Portal Banner widget instance options form

Release version: Zurich

Updated July 31, 2025

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Summary of Portal Banner widget instance options form

The Portal Banner widget instance options form allows you to customize the appearance and behavior of the Portal Banner widget that appears on ServiceNow portal pages. These options enable you to tailor the banner’s greeting, visuals, buttons, search functionality, and embedded widgets to enhance user engagement and navigation.

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Instance Configuration Options

The form consists of two main categories of settings:

Presentation fields: Configure the banner’s title, subtitle, background image, text colors, alignment, search bar, and buttons.
Behavior fields: Control dynamic button display using scripts and embed additional widgets within the banner.

Key Presentation Fields

Heading: Required banner title supporting placeholder variables like <user> (logged-in user’s name), <title> (user’s salutation), and <partofday> (time-based greeting).
Description: Required subtitle text below the heading.
Background Image: Select or upload an image stored in the ServiceNow Images [dbimage] table for the banner background.
Text Colors: Set hex color codes for heading and description texts; defaults are white (#FFFFFF).
Alignment: Align banner content left or center (center is default).
Search Bar: Optionally show a search bar with customizable placeholder text, supporting AI search configuration for enhanced results.
Primary and Secondary Buttons: Enable display, label, and URL configuration for two buttons. URLs support both absolute (full URL with protocol) and relative (path only) formats and open in the same or new tabs.

Key Behavior Fields

Buttons Condition Script: Use scripting to dynamically show or hide primary and secondary buttons based on custom conditions.
Widget Placeholder and Option Schema: Embed additional widgets from the Widgets [spwidget] table inside the banner and define their parameters.

Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

Personalize portal banners with dynamic greetings and visuals to improve user experience upon sign-in.
Enhance navigation with integrated search and actionable buttons linking to internal or external resources.
Customize banner behavior through scripts and embed other widgets to extend functionality.
Manage images and widget parameters centrally within ServiceNow’s data tables for consistent portal design.

Instance options enable you to configure the Portal Banner widget on a portal page.

Table 1. Presentation fields on the Instance form
Instance option	Description
Heading	Required title of a Portal Banner widget to greet a user who signs in into the website. The default text is `Home Page Banner`. The heading field supports placeholder variables such as <user>, <title>, and <part_of_day>. For example, you could display a banner title such as `Hello Mr. Luddy! Good Morning.` <user>: The name of the logged-in user. <title>: The salutation of the logged-in user. The <title> variable details are retrieved from the User [sys_user] table. <part_of_day>: Displays the greeting based on the part of the day of the user's region. For example, Good morning, Good afternoon, or Good evening.
Description	Required subtitle that appears below the heading. The default description is `This is home page description`.
Background Image	Image to appear as the background on the banner. Note: You can select images from the Images [db_image] table or upload a new image to it. For more information, see Storing images in the database.
Heading Text Color Hex code	Color of the heading text in hex code format. The default value is #FFFFFF (white).
Description Text Color Hex code	Color of the description text color in hex code format. The default value is #FFFFFF (white).
Alignment	Alignment of the banner content inside the widget. The available options are: Left Center The default alignment is Center. Note: Currently, if you select None, the alignment is set to Left.
Show Search bar	Option to display the search bar on the Portal Banner widget to search content. Note: You can enable the AI search for a banner widget to get quick results. For more information, see Enable and configure AI Search in Service Portal.
Show Primary Button	Option to display the primary button on the Portal Banner widget.
Primary Button Label	Label of the primary button.
Primary Button URL	The URL that opens an internal web page or a portal page in the same tab and an external page or a portal in a new tab. The two types of primary URLs are: Absolute URL: The full URL including its protocol (http or https). For example: `https://example.servicenow.com/scripts/sn_csm_ec.js?v=3.1` Relative URL: A URL that includes only the path that comes after the domain. For example: `scripts/sn_csm_ec.js?v=3.1`
Show Secondary Button	Option to display a secondary button on the banner widget.
Secondary Button Label	Label of a secondary button.
Secondary Button URL	The URL that opens an internal web page or a portal page in the same tab and an external page or a portal in a new tab. The two types of secondary URLs are: Absolute URL: The full URL including its protocol (http or https). For example: `https://example.servicenow.com/scripts/sn_csm_ec.js?v=3.1` Relative URL: A URL that includes only the path that comes after the domain. For example: `scripts/sn_csm_ec.js?v=3.1`
Search Placeholder Text	Placeholder text for the search option. The default text is `Search articles and request items`.

Table 2. Behavior fields on the Instance form
Instance option	Description
Buttons Condition Script	Script to show or hide the primary or secondary button. You can use the scripted extension point to implement the condition script. By default, the new script displays both buttons and doesn’t include any condition. For more information, see Provide web page link buttons to display on the Portal Banner widget.
Widget Placeholder	Option to embed an additional widget on the Portal Banner widget. You can include only widgets from the Widgets [sp_widget] table.
Widget Option Schema	Defines the parameters of the widget that you want to add. For more information, see Add a widget in the Portal Banner widget.