Typeahead Search widget

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Typeahead Search widget

    The Typeahead Search widget provides a predictive search experience in ServiceNow portals, displaying suggested words as users type. This system widget can be used directly or cloned and customized to fit specific business needs, enhancing user search efficiency and accuracy.

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    Instance Options Configuration

    Customers can configure the widget instance to tailor the search experience on a portal page. Key configurable options include:

    • Presentation Title: Sets the placeholder text visible before typing, guiding users on what to search.
    • Color: Determines whether the search button next to the field is filled or outlined.
    • Glyph: Allows customization of the icon displayed in the search field, with "search" as the default.
    • Size: Adjusts the font size and height, with options xs, sm, md, and lg for responsive design.
    • Behavior Limit: Controls how many typeahead or search suggestion entries appear, defaulting to 15. This setting adapts depending on whether search suggestions are enabled.
    • Contextual Search Sources: Enables limiting of search results to specific sources, such as only showing Service Catalog items when configured, ensuring relevant results for users.

    AI Search Integration

    If AI Search is enabled in your portal, additional instance options become available:

    • Search Application: Defines the search engine configuration, including limits on results and suggestions. This can be overridden at the widget level for customized behavior.
    • Search Results Configuration: Controls how results display after a search, also overridable at the widget level.
    • Disable All Suggestions: Option to turn off search suggestions entirely.
    • AI Search Source Filter: Specifies which tables or external data sources portal users can search, allowing precise control over searchable content.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    By implementing and configuring the Typeahead Search widget, customers can:

    • Improve user search experience with real-time suggestions, making searches faster and more intuitive.
    • Customize search appearance and behavior to align with portal branding and user expectations.
    • Limit search scope contextually to deliver more relevant results, reducing noise and improving efficiency.
    • Leverage AI Search capabilities for smarter, more powerful searches when enabled.

    Next Steps

    To utilize the widget effectively, customers should:

    • Create or edit portal pages using the Service Portal Designer.
    • Configure widget instances according to business needs.
    • Optionally clone the widget to create a tailored version for specific use cases.

    Predictive search feature that shows words as users type. You can use this base system widget as-is in your portal or clone it to suit your own business needs.

    Figure 1. Typeahead Search widget
    Typeahead Search widget

    Instance options

    Use the instance options to configure the Typeahead Search widget for a portal page.
    Note:
    The AI Search instance options apply only if AI Search is enabled in your portal. For more information on enabling AI Search for Service Portal, see Enable and configure AI Search in Service Portal.
    Field Description
    Presentation
    Title The name or words that appear in the search field before a user starts typing. For example, search or what are you looking for
    Color Whether the search button beside the search field is filled in or not
    glyph The icon that appears in the search field beside the widget. The search icon is the default. To use a different icon, type the name of the icon in the field, for example search-plus. For a list of icons to choose from, open the instance options for the Icon Link widget.
    Size Determines the font size and height of the widget. Choose from xs, sm, md, and lg.
    Behavior
    Limit If search suggestions is enabled, enter the number of suggestion entries you want to display. If search suggestions is disabled, enter the number of typeahead entries you want to display. The default is 15. See Enable and disable search suggestions.
    Contextual Search Sources Limit the results available in the typeahead search by only configuring specific search sources. For example, users searching in the Service Catalog only see results for the Service Catalog when that search sources is configure. For more information on contextual search, see Configure Search Sources available on a page
    AI Search
    Search Application

    Defines search experience settings for the widget, such as the search engine, search results limit, and suggestions limit. By default, the widget uses the same search application configuration as the portal, but you can override this configuration at the widget level.

    For more information on defining a search application configuration, see Defining search application configurations.
    Search Results Configuration

    Defines how search results are displayed after using the widget. By default, the widget uses the same search results configuration as the portal, but you can override this configuration at the widget level.

    For more information on defining a search results configuration, see Define a composite dataset.
    Disable All Suggestions

    Option to disable search suggestions.
    Placeholder

    Text that appears in the search box before the user enters anything.

    By default, the placeholder text is Search.
    AI Search Source Filter Content that portal users can search on, including tables in your instance or external data sources. For more information, see Defining search sources.