Portal Comparison

[Varsha Sharma]

I would like to understand advantages and dis-advantages; recommendation for different portals - Service Portal, Knowledge Portal, Employee Center, Employee Center Pro, Alumni Server portal. Which portal to use when and how easy or difficult is maintenance, security, coding, redundancy, performance, etc factors to consider when making desicion.

[Varsha Sharma]

@ersureshbe @Suzanne H @Community Alums I am trying to create below table for the information. Please see attached excel. Can Servicenow verify and help me with correct information? Also if we can add ESC Pro to the table and help compare then it will be good to make decision.

[Community Alums]

Hi @Varsha Sharma ,

What you have on your table is good so far and for Licensing it's the ServiceNow Account Representative whom you need to connect with who is allocated with your company.

Employee Center and Employee Center Pro functionality comparison

Functionality availability	Employee Center	Employee Center Pro
Service Catalog and Knowledge Base	Y	Y
Content Discovery: AI Search, Curated Experiences	Y	Y
Chat (Live Agent, Virtual Agent lite, Virtual Agent) Note: Full Virtual Agent capability is available with HR Pro or ITSM Pro licensing. And, VA lite is available with ITSM standard licensing.	Y	Y
Activity Center (Access tasks, to-dos, and requests) Note: Task and ticket types vary based on departments that are licensed. For example, HR tasks require HRSD Pro+ license.	Y	Y
ML-driven personalizations (ML driven Recommended for you content) Note: ML-based features require any product with a PI entitlement such as HRSD Pro, ITSM Pro, LSD, WSD.	N	Y
Content experiences (Content Automation, Campaigns)	N	Y
Content Publishing (Content Delivery)	N	Y
Enterprise search (External content)	N	Y
SSO App Launcher	N	Y
Unified Employee Profile	Y	Y
Employee Forums	N	Y
Enhanced org chart with employee profile	N	Y

In terms of technology they are both built on the service Portal foundation so nothing new there. However they come with an additional set of widgets and capabilities.

The first consideration you should make is in the tier. to compare with current capabilities we map as follows:

Employee Center = Service Portal
Employee Center Pro = Employee Service Center

For example EC will have requests, IT tasks and knowledge but with EC pro you get access to advanced capabilities such as Employee to-dos, content publishing, ML driven personalisation, Campaigns and more. it also comes with the widgets previously delivered with Employee Service Center.

Outside of capabilities there is a new design and added widgets that support an enterprise wide employee centric design philosophy. It also looks much better if you ask me 

For any customer currently using Service Portal they should consider a portal migration to EC as it is designed to provide a better user experience. if your customer is already using Employee Service Center then they are entitled to EC Pro and have foundation in place so they can instead adopt the individual widgets onto their existing portal after evaluating which ones they find to be relevant. 

[Varsha Sharma]

Thanks for your quick response to this. Can you also share the comparison and recommendation when do we use Alumni Service Center? Also will it be easier to use ESC for former employees?

[Community Alums]

Hi @Varsha Sharma ,

Did you check my Article for ARC? your doubts should be cleared : Anonymous Report Center (ARC) 

[Dan O Connor]

Hey Varsha,

If you are looking to implement a Portal UI for the first time, or for your first launch in your org I would highly recommend going with Employee Service Center.

ESC is our newest portal product that has come from feedback and desires from many of our customers using Portals over a number of years. And effectively it provides a single, unified experience for employees. 

So rather then creating portals for business units or specific areas, a single Employee Service Center can house all these services in a really nice user experience. 

Alumni portal as referenced above with a good link, is a more social style portal allowing former employees or contacts to keep in touch, and can be popular in charity/non-profit settings. It is a bit of a niche portal, if you are looking to provide services or the ability for employees to raise requests, Employee Service Center would be my recommendation.