App Launcher
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Summary of App Launcher
App Launcher provides ServiceNow customers with a centralized, one-click access point for employees to launch all their web business applications directly from the Employee Center. It supports synchronization of applications registered in Azure AD (Microsoft Entra ID) as well as manual registration of custom non-SSO web applications. Employees can discover and open applications from the Employee Center home page widget, dynamic topic pages, and search, improving productivity by simplifying app discovery and access.
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Key Features
- SSO Integrated Apps: Automatically sync applications from Azure AD for users with SSO access. Integration with other SSO vendors is supported through Integration Hub spokes and actions.
- Custom Web Applications (Non-SSO): Manually register and configure visibility criteria for apps not managed via SSO.
- Unified App Management: Administrators can register apps, sync SSO apps, configure widget preferences, and associate apps with topics to enable contextual app launches within the Employee Center.
- User Experience Enhancements: Apps can be categorized (e.g., finance, IT), marked as featured for promotion, bookmarked as favorites by employees, and viewed in recently opened lists, facilitating easier and personalized app discovery.
- Access and Visibility Controls: Admins can define app visibility based on user roles, groups, locations, business units, and other criteria to ensure users see relevant applications only.
- Application Security: Dictionary entries for key application fields can be set to strict read-only to enhance data security within the App Launcher.
- AI Search Integration: App Launcher integrates with AI Search to improve application discovery via intelligent search navigation tabs, which can be configured separately.
Key Outcomes
- Streamlined employee access to all business applications from one interface, reducing time spent searching or logging into multiple portals.
- Improved employee productivity and satisfaction through personalized app organization and contextual access within the Employee Center.
- Centralized app management for administrators, allowing for efficient control over application registration, synchronization, visibility, and security.
- Support for both SSO and non-SSO applications ensures comprehensive coverage of enterprise business apps.
- Enhanced security and compliance by controlling application data accessibility and integrating with identity providers like Microsoft Entra ID.
App Launcher enables you to provide employees one-click access to all of their web business applications from Employee Center.
Sync all your business applications from Azure AD and non-SSO, register the custom applications manually, and enable employees to access these applications. You can access the applications from the Employee Center home page widget in context from dynamic topic pages and through search.
App Launcher improves your employee productivity by reducing effort in discovering apps and eliminating the need for using the single-use case SSO dashboards. Using application launcher with the Employee Center Pro, you can manage the following types of applications:
- SSO Integrated Apps: App Launcher offers pre-built integration with Azure AD. If you use Microsoft Entra ID as an identity and access management tool, you can automatically sync the registered applications in your Azure AD account to the App Launcher. Only applications to which the users have access in SSO, such as Microsoft Entra ID, are displayed on Employee Center. The App Launcher framework enables you to integrate with other SSO vendors and sync registered applications. See Integration Hub for the availability of the required spokes, actions, and the license requirements.
- Custom web applications (Non-SSO): Register the applications manually which are not registered in SSO. Register the apps in the Web Application table and define the user criteria to control the visibility.
SSO and non-SSO app configuration
Configure both SSO integrated Apps and Custom registered apps on the Home page widget or topic page, manage the widget preferences, and associate applications to the topics. As an administrator, you can register applications, sync available applications, and give one-click access to the applications. You can associate topics to the applications to launch useful applications right from within Employee portal.- Create a unified application launcher that can increase employee productivity.
- Configure the integration such as sync SSO-applications, register custom applications, and assign applications to users or groups.
- Assign custom applications based on the role, location, business unit, team, and other criteria.
- Define the visibility and access to applications based on the user, user group, and other criteria.
- Integrate Azure AD and sync the registered applications from connected Azure AD account.
- Associate application to topics for in-context app discovery.
- Browse applications by Favorite, Featured, categories, and Recent.
- Improve employee productivity and experience.
- App launcher is an Employee Center Pro feature.
My applications user experience and personalization
Organize applications on the App launcher for better app discovery and quick access. Enhance the user experience by simplified browsing experience using Featured, Recent, Categories, and Favorites groups. These features are
enabled by default however admins can disable the option or adjust the display preferences.
- Categorization: Admins can map the applications to a suitable category such as finance, IT, events and more. You can create categories and assign the app to one or many app categories.
- Featured: Admins can use this option to promote new or important or seasonal applications for higher visibility. Tag important applications as featured for better visibility. Featured applications have visibility preferences and appear on the top of the page despite any filters or sorting.
- Favorites: Employees can mark the applications as favorite for easy access. Bookmark the apps you use frequently for quicker access.
- Recently opened: Employees can navigate to the recently opened apps from the recently open section.
Application access and visibility
Enhance application discovery and navigation on the App launcher by configuring the access and visibility settings. Understand how access control can improve the app discovery for employees and find relevant apps that they have access to.
For more information, see Configure application visibility and access.
Application security directive changes
Enhance application security on the App launcher by configuring the following dictionary entries to Strict Read Only from .- Application ID
- App source
- Is record updated
App Launcher integration with AI search
Understand how AI Search is integrated with App launcher for better application discovery and access, see Configure search navigation tabs.Ensure you understand how to configure and enable AI search capabilities, see the following AI Search topics: