How to show AI Search, Taxonomies and VA Chat option in MESP portal in Now Mobile App?

[krishna129]

We are currently able to see these capabilities—such as the AI Search bar, taxonomy-driven topics, and VA chat—natively available in the ESC experience. However, when rendering portal pages using MESP, these elements are not visible in the same way.
Has anyone been able to surface or replicate these ESC-like features within a MESP portal on Now Mobile? If so, could you share the approach or any supported configuration that worked?

[Mainee]

This is a good question. Moving the desktop Employee Service Portal experience to the Mobile Employee Service Portal is always a bit of a challenge. Our first thought is usually to try and copy everything exactly. Putting all those desktop features onto a phone screen usually just confuses the user and hurts how many people use it. From a design point of view I have found that a simple and clean approach works well for the MESP. Optimising use of space and keeping the design simple and easy to update is the way to go. Here is how I usually handle bringing those features to the MESP:

Make the AI Search feature the hero element: On mobile people just want to search and get what they need. Use the Mobile App Builder to put the AI Search bar at the top of the MESP homepage. Give it optimum space so it is the thing people see when they open the MESP. To maintain a unified experience, configure a global search icon in the top navigation header for all secondary pages.

Use blocks for categories: Long lists of menus are hard to navigate on a phone. Best practice says setting up a clean, icon based grid representing your top level parent categories to serve as primary entry points. When a user taps one of these top level icons, it should route them to a secondary List Applet that displays the deeper sub topics, utilising progressive disclosure to keep the mobile interface uncluttered while ensuring your architecture remains clean, modular, and safe from breaking during future ServiceNow updates.

Anchor the VA chat as a Floating Action Button (FAB): You do not want the chatbot consuming valuable screen real estate. Functioning as a persistent FAB (bottom right), it is always accessible on demand without cluttering the primary interface.
One tip: Before you spend time setting up the backend it really helps to quickly lay out the basic design in a tool like Figma. It only takes a minutes but it saves a lot of trouble by letting you see how the design will actually look on the MESP. I hope this helps you plan your strategy, for the MESP.