Exploring new experiences
Summarize
Summary of Exploring new experiences
Onboarding modals in ServiceNow® are interactive, wizard-like overlays designed to introduce users to new experiences and applications within the Next Experience interface. They provide contextual guidance at critical moments using diverse content types such as text, images, videos, and interactive questions. These modals adapt visually to your instance’s theme (dark, light, or coral), maintaining a consistent user experience. They can be triggered automatically at first login, upon application access, or programmatically via custom business logic, allowing precise control over user onboarding.
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Key Features
- Step-by-step guidance: Walks users through new features with clear, sequenced steps.
- Multi-content support: Supports text, images, YouTube/Vimeo videos, and interactive questions to engage users effectively.
- Theme-aware design: Ensures modals visually integrate with your instance’s selected theme.
- Flexible triggering: Automatic triggers based on user actions or programmatic triggers via scripts and events.
- Customizable structure: Administrators can define modal content, steps, and launch mechanisms tailored to specific user journeys.
Benefits
- For users: Reduces onboarding time through guided, easy-to-follow instructions.
- For all users: Delivers a consistent and visually cohesive onboarding experience.
- For administrators: Provides customizable and flexible deployment options to target specific user groups and scenarios.
Implementation Guidance
To implement onboarding modals effectively, begin by reviewing default modals available under Adoption Services to understand baseline functionality. Plan your content by mapping the user journey and identifying key learning points. Use the Create Guidance interface to define modal properties, then build stepwise guidance using varied layouts (text, video, image, questions). Finally, configure how modals launch using automatic triggers or custom client scripts and event dispatching.
User Journey
Users typically encounter onboarding modals triggered by login, application access, or custom rules. The modal overlays present content in a navigable sequence, allowing users to proceed at their own pace. Interactive steps collect user input which can influence content flow or analytics. Upon completion, the system records the interaction to avoid redundant displays unless explicitly reset.
Onboarding modals introduce you to new ServiceNow® experiences through wizard-like interfaces in Next Experience. Learn about capabilities, benefits, and implementation approaches for effective user onboarding.
Overview to Onboarding modals
Onboarding modals are part of ServiceNow® Adoption Services suite, designed to introduce users to new experiences and applications through interactive, guided workflows. These modals appear as overlay windows that walk users through features, providing contextual help at critical moments.
Onboarding modals support multiple content types including text descriptions, images, video links (YouTube and Vimeo), and interactive questions. The modal interface adapts to your instance's theme (dark, light, or coral), ensuring visual consistency across the user experience.
Modals can be triggered automatically on first login, when accessing specific applications, or programmatically through custom business logic, giving you complete control over when and how users receive guidance.
Benefits
Onboarding modals provide benefits across different user populations:
| Benefit | Feature | Users |
|---|---|---|
| Reduce onboarding time | Step-by-step guided modals | All users |
| Consistent user experience | Theme-aware interfaces | All users |
| Flexible deployment | Programmatic triggers | Administrators |
| Customizable content | Multiple content types | Administrators |
Get Started
Begin using onboarding modals by following this implementation sequence:
- Review default modals: Navigate to to examine the pre-configured onboarding modal included with Next Experience. Test the user experience to understand baseline functionality.
- Plan your content: Map out the user journey for your application or feature. Identify key concepts users need to learn, optimal sequence for information delivery, and decision points requiring user input.
- Create guidance structure: Navigate to . Configure the guidance form with appropriate name, type (Modal), roles, and application scope.
- Build guidance steps: Add individual steps using the Help Guidance Steps related list. Choose layouts (Text, Video, Image and Text, Image and Question, or Question) and define the presentation order.
- Configure launch mechanism: Implement the programmatic trigger using UIB client scripts and event dispatching, or leverage automatic triggers based on application access patterns.
User Journey
The typical user journey with onboarding modals follows this pattern:
Initial trigger: User logs in for the first time, accesses a new application, or triggers a custom business rule. The system evaluates whether to display an onboarding modal based on user profile, role assignments, and previous interaction history.
Modal presentation: The onboarding modal appears as an overlay, presenting the first guidance step. Users see the title, content (text, image, or video), and navigation controls (Next, Previous, or custom action buttons).
Progressive disclosure: Users navigate through subsequent steps at their own pace.
Interactive elements: Question-based steps collect user input through radio buttons (single answer) or checkboxes (multiple answers). Responses can inform subsequent content or be recorded for analytics purposes.
Completion: Upon reaching the final step, users receive a completion confirmation and return to the application. The system records the interaction, preventing duplicate displays unless the modal is explicitly reset.