Why does ServiceNow still use the Navigation Stack instead of native browser history stack?

[hrng]

Just curious why the platform still insists on forcing users into using a single session - the UX for power users that want to have multiple tabs open is terrible, and with all the advances in HTML5 specifications it should hardly be a technical limitation any more.

We have staff that will go into a list and pick out 5 or 6 incidents, open them in new tabs, and start working on them individually. The number 1 complaint I receive from users is that this just doesn't work, or causes unexpected results, etc. I've even had staff accidentally send correspondence to the wrong customer thanks to the navigation stack.

So, I ask, why does ServiceNow continue to force users into the outdated single-session methods of its custom navigation stack? Will native multi-tabbed browsing ever be supported?

[SanjivMeher]

I am not sure the reason they do that.

But you can try avoiding that from happening.

You can only keep 'Save' buttons on incident and move Update/Save&Exit to the context menu. That way, analyst will not click the Update button which exit them from the incident and then take them to the last incident opened by them.

You can also use incognito mode, but for that you will have to login to each session. This will keep all sessions separated.

[hrng]

Yeah we already hide the update button on most things, as it's rarely (if ever) the desired action. Update button is only really useful in a few very specific scenarios. Even then, though, the save button will often decide to redirect users back to another record when they're working with many tabs.

Appreciate the reply but yeah, not really looking for workarounds, just curious as to why such poor UX choices still persist. 🙂

[G24]

This is my number one complaint with ServiceNow also.  I am a ServiceNow evangelist, but this aspect of the product is embarrassing.

It seems like their solution is going to be to try and force everyone into a "Workspace".  In a "workspace, the user works with "tabs" within "browser tabs" instead of using browser tabs directly.  But workspaces add yet another independent UI, and extra configuration work for Admins and Developers.  So now we have the Platform UI, the Portal UI, the Mobile UI, and multiple Workspace UIs.

Most customers just want the native UI to work better.  Developers and Admins certainly do.

Stop adding layers please.

[Dylan26]

Thank you for putting this so simply. In this day and age, there's no excuse for this limitation. The navigation stack sucks for power users and developers, and with no (known) ability to effectively disable it, complaints about it are frequent and there's little-to-nothing we can do.