Understanding Service Portal
Summarize
Summary of Understanding Service Portal
Service Portal offers a modular user interface framework within the ServiceNow platform that enables quick and easy creation of application portals and dashboards. It empowers both developers and non-technical administrators to build engaging user experiences that facilitate employee adoption of enterprise applications. The portal supports a visual configuration layer while fully integrating with the platform UI, ensuring flexibility in portal management.
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How to Use Service Portal
Service Portal configuration is primarily managed via the Service Portal Configuration page accessible through the application navigator. This page provides an intuitive, real-time preview environment where customers can assemble portal components such as themes, pages, and widgets. All configurations made here are synchronized with the underlying platform UI tables, allowing users to choose their preferred interface for editing.
Who Can Use Service Portal
- Users with limited coding skills: Can configure portals using the visual tools without deep platform knowledge.
- ServiceNow experts: Can perform portal setup, URL redirects, and manage portal components within the platform UI.
- Developers: Handle advanced customizations and create new widgets using AngularJS and Twitter Bootstrap.
All users configuring portals must have the admin or spadmin role.
Basic Concepts
- Themes: Define the overall look and feel of the portal, though can be overridden by other styles.
- Pages: Containers for portal content without direct linkage to portal records.
- Widgets: Modular components built using HTML, CSS, client/server scripts, and AngularJS directives that define portal functionality.
Understanding the underlying data structures and how Service Portal leverages platform content (e.g., knowledge articles, catalog items) is critical before building your portal.
Before You Begin
- Identify the target audience and purpose of the portal.
- Determine the content to include and the desired mobile experience.
- Plan which platform applications to integrate into the portal.
- Assess how customized your service catalog is, noting that client scripts and UI policies must use the mobile GlideForm API to function properly in Service Portal.
Additional Resources and Technologies
Service Portal is built on familiar technologies such as Twitter Bootstrap CSS 3, Flexbox, and AngularJS. Familiarity with these can aid in customization and configuration. The portal consists of a framework (APIs, Angular services, directives) and a portal (collection of pages linked by IDs).
Navigation and Content Management
Portals and pages within Service Portal are navigable via URLs. Service Portal offers a modern, streamlined alternative to the older Content Management System (CMS) without duplicating its functionality. Customers with complex CMS implementations, especially extensive Service Catalog customizations, should plan for a transition period when moving to Service Portal.
Service Portal provides a modular user interface framework for quick and easy building of application portals and dashboards for the platform. It helps developers and non‑technical administrators create attractive and engaging user experiences that drive employee adoption of critical enterprise applications.
How to use Service Portal
Service Portal is an application included in the platform UI, however it includes a visual layer for you to do most of your configuration. In the application navigator, navigate to to view the configuration page.
The Service Portal configuration page provides a unique, intuitive way of viewing all the pieces of your portal. You can see how they interact with one another. The configuration page allows you to take advantage of a real-time preview, while configuring portal settings. Use each of the tiles on the configuration homepage to assemble the different components of your portal.
If you prefer the platform layout for configuring Service Portal, you still have the option of creating your portal components within the platform UI. The two options are not separate. Everything you create in the Service Portal configuration page also appears in a table in the platform UI.
Who can use Service Portal
- Limited coding: Service Portal was designed so that even users with limited coding ability or knowledge of the platform UI could set up a portal.
- ServiceNow Experts: Users with a knowledge of the ServiceNow platform can create portals, set up URL redirects, and view all the components of the portal in a table. Most portal configuration takes place in the Service Portal configuration page, but in specific circumstances, Service Portal administrators may need to perform additional configuration directly within the platform.
- Developers: Advanced customizations and new widget creation are tasks for a developer or someone who understands AngularJS and Twitter bootstrap.
Basic concepts
- Themes: Themes define the look and feel of the whole portal, but can be overridden by other style configurations.
- Pages: Pages control where and how you store portal content. Pages have no defined relationship to portal records, they simply exist.
- Widgets: Components in Service Portal are called widgets. You can use HTML templates, CSS, client scripts, server scripts, and any JavaScript dependencies to define what a widget does. From an AngularJS standpoint, widgets are essentially a super set of an Angular directive.
- Most of the data in Service Portal is managed in different locations throughout the system.
For example, if you're building a knowledge portal, the data exists in Service Portal, but the knowledge articles are authored and managed in the Knowledge application. The same is true for any other type of content you plan to leverage. Take time to understand the table structure of data in Service Portal.
Before you begin
- Who are you building your site for and why?
- What information do you want to include in your site?
- What do you want the mobile experience to be for users?
- Which platform applications do you plan to use in your portal?
You can use parts of the platform, such as knowledge articles and catalog items, as the content for your portal.
For example, if you're building a knowledge portal, the content displays in Service Portal, but the knowledge articles are authored and managed in the Knowledge application. The same is true for any other type of content you plan to leverage. It is important to take time to understand the table structure of data to become acquainted with content.
- How customized is your service catalog? Catalog client scripts and UI policies only work in Service Portal if they use the mobile GlideForm API, so you may need to make some changes.