Using Guided Tours in ServiceNow: Best Practices and Pitfalls

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Guided Tours in ServiceNow are a powerful way to onboard users, train staff, and introduce new features—all without leaving the platform. They provide step-by-step walkthroughs directly within the UI, helping users learn by doing rather than reading documentation.
Whether you're rolling out a new module, customizing a workspace, or training new agents, Guided Tours can dramatically improve adoption and reduce support requests.

What Are Guided Tours?
Guided Tours are interactive overlays that walk users through specific tasks or features in ServiceNow. They can highlight fields, buttons, menus, and even require user input before moving to the next step.
Tours can be created for:

• Catalog item submission
• Incident creation
• Workspace navigation
• Form completion
• Custom app onboarding

Best Practices

• Keep It Short and Focused Limit each tour to 5–7 steps. Long tours can overwhelm users and reduce engagement.
• Use Clear, Actionable Language Each step should tell the user exactly what to do or what they’re seeing.
• Target the Right Audience Use conditions to show tours only to relevant roles or users (e.g., new hires, fulfillers).
• Test Across Roles and Devices Make sure the tour works in different views (Next Experience, Service Portal) and doesn’t break on mobile.
• Track Usage and Feedback Use analytics to see who’s completing tours and where users drop off.

Common Pitfalls

• Overloading with Information Don’t try to teach everything in one tour. Break complex processes into multiple, focused tours.
• Hardcoding UI Elements If the UI changes, your tour may break. Use stable selectors and test after updates.
• Ignoring Accessibility Ensure tours are usable with screen readers and keyboard navigation.
• Not Updating Tours Post-Release If your process or UI changes, outdated tours can confuse users more than help them.
• Forgetting Localization If your instance supports multiple languages, make sure your tours do too.

Final Thoughts

Guided Tours are a low-effort, high-impact way to improve user experience in ServiceNow. When designed thoughtfully, they reduce training time, increase feature adoption, and empower users to navigate the platform confidently.