Feature/Preserving System Fields During Updates

Server-Side Components/Background Scripts/Update fields by preserving system fields/README.md

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+# Update fields while preserving system fields (Background Script)
+
+This background script pattern demonstrates how to update user editable fields on a record while preserving system managed fields (such as sys_created_by, sys_created_on, sys_updated_by, sys_updated_on, and sys_mod_count) and avoiding unintended side effects.
+
+## Purpose
+
+When programmatically updating records you may want to:
+- Update a subset of fields (business fields) while leaving system fields untouched.
+- Preserve created/updated metadata when performing a migration or bulk update in a safe way.
+
+This snippet shows a conservative approach: copy only allowed fields from a source object, avoid writing system fields, and use GlideRecord's update operations safely.
+
+## Behavior
+
+1. Initializes a GlideRecord object for a specified table.
+2. Applies a query condition to filter which records should be updated.
+3. Iterates through matching records using a while (gr.next()) loop.
+4. Temporarily disables:
+    - System field updates (sys_updated_by, sys_updated_on)
+    - Business rules, flows, and workflows
+5. Sets new field values using setValue() for both normal and reference fields.
+6. Saves the updated records with update().
+
+
+## Important notes and options
+
+- Do NOT set or copy fields that start with `sys_` (for example: `sys_created_by`, `sys_created_on`, `sys_updated_on`, `sys_mod_count`). These are system-controlled and writing them directly can lead to audit and integrity issues.
+- To prevent side effects from business rules or workflows, you can call `gr.setWorkflow(false)` and `gr.autoSysFields(false)` 
+- When running bulk updates, batch the records and monitor system performance. Use indexes on query fields and limit the scope of updates.
+
+
+

Server-Side Components/Background Scripts/Update fields by preserving system fields/Update fields by preserving system fields.js

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+var gr=new GlideRecord('<table_name>');
+gr.addQuery('<query condition>');
+gr.query();
+while(gr.next()){
+// Prevent system fields from being updated
+  gr.autoSysFields(false);
+// Disable business rules and workflows
+  gr.setWorkflow(false);
+// Update fields as needed
+  gr.setValue('<field backend name>', '<value to be set>');
+  gr.setValue('<reference field backend name>', '<value to be set>');
+  gr.update();
+}