Next Experience theme for Now Mobile

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 4 minutes to read
    • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Next Experience theme for Now Mobile

    The Next Experience theme in Now Mobile offers a next-generation, intuitive, and personalized user experience designed to boost productivity, engagement, and insight discovery across the ServiceNow AI Platform. It delivers a consistent, accessible, and unified design experience across both web and mobile applications, specifically aligning the MESP portal theme with the Next Experience design.

    Show full answer Show less

    Key Features

    • New layouts, screens, and card designs optimized for accessibility and intuitive use.
    • Consistent user experience between web and mobile via the updated MESP portal theme.
    • Configuration option: setting glide.ui.polaris.experience to true enables new color variables for UI rules, card templates, and icons, with fallback hex codes if disabled.
    • Enhanced search and discovery capabilities for content and people, with AI Search as the default from the Utah release.
    • Improved accessibility through new input form screens replacing UI parameters.
    • Content sections converted to record sections to display items as cards on mobile views.
    • MESP portal records are now editable, allowing administrators to apply custom themes for a unified mobile and web experience.

    Upgrade Considerations

    AI Search

    Starting with Utah, AI Search is the default search engine on Now Mobile. Existing customers retain their current search engine post-upgrade until the system property snmesearch.searchengine is set.

    MESP (Webviews)

    • If no branding is applied and Next Experience is enabled, the new theme auto-applies on the MESP portal record.
    • If branding is applied, the new theme does not apply regardless of Next Experience settings.
    • Manual update of the MESP record is needed when upgrading from Tokyo to Vancouver depending on opt-in or opt-out settings for Next Experience.

    Now Mobile Native Applications

    • Applications compatible with Utah (e.g., Now Mobile, Webviews for mobile, Search configurations for mobile, Tasks for mobile) get Next Experience installed automatically upon upgrade.
    • For apps compatible with Utah, San Diego, and Tokyo, Next Experience changes require manual uptake scripts post-upgrade or running revert fix scripts if changes are not desired.
    • Specific fix scripts are provided to revert or uptake Next Experience changes for Employee Center, Employee Profile, Content Publishing, Search Configurations, and Now Mobile apps. These require manual execution with the runManually=true parameter.

    Practical Impact for ServiceNow Customers

    By enabling the Next Experience theme, customers can provide a modern, accessible, and seamless user experience across mobile and web platforms, improving user engagement and productivity through enhanced design and AI-driven search capabilities. Administrators should carefully plan upgrades, especially when moving from earlier releases, to ensure theme and search configurations align with their branding and user experience goals. Manual steps may be necessary to apply or revert Next Experience changes depending on application compatibility and upgrade paths.

    Next Experience delivers a next generation, intuitive, personalized experience to drive productivity, improve engagement, and surface insights across the ServiceNow AI Platform.

    You can configure Next Experience on Now Mobile.
    • Provide a better accessible Next Experience on Now Mobile.
    • Offer consistent experiences across web and Now Mobile.
    • Provide a unified design experience across applications.

    Summary of enhancements

    The following list provides a quick summary of the improvements as part of Next Experience.
    • Use the new layout, screens, and card designs for accessibility and intuitive experience.
    • Provide a consistent experience on web and mobile with the updated MESP portal theme that aligns with the next experience theme.
    • Set the value of glide.ui.polaris.experience to true to enable the new color variables. A fallback color hex code is used when the new experience is not enabled.
    • Use the color variables for UI rules, card templates, and icons.
    • Enhance the search and discovery of the content and people.
    • Improve accessibility with the new input form screens for functions instead of UI parameters.
    • Convert the Content section to the Record section (sys_sg_item_section) to enable the display of each item as a card (mobile view)​.
    • Make the MESP portal record editable. Admin can now configure and apply the custom theme for MESP portal to provide a unified experience across native mobile and MESP.

    Enable AI Search upgrade considerations

    From Utah, AI Search is the default search engine on Now Mobile.

    For existing customers, when you upgrade to Utah, you continue to use your existing search engine for Now Mobile as it was before the upgrade.
    • Glide fix runs before the plugin upgrade where the current search engine is stored in a system property sn_me_search.search_engine.
    • After plugin upgrade, another glide fix runs to set the value of search engine to sn_me_search.search_engine property value, provided this value is not empty.

    MESP (Webviews) upgrade considerations

    From Utah, Next Experience is the new theme on the MESP. For the existing customers, when you upgrade to Utah, the theme adoption works in the following manner:
    • When you have not branded the Now Mobile app and enable the Next Experience option, the new theme applies automatically on the MESP portal record.
    • When you have not branded the Now Mobile app and do not turn on the Next Experience option, the new theme is not applicable on the MESP portal record.
    • When you have branded the Now Mobile app; irrespective of the turning on or off the Next Experience option, the new theme is not applicable on the MESP portal record.
      Table 1. MESP (Webviews) upgrade scenario descriptions
      Upgrade scenario Description
      If you are upgrading from Tokyo to Vancouver, when the glide.ui.next_experience.opt_out and the glide.ui.polaris.experience are set to true Update the MESP record manually to use the Next Experience theme.
      If you are upgrading from Tokyo to Vancouver, when the glide.ui.next_experience.opt_out and the glide.ui.polaris.experience are set to false Update the MESP record manually to use the Next Experience theme.

    Now Mobile native upgrade considerations

    Here are the Now Mobile upgrade considerations for various Employee Center Applications. When you make changes at the mapping level, the latest changes are not available out-of-the-box.
    • Apps compatible with Utah: Now Mobile, Webviews for mobile, Search configurations for mobile, and Tasks for mobile.
    • Apps compatible with Utah, San Diego, and Tokyo family releases: Employee Center, Employee Center Core, Employee Profile, and Content Publishing.
    Table 2. Now Mobile native upgrade considerations table
    Upgrade scenario Description
    For apps compatible with Utah When you upgrade to Utah, Next Experience is installed without any additional steps.
    For apps compatible with Utah San Diego and Tokyo, with Next Experience changes installed and upgraded to Utah For pre-Utah, Next Experience changes are not applied.
    • Use the glide fix to automatically revert Next Experience changes.
    • After the instance is upgraded to Utah, you can manually run the uptake scripts for each app to uptake Next Experience changes.
    For apps compatible with Utah San Diego and Tokyo, without Next Experience changes installed and upgraded to Utah When you upgrade to Utah, Next Experience is installed without any additional steps.
    Run the following fix scripts manually by setting the runManually=true to revert Next Experience changes for each application.
    Table 3. Next Experience revert fix script description table
    Fix script Application
    Mobile Revert Next Exp - Cont Pub Content Publishing
    Mobile Revert Next Exp - EC Employee Center
    Mobile Revert Next Exp - EC Core Employee Center Core
    Mobile Revert Next Exp - EP Employee Profile
    Mobile Revert Next Exp - Now Mobile Now Mobile
    Mobile Revert Next Exp - NowMobileSearch Search Configurations for mobile

    Run the following fix scripts manually by setting the runManually=true to uptake Next Experience changes for each application.

    Table 4. Next Experience uptake fix script descriptions table
    Fix script Application
    Mobile Next Exp - Cont Pub Content Publishing
    Mobile Next Exp - EC Employee Center
    Mobile Next Exp - EC Core Employee Center Core
    Mobile Next Exp - EP Employee Profile