Configuring Service Portal

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 2 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 Configuring Service Portal

    ServiceNow's Service Portal enables you to create a self-service site for employees or customers. The portal acts as the central framework that organizes content such as knowledge bases, catalogs, and homepages. Configuration involves setting up the portal’s URL, branding, pages, widgets, search capabilities, and access control to deliver an effective user experience.

    Show full answer Show less

    Key Features

    • Portal Setup: You can create a new portal or modify an existing base system portal to define site content, URL extensions, header menus, and branding.
    • Branding Configuration: The Branding Editor allows real-time styling and theme updates with immediate visual feedback. For advanced customization, CSS can be applied, but this does not support live preview. Brand changes made via the editor override other theme customizations.
    • Page and Widget Management: Pages control content layout and user experience, including mobile responsiveness. You can create new pages or update system default pages, leveraging base system widgets or creating custom ones to populate page content.
    • Search Configuration: Configure search functionality by creating search sources that pull data from one or multiple tables or external sites. Enabling AI Search enhances query intelligence to help users find answers quickly.
    • Access Management: Control portal access through public or role-based restrictions, user login and single sign-on setups, multi-factor authentication, and advanced user criteria for granular permissions on pages and widgets.
    • Upgrade Considerations: After upgrading Service Portal from a previous release, additional configuration steps may be necessary to leverage new or updated features.

    Practical Impact for ServiceNow Customers

    By following these configuration steps, you can tailor a Service Portal that aligns with your organization's branding and content strategy, ensures efficient search and navigation, and enforces appropriate access controls. This results in a seamless, secure, and personalized portal experience for your users, whether internal employees or external customers.

    Plan and set up a self-service portal for your employees or customers.

    Configuration overview

    The following list is a high-level overview of the workflow to get started configuring a portal. However, there may be use cases where performing these steps in a different order is preferred.

    1. Upgrade Service Portal

      If you upgraded from a previous release, you might need to perform additional tasks to take advantage of new or updated functionality in Service Portal.

    2. Create a new portal or update a base system portal

      A portal is the engine that houses all the references to content for your site. The portal record defines the URL extension for a site, as well as things like the knowledge base, catalog, and homepage. You can also use the portal record to define the header menu and the portal branding. You can create a new portal or update an existing base system portal to suit your needs.

    3. Configure portal branding

      With the Branding Editor, you can configure the styles and theme of your portal in a view with real-time updates. You can see how your portal appears to users with the click of a button. More advanced users still have the option of creating CSS style sheets for the portal theme. However, they won't take advantage of the real-time update that the Branding Editor provides. Changes made in the Branding Editor or to specific components of the portal (such as a widget or a page container) override any customizations made to the theme. If you need more customization than what the Branding Editor can provide, see Create a portal theme.

    4. Create new pages or update base system pages and configure widgets

      Pages are the centerpiece of the end-user experience. Page definitions not only control the layout of the content, they craft the experience for the user. Pages also help define mobile responsiveness, which is a key component in the user experience. Use any existing base system pages as an example for your own creation or create new pages from scratch.

      Widgets are what define the content of your pages. You can use the base system widgets provided with Service Portal to get started configuring pages.

    5. Configure search in a portal

      Search data displays within a widget on the search page. To make data searchable from a portal, create a search source that fetches data from a single table within your instance, from multiple tables, or from an external site. Enable AI Search to take advantage of intelligent query features and quickly find the answers they need.

    6. Manage access to a portal

      Manage who can access your portal by making pages public, configuring user logins and single sign-on, limiting page access by role, or enabling multi-factor authentication. You can also use advanced user criteria for access to pages, widgets, and more.

    Common portal configurations

    Refer to this video for examples of common configurations for portals.