Domain separation and Sidebar
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Summary of Domain separation and Sidebar
Domain separation for Sidebar in ServiceNow enables organizations to logically segregate data, processes, and administrative tasks into distinct domains, controlling user access and visibility per domain. This separation is essential for instances serving multiple tenants or business units, ensuring data privacy and operational independence within a single ServiceNow instance.
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To leverage domain separation with Sidebar, it must be enabled in instances configured with a parent-child domain hierarchy. Sidebar discussions are domain-separated based on the underlying task or interaction record, meaning users can only view or participate in Sidebar discussions for records accessible within their domain.
Key Features
- Domain-aware application properties: Sidebar respects domain boundaries for data and processes.
- Configurable activation per domain: Sidebar can be turned on or off individually for each domain without special configuration.
- Parent-child domain hierarchy support: Required for domain separation to function properly with Sidebar.
- Business logic customization: The instance owner can configure tenant-specific business rules and data parameters, such as requiring comments on record closure for some tenants but not others.
- Compatibility requirements: Domain separation requires ServiceNow Vancouver release and the August version of the Sidebar store app (Omni Experience Standard Feature Set).
- Manual activation for new Sidebar users: If Sidebar is newly enabled in Vancouver release, it is inactive by default and must be manually activated per domain via Conversational Interfaces settings or by inserting records in the syscscollabsettings table.
- Known issue workaround: Emoji support with domain separation has a known issue; updating the Enable Emojis ACE Content block with the domain’s sysid in syscscollabsettings resolves this.
Domain separation with Microsoft Teams integration
When Sidebar is integrated with Microsoft Teams:
- Activating Sidebar prompts a notification that Microsoft Teams integration must be manually enabled.
- Deactivating Sidebar prompts a notification that Microsoft Teams integration will also be disabled.
- Domain separation with Microsoft Teams integration is not supported for instances with multiple domains; pairing a unique Teams instance per domain is not possible.
Practical implications for ServiceNow customers
Customers using ServiceNow in multi-tenant or multi-domain environments can securely use Sidebar to collaborate within domain boundaries, ensuring users only see and interact with discussions relevant to their domain’s records. Proper activation and configuration per domain are necessary, especially when integrating with Microsoft Teams or aiming to leverage emojis in discussions. The parent-child domain hierarchy setup is a prerequisite, and awareness of current limitations with Microsoft Teams integration is important for planning collaboration workflows.
Domain separation is supported for Sidebar . Domain separation enables you to separate data, processes, and administrative tasks into logical groupings called domains. You can control several aspects of this separation, including which users can see and access data.
Support level: Standard
- Includes all aspects of Basic level support.
- Application properties are domain-aware as needed.
- Business logic: The service provider (SP) creates or modifies processes per customer. The use cases reflect proper use of the application by multiple SP customers in a single instance.
- The instance owner must configure the minimum viable product (MVP) business logic and data parameters per tenant as expected for the specific application.
Sample use case: An Admin must be able to make comments required when a record closes for one tenant, but not for another.
For more information on support levels, see Application support for domain separation.
Overview of Domain separation and Sidebar
To set up domain separation for Sidebar, enable domain separation for your instance. If your instance has multiple domains, you can turn Sidebar on or off for each domain. No special configuration is needed to configure a domain-separated environment with Sidebar. Domain separation for Sidebar is supported only when domains are set up using a parent-child domain hierarchy.
Sidebar discussions are domain separated according to the base record (task or interaction record). You can see and create sidebar discussions only if you have access to the task or interaction record.
For example, say INC00001 belongs to the record created in the ACME domain and the Cisco domain doesn't have access to INC00001. Users that belong to the Cisco domain can't interact with Sidebar discussions based on INC00001.
Sidebar versions for domain separation
To fully utilize domain separation, you must be on both the Vancouver version and August version of the Sidebar store app (Omni Experience Standard Feature Set).
If you are a first time Sidebar user in Vancouver (you did not use Sidebar earlier and are not trued up to the Vancouver store app) and want to leverage domain separation, Sidebar is inactive by default. Navigate to the Conversational Interfaces settings page for each domain and activate Sidebar manually. Alternatively, you can access the sys_cs_collab_settings table and manually insert a new record for each domain.
There is a known issue with emojis not working as expected when used with domain separation. A workaround for this issue is to go to the Enable Emojis ACE Content block and update the record field with the sys_cs_collab_settings record's sys_id for the given domain.
Domain separation with the Sidebar and Microsoft Teams integration
If Sidebar and Microsoft Teams are integrated and configured, activating Sidebar prompts a message stating that the Microsoft Teams integration must be manually turned on and deactivating Sidebar prompts a message stating that the integration with Microsoft Teams will also be turned off.
Domain separation will not work with Microsoft Teams if multiple domains are configured. Pairing a unique Microsoft Teams with each domain is not supported.