How to communicate release or feature to all user community through servicenow

[Servicenow lear]

hello All,

We are automating a lot of catalogs but people still are not using them and going through worng channels .

I wanted to know what would be a way where in we can highlight our releases with kb on portal (EC std) ? 

does anyone done that ? should we put a banner , its not that user friendly .    Any suggestions so that user start using the catalogs

[Abhishek Pal]

Hi @Servicenow lear ,

Since you are using Employee Center Standard, I would avoid creating a custom banner just to promote new catalog items.

For EC Standard, I would use the existing Employee Center discovery capabilities instead.

Recommended approach:

1. Associate every new catalog item with the correct Unified Taxonomy topic.

For example:

IT
-> Software
-> New Software Request

or:

IT
-> Hardware
-> Laptop Replacement

This is important because Employee Center uses taxonomy topics to organize and surface catalog items.

2. Mark important/new catalog items as Featured Content.

For a newly released catalog item, associate it with the appropriate topic and mark it as Featured.

This makes the item appear prominently at the top of the relevant topic page instead of expecting users to discover it manually.

A good lifecycle would be:

New catalog item released
-> Mark as Featured
-> Keep featured for a few weeks
-> Remove Featured status after adoption increases

3. Create a short Knowledge Article for major releases.

For example:

Title:
New: Request Software Access through Employee Center

Content:

- What has changed
- Who should use the new request
- When to use it
- What old process/channel should no longer be used
- Link to the catalog item

Associate the KB article with the same taxonomy topic and, if it is an important release, mark that article as Featured as well.

This gives users both:

"What should I do?"
and
"Where should I request it?"

4. Use Quick Links for high-value catalog items.

For heavily used/new processes, you can also expose a Quick Link that takes the employee directly to the catalog item.

I would use this selectively rather than adding 20-30 links to the home page.

5. Review your catalog item search experience.

If users continue going through incorrect channels, also verify:

- Catalog item Name
- Short description
- Search keywords
- Taxonomy association
- User Criteria
- Availability in Employee Center

Use terminology employees actually search for.

For example, users may search:

VPN Access

while the technical catalog item is named:

Remote Connectivity Service Enablement

A technically correct catalog name can still create poor adoption.

6. Measure adoption.

After releasing the new item, monitor:

- Number of requests submitted
- Search terms being used
- Zero-result searches
- Existing/manual channel volume
- Abandonment where available

This helps determine whether the issue is awareness, searchability, taxonomy, or the catalog experience itself.

Recommended communication model:

New service/catalog item
-> Correct taxonomy topic
-> Featured Content
-> Supporting KB article
-> Optional Quick Link
-> Monitor adoption
-> Remove Featured status after launch period

If your organization later needs capabilities such as:

- Targeted banners
- News feeds
- Scheduled communications
- Audience targeting
- Campaigns
- Multi-channel employee communications

then Employee Center Pro is the capability to evaluate because Content Publishing and campaigns are designed specifically for that use case.

So for EC Standard, I would first maximize the OOB taxonomy and Featured Content capabilities rather than developing a custom banner.

Hope this helps!

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If it resolves your issue, please Accept it as Solution.

Kind Regards,
Abhishek Pal