Web embeddables: Overview

Harriet Frankli · Friday

Overview

Web Embeddables are configurable, standards-based web components that can be embedded on any or on a third-party website aka your organization's website to surface ServiceNow Customer Service Management (CSM) capabilities directly within that experience without requiring customers to navigate to a separate portal. Web Embeddables bring self-service functions such as case creation, case tracking, knowledge access, and service catalog browsing to wherever customers already are on your website.

Key personas:

Customers can interact with web embeddables on third party (your organization's) websites. Take a look at the video below:

Business users or administrators can configure the web embeddable web components. Take a look at the video below:

Business Value:

Seamless customer experience — Customers access self-service capabilities without leaving the organization's website. There is no redirect, no separate portal login, and no context switch.
Brand consistency — Components inherit the host website's theme and styling, ensuring the experience feels native rather than embedded.
Reusability and low-code configuration — Administrators or business users configure component behavior through a properties panel in the Web Embeddables homepage with a no code or low code configuration.
Reduced contact volume — Customers can access case status, knowledge articles, and self-service request forms directly on the website, and organizations can measurably reduce inbound agent contacts for inquiries.

Features:

Each web embeddable is a web component. The following nine web components are available:

Case Create — A cae intake form that enables customers to submit a new case directly on the website.
Case List — A real-time list of the authenticated customer's cases, including status and key details.
Case View — A full case detail view, including activity stream, attachments, and optional Playbook guidance.
Catalog Item — A service catalog request form that creates a request record and initiates fulfillment workflows.
Catalog Browse — A browsable, searchable catalog experience with quick links to popular and recent requests.
Knowledge Article View — A full-rendered knowledge article with ratings, language selection, author details, and attachments for authenticated or guest users.
Playbook Intake — A guided case submission experience driven by ServiceNow Playbooks, capturing structured details step by step.
Data Visualization — Embeddable charts (donut, semi-donut, pie, single score) built from any ServiceNow table's data.
Object List — A configurable list of records from any ServiceNow table, with support for inline editing, grouping, nesting, and actions.

Web components are organizated into Modules and Groups. Please see the below video for more information:

FAQ:

What is a module?

A module represents a website deployment context — typically an entire third-party website or a major section of one. It is the top-level container in the Web Embeddables configuration hierarchy. Key attributes set at the module level include the ServiceNow instance base URL, the external domain URL used for CORS, and the UI theme applied to all component instances within the module. Administrators create one module per website destination. Multiple modules can exist on an instance to support deploying components to different websites or domains.

What is a group?

A group is an organizational container within a module that models a page or section of the third-party website. Groups allow administrators to recreate the structure of the target website inside the Web Embeddables configuration experience, making it easier to manage which components belong to which page. Groups can be renamed, reordered, and deleted. Multiple groups can coexist within a single module.

What is a component instance?

A component instance is a saved configuration of a specific component placed at a specific location on the third-party website. For example, an organization might have three instances of the Case List component across different pages — each with different query filters, column configurations, and titles. Each is an independent component instance within its group.

What authentication methods are supported for Web Embeddables?

Two authentication methods are supported:

OIDC (OpenID Connect) — Recommended for organizations whose website already uses an OIDC-compatible identity provider (IdP). The same IdP is configured on the ServiceNow instance, and users are automatically authenticated when they log into the website.
Non-OIDC / JWT — For organizations whose website does not use OIDC. A JSON Web Token (JWT) is generated by the third-party website and passed to ServiceNow via the authCallback function in the global code init() call.

Both methods use the authCallback parameter in the init() call, which is a function that returns a valid authentication token for the currently logged-in user.

Install and Plugins:

What must be installed to enable Web Embeddables on a ServiceNow instance?

Two plugins must be activated:

Web Components for Customers — installs the prebuilt web components.
Web Embeddable Core (sn_embeddable_core) — installs the core framework, admin roles, and embed scaffolding.

Both plugins install any required dependent plugins automatically during activation. Navigation: All > System Applications > All Available Applications > All.

What system properties are installed with Web Embeddables?

Two system properties are relevant:

glide.uxf.lib.embeddables.enabled — Must be set to true. Enables the rendering of web components and assets in an embeddables context. Components will not render on third-party websites without this property enabled.
sn_cb_experiences.uib.enable.cb — Enables the Component Builder experience in UI Builder, which is required for creating and editing custom components.

Both properties are accessible in the System Properties [sys_properties] table. Navigate using sys_properties.list in the navigation filter.

Links:

Configure Web embeddables