question Knowledge Base & Category widgets not visible for snc_external user in Service Portal in Community Central forum

Knowledge Base & Category widgets not visible for snc_external user in Service Portal

kallurirajg — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 11:40:18 GMT

Hi Team,

I am working on a Service Portal where we are exposing an External Knowledge Base to external users (snc_external).

Here is the current behavior:

As internal user →
- Knowledge articles are visible
- Knowledge Bases widget (left side) is visible
- Category widget is visible
As snc_external user →
- Knowledge articles are visible
- Knowledge Bases widget is NOT visible
- Category widget is NOT visible

There is no error shown in UI except that the widgets do not render. Earlier I was seeing “Security constraints prevent access” but after configuring User Criteria properly, articles are now accessible.

What I Have Already Done

Created a separate External Knowledge Base
Configured User Criteria (Can Read) for snc_external
Verified that articles are:
- Published
- Belong to External KB
Cloned the OOB Knowledge Base and Category widgets
Made the portal/page public
Confirmed articles load correctly via KNext Knowledge Result widget

However, the left-side Knowledge Base and Category facet widgets are still not displayed for snc_external, while they work correctly for internal users.

Re: Knowledge Base & Category widgets not visible for snc_external user in Service Portal

Tanushree Maiti — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 11:49:58 GMT

Hi @kallurirajg

The widget "KB Category Page" was not configured for Public access. (Public=false) for External user.

Ref KB Article : Knowledge Categories are not displayed for external (non-authenticated) users on a custom Service Portal page

Refer : Service Portal widget does not load for external users

Re: Knowledge Base & Category widgets not visible for snc_external user in Service Portal

kallurirajg — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 12:06:35 GMT

Hi @Tanushree Maiti ,
We have did that as well.

Re: Knowledge Base & Category widgets not visible for snc_external user in Service Portal

Tanushree Maiti — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 13:05:13 GMT

Hi @kallurirajg

Did you try this steps as per ServiceNow Documentation . If not, please try once.

Enable public or external users to view knowledge articles from the Knowledge Management Service Portal.

Action Description

Make knowledge service portal pages visible to public users	On the Page form, select the Public check box. Click Update.
Make knowledge service portal pages visible to external users	On the Page form, in the Roles field, click the edit user roles icon . On the Roles form, move snc_external from the available roles in the Available column to the Selected column. On the Roles form, click Done. On the Page form, click Update.

2. Manage access to the articles for the Knowledge Management Service Portal pages.

Action Description

Enable access to the knowledge base for public.	After you set the page to public as described in step 3, ensure that the Cannot Read and Can Read user criteria are not set and the glide.knowman.block_access_with_no_user_criteria property is set to false for the knowledge bases you want to give access to public users.
Enable access to the knowledge base for external users.	After you add the snc_external role to the page as described in step 3, ensure that external users have read access to the knowledge bases for which you want to give access.

Ref: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/servicenow-platform/knowledge-management/make-knowledge-visible-to-public.html?contentId=_TqJZ9iSUMfaGt~ioSdHmg

question Knowledge Base &amp; Category widgets not visible for snc_external user in Service Portal in Community Central forum

Knowledge Base & Category widgets not visible for snc_external user in Service Portal

What I Have Already Done

Re: Knowledge Base & Category widgets not visible for snc_external user in Service Portal

Re: Knowledge Base & Category widgets not visible for snc_external user in Service Portal

Re: Knowledge Base & Category widgets not visible for snc_external user in Service Portal

question Knowledge Base & Category widgets not visible for snc_external user in Service Portal in Community Central forum