Embedded Help planning

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Embedded Help Planning

    Planning for custom embedded help in ServiceNow is crucial for ensuring that the right content is displayed for specific UI pages and user roles. This process involves identifying key fields and values that will help tailor the embedded help topics effectively.

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    Key Features

    • Page: Identify the UI page name from the URL. Include the dollar sign if present. Search for existing pages to copy relevant content.
    • Modifier: Choose between Normal (for general users) and Setup (for Guided Setup users) content types to manage the visibility of the help topics.
    • Qualifier: Use qualifiers to customize help for frequently accessed pages, like the home.do page.
    • Role: Specify the lowest role required to view the help content, ensuring relevant users can access it based on their permissions.
    • Product: Focus on creating content for the Enterprise topic, which can be adapted from the Express topic if needed.
    • Version: Set to the current software version or select All for custom applications.
    • Domain: Indicate the applicable domain if using domain separation.
    • ServiceNow Help: This option signifies a base system topic that cannot be edited directly.
    • Content: Utilize formatting tools with specific limitations, such as no images and embedded video via source code. Avoid using highlight text to ensure readability.

    Key Outcomes

    Effective planning and implementation of embedded help allow ServiceNow customers to provide targeted assistance to users, enhancing their experience and promoting efficient navigation through the platform. Customization options enable localization for global user bases, ensuring that help content is accessible in various languages.

    Before writing custom embedded help, plan the content and note the information used in the Embedded Help form. Careful planning ensures that the topic appears for the right page and role.

    Each UI page can display embedded help, specified in the Page field as shown in the following example.

    Figure 1. Embedded help topic for the Service Catalog home page
    Page name in URL pointing to page name in form

    In planning for embedded help topics, consider how the following fields are used and note the values that you need for your custom topics.

    Page
    Identify and note the UI page name which is found in the URL when the page is displayed as shown. If the page name begins with a dollar sign, such as $mid_server_user, include the dollar sign in the page name. Before you write an embedded help topic for the page, search for the page name to locate a file you can copy.
    Modifier
    • Normal content appears for any user with the appropriate role who navigates to the page.
    • Setup content appears when the page is accessed from a link in Guided Setup.

    Many embedded help topics in the base system are for Guided Setup. You can copy Setup content and change the Modifier to Normal to quickly provide help for all users.

    Qualifier
    Identify pages you want custom help for that are used in many applications. For example the home.do page opens for every Homepage module and for many Dashboard modules. The embedded help administrator can use qualifiers to customize content for a common page in the instance.
    Role
    Specify the lowest level role to provide access to this embedded help topic. All roles that contain the role also see the content, unless another topic targeted to their role exists for the same page.

    For example, if you add embedded help content for the itil role that describes your business process for entering incidents, the itil_admin role also sees the content. If you write a different topic with the itil_admin role, the itil_admin sees that content instead of the itil content.

    Product
    Write content only for the Enterprise topic. You can copy an Express topic and change this field to Enterprise if appropriate.
    Version
    Base system content is typically specified to the current software version. If you are editing the content for a custom application or to provide information relevant to your organization business process, select All.
    Domain
    If your organization uses domain separation and customizes help content, specify the domain the content applies to.
    ServiceNow Help
    If the check box is selected, this field indicates a base system topic. You cannot edit a base system topic, but you can create a copy to add custom content.
    Content
    You can use the formatting tools to format the content. The following list describes the limitations.
    • You cannot include images in embedded help content.
    • To embed video, you must code the video information in the source code <<>> view. Video content from YouTube and Vimeo are supported.
    • To add a related information link, you must use a full URL, not a relative URL.
    • Best practice is not to use the highlight text tool, as the color may make text unreadable depending on the theme the user has selected.
    • Any changes you make to embedded help are not automatically deployed to another instance.
    • Changes to the embedded help table are not captured in update sets, update_sync=false is set intentionally.