[Omitted image "list-control-menu.png"\] Alt text: Form context menu icon\) and select **Configure** > **Form Layout**. 4. Using the slushbucket, select **\* Chart**. 5. Enter a **Label** in the chart details. 6. Click **Save** to return to the form. 7. Click **Configure chart**. 8. Select a chart in the **Report** field and configure other options as desired. 9. Click **Update**.