Configuring Service Portal

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated February 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Configuring Service Portal

    This guide provides instructions for planning and setting up a self-service portal for your employees or customers using ServiceNow. It outlines essential steps to configure a portal effectively, which may be adjusted based on specific use cases.

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    Key Features

    • Upgrade Service Portal: After upgrading from a previous release, additional tasks may be necessary to utilize new features.
    • Create or Update a Portal: Define the URL extension, knowledge base, catalog, and homepage through the portal record. Customize the header menu and branding as needed.
    • Configure Portal Branding: Utilize the Branding Editor for real-time styling and theme updates, or create CSS stylesheets for advanced customizations.
    • Create and Update Pages: Design pages that enhance user experience and ensure mobile responsiveness. Use existing base system pages as templates or create new ones.
    • Configure Widgets: Widgets determine the content displayed on pages, leveraging base system widgets for configuration.
    • Search Configuration: Create search sources for data from tables or external sites, and enable AI Search for enhanced querying capabilities.
    • Manage Access: Control portal access by adjusting page visibility, user logins, roles, and enabling multi-factor authentication.

    Key Outcomes

    By following the configuration steps, ServiceNow customers can create a tailored self-service portal that enhances user experience, improves accessibility, and optimizes content delivery. This setup allows for effective management of user access and supports intelligent search functionalities, leading to increased efficiency in service delivery.

    Plan and set up a self-service portal for your employees or customers.

    Configuration overview

    The following list is a high-level overview of the workflow to get started configuring a portal. However, there may be use cases where performing these steps in a different order is preferred.

    1. Upgrade Service Portal

      If you upgraded from a previous release, you might need to perform additional tasks to take advantage of new or updated functionality in Service Portal.

    2. Create a new portal or update a base system portal

      A portal is the engine that houses all the references to content for your site. The portal record defines the URL extension for a site, as well as things like the knowledge base, catalog, and homepage. You can also use the portal record to define the header menu and the portal branding. You can create a new portal or update an existing base system portal to suit your needs.

    3. Configure portal branding

      With the Branding Editor, you can configure the styles and theme of your portal in a view with real-time updates. You can see how your portal appears to users with the click of a button. More advanced users still have the option of creating CSS style sheets for the portal theme. However, they won't take advantage of the real-time update that the Branding Editor provides. Changes made in the Branding Editor or to specific components of the portal (such as a widget or a page container) override any customizations made to the theme. If you need more customization than what the Branding Editor can provide, see Create a portal theme.

    4. Create new pages or update base system pages and configure widgets

      Pages are the centerpiece of the end-user experience. Page definitions not only control the layout of the content, they craft the experience for the user. Pages also help define mobile responsiveness, which is a key component in the user experience. Use any existing base system pages as an example for your own creation or create new pages from scratch.

      Widgets are what define the content of your pages. You can use the base system widgets provided with Service Portal to get started configuring pages.

    5. Configure search in a portal

      Search data displays within a widget on the search page. To make data searchable from a portal, create a search source that fetches data from a single table within your instance, from multiple tables, or from an external site. Enable AI Search to take advantage of intelligent query features and quickly find the answers they need.

    6. Manage access to a portal

      Manage who can access your portal by making pages public, configuring user logins and single sign-on, limiting page access by role, or enabling multi-factor authentication. You can also use advanced user criteria for access to pages, widgets, and more.

    Common portal configurations

    Refer to this video for examples of common configurations for portals.