January 2025 enhancements to Employee Center (Pro)

[SmritiGupta]

We are excited to announce the January 2025 release for Employee Center and related applications. This release includes enhancements to Employee Center, Employee Center Pro, ServiceNow add-in for Microsoft 365, and SharePoint Search Online Connector. 

Below are the key new features and enhancements made in January 2025 store release: 

1. Employee Center  
   1. Notifications for Employee Center 
   2. Search for Guided Self-Service topic via AI search 
   3. Other topic page and Advanced Portal Navigation (APN) enhancements 
2. Employee Center Pro 
   1. Appointment Booking 
   2. Company Events 
   3. Portal shortcuts to author News & Content Experiences Widget (CEW) banner 
   4. Search for Applications via AI search 
3. ServiceNow Add-in for Microsoft 365 
4. External Content Connectors 

Note: While most of our Jan 2025 store releases are backward compatible with Washington & Xanadu, some features in this update depend on specific family releases. Please review the details of each feature carefully to ensure compatibility. 

Download the latest Employee Center (version 36.0.7) and Employee Center Pro (version 34.0.2) from ServiceNow Store to get access to the features and enhancements listed below. See release notes for details around the latest enhancements.  

I.> 1.  Notifications for Employee Center 

We’re excited to introduce the new Notifications feature for Employee Centre, providing employees with timely and relevant updates in one central location. As the portal continues to integrate more departments, this new capability ensures that employees can easily stay informed about all their work-related activities, tasks, comments, or approvals. See details on the feature below: 

• Notifications available on portal: Notifications on portal are accessible via a bell icon in the Employee Center portal header. Clicking the bell icon opens the notification tray for employees to view all their notifications. Admins have the flexibility to configure how notifications appear, including the option to display the bell icon with or without a notification count (the default is to show the count), and whether it reflects the number of unread or unseen notifications, by default it is configured to show count for unseen notifications. Additionally, admins can also configure the duration for which the unread notifications are shown, by default it is set to display unread notifications for up to 60 days.  

• Admins can create and configure notifications content: Admins can easily create and manage portal notification content, including notification text with parameterized inputs, icons, and more. They can define a notification to be shown as critical or reminder and more. They can also group notifications for better clarity (e.g., "Joe and 3 others have commented..."). Additionally, admins can configure read/unread and seen/unseen indicators, ensuring a more organized and efficient notification experience for employees. We have also shipped pre-configured notifications for incidents, requests, HR tasks, news, and more.  

• Employees can manage their notifications: We have included a range of filters to help employees easily manage their alerts. By default, notifications can be filtered via standard filters such as Critical or Reminder, and once an employee marks sets any notifications for reminders, they will appear under these filters. Admins can also configure additional filters to categorize notifications based on activity type, such as comments, requests, or tasks. Employees can take global actions, like Mark All as Read, to quickly clear their notifications. Additionally, individual notification actions allow employees to Remind Me, Mark as Read, or Clear Notification, providing greater flexibility in managing their alerts. 

How to get access? 

License & Family release compatibility – The Notifications capability is available for all ServiceNow customers who are on Yokohama family release.  

Plugins required – The Notifications capability is delivered via a new plugin called Notifications for Employee Center application (version 1.0.2) and Employee Center (version 36.0.7).  

Technical Details- Admins can configure the Notifications feature by reviewing and updating out-of-the-box settings, such as badging behaviour and notification content. They can also define their own set of notification category filters to tailor the experience to their organization’s needs. 

Refer to Notifications for Employee Center product documentation for additional details. 

2.  Search for Guided Self-Service topic via AI Search 

With our January 2025 release, Guided Self-Service topics are now searchable through AI Search on the Employee Center. We’ve integrated Guided Self-Service processes as out-of-the-box search sources for AI Search. On the AI Search page, relevant results are displayed based on matches with the title or description of a Guided Self-Service process. Clicking on a result directly opens the Q&A experience for the corresponding topic. 

 How to get access?  

License & family release compatibility - Guided Self-Service capability is available for all ServiceNow customers who have activated Employee Center application. Guided Self-Service capability is only compatible with Xanadu patch 3 family release. 

Plugins required – Guided Self-Service capability is delivered via a new plugin called Guided Self-Service in Employee Center application (version 3.0.2) and Employee Center (version 36.0.7). The Guided Self-Service in Employee Center has a dependency on Process Automation Designer plugin, which must be installed in the instance.  

Technical details - AI Search must be enabled, as Zing search is not supported for searching Guided Self-Service topics. Additionally, search filter facets are not available for Guided Self-Service tab on the AI search results page. 

Refer to Guided Self-Service product documentation for additional details. To learn more about the Guided Self-Service capability, review the recent Employee Center Academy session for Guided Self-Service.  

3.  Other Topic page and Advanced Portal Navigation (APN) enhancements  

 

3(a).  Favouriting Topic Pages  

To enhance the user experience, we’ve introduced the ability for employees to favourite and quickly access frequently used topic pages. By clicking the favourite/heart icon on topic pages, employees can save important pages with a single click. These favourited pages will be displayed in the existing Favourites widget for easy access. This functionality is supported by a new "Topic Pages" content type, along with a corresponding filter category. Employees can also favourite topic pages directly from the homepage’s popular topics widget. This update ensures a more efficient and personalized search experience, making it easier for employees to find and navigate the content they need. 

 3(b).  Topic page search enhancements 

We’ve enhanced the search experience to deliver more relevant results by ranking topic page search results based on user clicks, improving accuracy over time. This means that as users interact with search results, the system learns and adapts, making future searches even more precise.  

Additionally, organizations with multiple portals can now configure the topic page search experience for each portal, ensuring content is tailored to meet the specific needs of different user groups. There’s no impact on single-portal customers, and even for those with multiple portals, the existing functionality remains unchanged since this configuration is optional. 

 3(c).  Auto sync and guided tours for Advanced Portal Navigation 

To help organizations create the ideal content browsing experience for their portal, we introduced Advanced Portal Navigation (APN) in our February 2023 release. Building on that foundation, the November 2023 release expanded the APN module, giving portal admins greater flexibility in designing top navigation experiences that goes beyond a unified taxonomy. The January 2025 release also includes key improvements to enhance admin efficiency in APN configuration. 

• The Advanced Portal Navigation module allows admins to configure the Mega Menu, the main navigation on their Employee Center portal, as per their needs. Admins can either import menu items from the existing taxonomy and Service Portal menu or start with a blank list to manually add their preferred items. Previously, after creating a topic, admins had to manually sync the hierarchy at each child level to ensure topics were imported into the APN record. With this release, admins can now sync taxonomy and menu changes across all three levels of the APN hierarchy with a single click of the 'Sync Hierarchy' button at the root level, eliminating the need for updates at each individual level. The process runs asynchronously, and admins are notified by email and as a notification on the configuration page once syncing is complete.  

• Additionally, a guided tour feature has been added to provide admins with a clear, step-by-step explanation of APN, helping them understand its functionality and how to configure it effectively. 

How to get access? 

License & family release compatibility - The topic pages and APN enhancements are available for all Employee Center customers and backward compatible with Washington patch 9, Xanadu patch 4 & Yokohama family release.  

Plugins required – The topic pages and APN enhancements are available by upgrading the Employee Center (version 36.0.7).  

Technical details – This functionality is auto-enable upon upgrade of the relevant plugins. 

Refer to Advanced Portal Navigation product documentation for additional details. 

 II.> 1. Appointment Booking (requires Employee Center Pro) 

We’re thrilled to introduce the new unified Appointment Booking feature, now available on both the Employee Centre Pro Portal and EC Pro Kiosk. This feature allows employees to easily schedule HR appointments, whether virtually or in person, and combines the existing ITSM walk-up experience with the convenience of booking dedicated time with HR. By streamlining HR interactions, this functionality makes it easier for all employees—whether deskless or desk-based—to get the support they need without delays. It also helps HR teams manage resources more effectively, ensuring smoother, more efficient assistance for everyone involved. See the details below: 

• Appointment Booking for Employee Center Pro- Employees can quickly schedule HR appointments from the Employee Centre Pro homepage via the Schedule Appointment link in the Human Resources menu or the Quick Links widget. Upcoming appointments will also appear under Appointments in My Active Items for easy tracking. 

• Appointment Booking for EC Pro Kiosk– Employees can easily book HR appointments from the EC Pro Kiosk homepage using the Schedule Appointment quick link under the Get Support widget. Upcoming appointments are conveniently displayed on the homepage widget, with a link to view all scheduled appointments, making it simple to manage and track appointments at a glance.  

• Unified Appointment booking and Walkup experience - Organizations using both ITSM walk-up and Appointment Booking can now streamline the process with a single quick link for both experiences. Employees will be prompted to choose between scheduling an appointment or joining the walk-up queue. For those using only Appointment Booking, the intermediate step can be bypassed, directing employees straight to the booking page. Additionally, appointment list is unified to display both services, with a single Appointments activity appearing in My Active Items for easy access. 

• Scheduling an appointment– During the scheduling process, employees can select an appointment category, which helps broadly define the topic, especially in multi-department setups like HR or IT services. They’ll then choose the specific reason for the appointment. Admins can configure these reasons to be available based on location, user criteria, or specific topics, allowing for customized access across different employee groups. Employees can choose virtual or in-person sessions, view available time slots in their local time zone, and provide extra details, including contact preferences, with the option to automatically update their profile. 

• View appointment details– After scheduling an appointment, employees can view all their appointments in one place and filter by category or status—upcoming, cancelled, or completed. They can also cancel or reschedule appointments as needed, with detailed information available via the appointment details page. 

How to get access? 

License & family release compatibility - The Appointment Booking capability requires Employee Center Pro license and HRSD Pro or above license. It is only available with Yokohama family release version. 

Plugins required – The Appointment Booking capability requires ITSM Walk-up plugin. Besides that, it requires the Employee Center Pro (version 34.0.2). 

Technical details – Admins will first need to opt into the functionality and then configure location queues for appointment booking, ensuring that all location queues used in the new experience are linked to a topic within the portal’s taxonomy. Regarding display of agent availability for appointments, currently we are not integrated with Microsoft Outlook and the agent availability is configured within the ITSM walk up configuration. 

Refer to Appointment Booking product documentation for additional details.

2. Company Events (requires Employee Center Pro) 

Keeping employees informed is key to boosting engagement, especially when it comes to important company events like live town halls, webinars, and social gatherings. With this release, we are excited to launch an end-to-end solution for publishing company events in Employee Center. Now important company events such as town halls, live webinars, social events can be published and advertised effectively just like news articles. 

• Company Events on News feed widgets - Company events can be published like news articles on the news centre or other news feed widgets, such as the homepage. Each event will have a company event details page with key info (headline, timing, location, calendar link) and contextual content via a rich content widget. Both company events and news articles can appear on news feed widgets, with options to display all, only news, or only events. 

• Company Events content type - This update introduces a new "Company Event" content type, using the same publishing tools as News content for a more seamless authoring experience. It is separate from the existing ‘Events’ content type, which is used for publishing generic events like upcoming holidays.  

• Publishing company events - Events like live sessions and town halls can now be easily created using the drag-and-drop Rich Content Editor. Built on the News article architecture, publishing events is similar to publishing news articles, with options for social engagement, categories, content templates, and the ability to feature events in various locations like the homepage or featured news widget. 

• Performance optimization - To optimize page load performance during high traffic, the company event details page features a simplified menu with only "Home," omitting the rich mega menu with taxonomy topic pages that take longer to load based on user criteria. The Home menu takes the users back to the full portal experience. The event experience and menu automatically adjusts based on content properties when the target audience exceeds a set threshold, or content admins can manually optimize event pages expected to have high traffic. 

How to get access? 

License & family release compatibility - The Company Events feature is available for Employee Center Pro customers and backward compatible with Washington patch 9, Xanadu patch 4 & Yokohama family release.  

Plugins required – The Company Events capability requires Employee Center Pro license and is available by upgrading the Employee Center Pro (version 34.0.2). 

Technical details – The "Company Events” is available as a new content type under content publishing and can be published like any other content publishing item. In terms of user roles, the user must have a content admin role (sn_cd.content_admin) or content manager role (sn_cd.content_manager). 

Refer to Company Events product documentation for additional details.

 3. Portal shortcuts to author News and Content Experiences Widget (CEW) banner (requires Employee Center Pro) 

Building on our August 2024 release, this update expands front-end authoring shortcuts to include News articles and Content Experiences Widget (CEW) banners, streamlining content creation and editing directly from the portal. Available to Content Managers and Admins with the appropriate permissions based on Content Ownership properties, the new visual shortcuts enable quick content management. 

• Content Experiences Widget (CEW) banner - The "Author View" toggle on the homepage grants access to add or edit content directly from the portal. This toggle will also appear on other portal pages where the Content Experiences Widget is present. When a content author clicks the "add content" or "edit content" icons above these widgets, the Content Library opens in a new tab, providing full configuration options. Content authors can either add a styled content or a banner via the add content icon. After saving, the content is automatically targeted to the page and location from which it was launched. 

• News articles – The "Author View" toggle is available on the news article details page, enabling content authors to edit published articles directly from the front-end portal. When a content author clicks the "edit content" icon above the article, the Content Library opens in a new tab, offering full configuration options. Once saved, changes are automatically reflected on the page where the article is published. Since company events are built on the same architecture as news articles, the portal shortcuts also allow content authors to edit company events directly, just like news articles. 

How to get access? 

License & family release compatibility - The portal shortcuts are available for Employee Center Pro customers and backward compatible with Washington patch 9, Xanadu patch 4 & Yokohama family release.  

Plugins required – The portal shortcuts to author news and CEW banner enhancement are available by upgrading the Employee Center Pro (version 34.0.2). 

Technical details – The portal shortcuts are now available for CEW banner on homepage and News articles.  The option to toggle to “author mode” is activated only if the logged in user is permitted to add/edit the content based on Content Ownership properties set on the Properties page within Content Publishing. Please note that this functionality acts as a shortcut to simply the back-end navigation, the content authoring does not occur within the portal.  In terms of user roles, the user must have a content admin role (sn_cd.content_admin) or content manager role (sn_cd.content_manager). 

Refer to Create and edit content from portal widgets product documentation for additional details. 

4. Search for Applications via AI Search (requires Employee Center Pro) 

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. 

How to get access? 

License & family release compatibility - The App launcher is available for Employee Center Pro customers and backward compatible with Washington patch 9, Xanadu patch 4 & Yokohama family release.  

Plugins required – The Applications search is available by upgrading the Employee Center Pro (version 34.0.2). 

Technical details – This functionality is auto-enable upon upgrade of the relevant plugin for organizations who have configured and deployed App Launcher for their employees. 

Refer to App Launcher product documentation for additional details.

III.> ServiceNow add-in for Microsoft 365  

With the Jan 2025 release, we’ve significantly enhanced the functionality of the ServiceNow Add-In for Microsoft 365 plugin to help customers drive greater self-service for employees directly from Outlook. Previously, the add-in allowed limited interaction with messages in read mode only. Now employees can engage more effectively with both messages and appointments, in both read and compose modes. See the details of the enhancements below: 

• Catalog Forms Integration - You can now bring any catalog form into Outlook's Employee Center for seamless use. 

• Flexible Form Handling - Beyond catalog forms, you can load any form for insert or update operations. 

• Configurable Field Mapping - Admins can map fields from emails (such as subject and body) to corresponding form fields, ensuring automatic population of relevant data. 

• Support for Links - Users can navigate to any link directly from the add-in. 

The new capabilities enable employees to resolve issues and complete requests more efficiently, directly within their email workflow.  

How to get access? 

License & family release compatibility - The ServiceNow add-in for Microsoft 365 is available for all Employee Center customers with Yokohama family release. The customers also need to be licensed for Microsoft Outlook.  

Plugins required – This enhancement is available by upgrading the ServiceNow add-in for Microsoft 365 plugin (version 7.1.2).  

Technical details – Admin configuration will be required to set up the following for customers: they will need to configure the manifest for the add-in and can choose to load one of the following options: Catalog form, Platform form detail view, or navigate to any link. Additionally, advanced mapping for populating form fields will be available, but please note that attachments from Messages and Appointments cannot be mapped in this release. 

Refer to ServiceNow Add-in for Microsoft 365 product documentation for additional details. 

IV.> External Content Connectors  

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of our new External Content Connectors, designed to enhance your search capabilities by seamlessly integrating external enterprise repositories. These AI-powered connectors allow for secure crawling, indexing, and searching of external content, making your search experience more efficient and streamlined. 

As part of this update, we are deprecating the SharePoint Online Search Connector and replacing it with a new, Raytion-based connector. This new version simplifies the setup process from over 50 steps to just 3, offering faster and more intuitive integration.  

In addition to SharePoint, we're introducing out-of-the-box connectors for Confluence, with even more connectors coming soon. 

How to get access? 

License & family release compatibility – The new External Content Connectors are available for all customers with Workflow Data Fabric (formerly Integration Hub Pro, Automation Engine Pro, or Automation Engine Enterprise), starting with the Yokohama family release on January 30th. For customers with IHub Starter V4 (Which is bundled along with Employee Center Pro), access to the External Content Connectors will be available with the March release on March 12th. 

Plugins required – This enhancement is available by downloading the External Content Connectors (version 1.0.9) application.  

Technical details – Downloading the requisite plugins will install the External Content Admin UI along with all available connectors. Once installed, simply navigate to External Content Connectors > External Content Admin Home to set up your connector. 

Refer to External Content Connectors product documentation for additional details.

What to know what lies ahead? Join us for Employee Center Confidential Roadmap Webinars to stay tuned on the latest advancements and insights on how to make the most of our enhanced features and capabilities.