Clone out of the box service portal?

[VJ4]

Hello,

Is it recommended that we create a duplicate of the OOTB Service Portal in Helsinki and customise the duplicate version and keep the original one as is? I vaguely remember this practice is advocated for ESS development work and wondered if it's the case with the new SP and if there's any pitfalls of either approach?

Thanks in advance.

[VJ4]

Thanks guys for your replies. I've seen arguments for both approaches and wanted to clarify -hoping more developers share their thoughts/experience on this.

[reginabautista]

Hi Viraj, I had a similar question awhile back and got an answer here .

Hope this helps.

Regina

[VJ4]

Thanks, Regina - I saw your post when I was raising mine and wanted to clarify the pros and cons of both approaches. I've seen developers advocating both views and wonder if cloning is a better option?

Thanks.

[reginabautista]

Hi Viraj,

This XML will allow you create an exact copy of the OOTB Page (not the entire Service Portal), this is basically anything after the header menu. I find this easy as I don't need to layout the page from scratch. The OOTB widgets are still intact in the page but are not editable. So you would still have to clone them and replace the ootb widgets via page editor or page designer. This is a good start if you are like me who has very limited knowledge in web development.

You have to be aware also that if you are moving from CMS to Service Portal that there are pros   and cons. Pros mostly nice UI as it was built using the latest web technologies such as Bootstrap and uses JS and Angular framework. Cons, some of the functionalities in the native are not working. I had to create an iframe to render my forms/list views (which is a pain sometimes specially with layouting). But it is the only option I have because we are using Process Flow chevrons and tabs on most of our forms which are not working in the Form widget. Also UI Macros will not work on the portal as Jelly would no longer work. You would have to create new widgets for them. The add to cart was also not available but I believe this has been brought back in the later patch which I have yet to explore. Your Catalog Client scripts will no longer work if you don't have the UI Type Set to "Both". So make sure this is set in each and every Catalog item you would like to render on the Service Portal.

Cons aside, we would still continue using the Service Portal as it is far better than CMS. No need to learn Jelly We just need to address all existing transition issues. Baby steps..

Hope this helps

Regina

[VJ4]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, Regina.

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough with my query but I wanted to know if there's any advantage of creating a duplicate of the OOB Service Portal and customise that instead of customising the OOB SP. Although we've never used the ESS portal before I've seen the option to duplicate the OOB version so you can keep it unmodified for references but SN hasn't included that option in the official release of Helsinki and wanted to confirm what's the best practice?

Many thanks for your replies!