Feature Demo
Introduction
Streamline your workflow with the App Launcher capability by accessing all your assigned applications right from the Employee Center Pro home page. With a simple one-click action, employees can effortlessly reach their required applications. The enhanced design ensures easy navigation to recently used and favorite applications, enhancing efficiency. Administrators can further elevate user experience by promoting or featuring specific applications. What's more, the convenience extends even while browsing topic pages - for instance, effortlessly accessing the payroll app directly from the 'Compensation' topic page. Seamlessly integrated with Azure AD and Okta, this functionality can also be expanded to encompass other SSO providers. Moreover, the platform supports the flexibility of adding custom applications that are not SSO-integrated, offering a comprehensive solution tailored to your needs.
With our January 2025 release, Applications are now searchable through AI Search on the Employee Center Pro. We’ve integrated applications as out-of-the-box search sources for AI Search. A dedicated "Applications" tab now appears in search results, showcasing relevant applications for each user, simplifying access to necessary tools. Additionally, search results are personalized to display only the apps a user has access to, ensuring both security and relevance in app discovery.
Refer to product documentation on App Launcher for additional details.
For other feature deep-dives, refer to other topics covered as part of Employee Center Academy series.
FAQ's
- How is the App Launcher capability different from adding applications as external links on Employee Center? What is the benefit of using it?
App Launcher functionality integrates with the organization’s single sign-on capability to provide one-click access to applications. It eliminates the need for maintaining a separate dashboard like Okta or Azure AD, which provide a list view of all applications assigned to the employee.
The benefits of using Employee Center’s app launcher functionality include:
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- Provide contextual access to applications as employees browse for help/content: Admins can tag applications to topics based on relevancy. For example, the Payroll topic page can have an ADP application featured on it. This helps employees find related applications as they browse a topic page
- Improve access to relevant applications: Admins can feature applications for employees based on user criteria. Employees can also mark applications as favorites based on their usage. These capabilities improve access to relevant applications for employees.
Ultimately, App Launcher helps consolidate portals, while simplifying access to applications or other portals that the employee may need to use.
- Do we need Integration Hub to use the App launcher?
Yes, an Integration Hub license is required. All app launcher transactions count toward integration hub (iHub) usage, with no exemptions for identity providers like Okta or Azure.
Defining a Transaction in the App Launcher:
Each API call is considered one iHub transaction. A scheduled job runs once daily to sync applications into the ServiceNow system, making a single API call per provider (e.g., Azure or Okta), which counts as one transaction.
Additionally, for each user session (login), one API call per provider is made to retrieve user-assigned applications. The number of transactions is based on API calls—not on the number of applications returned.
- How to integrate with SSO providers other than Azure AD and Okta?
App Launcher framework allows you to integrate with other SSO vendors and sync registered applications. See Integration Hub for the availability of required spokes, actions, and license requirements.
- Can we tag applications that are not part of Single Sign-on, for example, ‘homegrown’ applications? What is the experience with these applications?
Yes. Admins can manually register applications that are not registered in SSO to give one-click access to the applications. They can define user criteria to control the visibility of these applications.
- Are applications visible as part of search results?
With our January 2025 release, Applications are now searchable through AI Search on the Employee Center Pro. We’ve integrated applications as out-of-the-box search sources for AI Search. A dedicated "Applications" tab now appears in search results, showcasing relevant applications for each user, simplifying access to necessary tools. Additionally, search results are personalized to display only the apps a user has access to, ensuring both security and relevance in app discovery.
- Can we perform analytics on app usage through App Launcher?
Yes. User activity on the App Launcher widget is pre-configured to appear as an event in the User Experience Analytics dashboard.
Learn more through our App Launcher product documentation.
Application Icon is not visible on app launcher widget ESC pro portal
@lucas batista two non-obvious things you might need to check:
1) ensure that your Web Application record has "Available for" User Criteria, for example add "Any User" there - strange, but having empty "Available for" and "Unavailable for" will skip it from being added to the widget
2) ensure that the instance of "App Launcher" widget is enabled (Active = true; checked) - this you can do with "Ctrl + <right click>" on any widget on your page, then choose "Instance in Page Editor", then select Instance of "App Launcher" (as shown on screenshot), then find "Active" checkbox down the page
