Create Onboarding modals

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 5 minutes to read

    • Create your own Onboarding modals to introduce your users to a new experience or application in your ServiceNow instance.

    Before you begin

    Role required: admin

    Ensure you have:

    • Planned your onboarding content, including the key concepts to cover and the optimal sequence for presenting information
    • Identified target user roles who should see the Onboarding modals
    • Prepared any images, videos, or custom HTML content to include in the modal
    • Determined the application or workspace where the modal will appear

    Procedure

    1. Navigate to All > Adoption Services > Create Guidance.
    2. To create your Onboarding modals, do the following:
      1. On the guidance form, fill in the fields.
        Table 1. Guidance form
        Field Description
        Order Order that the guidance displays. The lowest number displays first and the next chronological number follows.
        Name Name of the onboarding experience.
        Type Type of guidance that appears in the UI. Select Modal.
        Roles Roles for this guidance.
        Application Application for the guidance.
        Status Status of the guidance.
        Active Select to enable or disable the guidance.
      2. Select Submit.
    3. To create embedded help guidance steps, do the following:
      1. Select your guidance from the Guidances list.
      2. On the Help Guidance Steps related list, select New.
      3. On the form, fill in the fields.
        Table 2. Help Guidance Step form
        Field Description
        Name Name of your guidance.
        Layout Selected layout of the guidance.
        • Video
        • Image
        • Text
        • Question
        • Image and Text
        • Image and Question
        Order Order that the guidance displays. The lowest number displays first and the next chronological number follows.
        Action Label Button labels that enable the user to navigate the guidance modal.
        Application Application scope for the guidance. This guidance applies to the Global scope.
        Guidance The guidance that this Help Guidance Step applies to.
      4. Select Submit.
    4. To create help contents for your help guidance steps, do the following:
      1. Select your help guidance step in the related list.
      2. On the Help Contents related list, select New.
      3. Note:
        Form fields are different for each type of guidance. Refer to the correct form for your guidance.
        On the text form, fill in the fields.
        Table 3. Help Content text form
        Field Description
        Title Title of the help content.
        Subtitle Subtitle that's displayed in the modal of the help content in the UI.
        Type Type of guidance that's selected.
        Application Application scope for the guidance.
        Guidance Step Help Guidance Step that this Help Content is associated with. For example, Intro/welcome, All menu, and History.
        Default Help content that is the default for the guidance step.
        Footer Footer that's displayed in the modal of the help content in the UI.
        Provide Custom HTML Custom HTML for your help content.
        Text Text that displays in the modal of the help content in the UI.
      4. Click Submit.
      5. On the video form, fill in the fields.
        Table 4. Help Content video form
        Field Description
        Title Title of the help content.
        Subtitle Subtitle that's displayed in the modal of the help content in the UI.
        Type Type of guidance that's selected.
        Video Link The link for your video to display.
        Note:
        Only YouTube and Vimeo are supported.
        Application Application scope for the guidance.
        Guidance Step Help Guidance Step that this Help Content is associated with. For example, Intro/welcome, All menu, and History.
        Default Help content that is the default for the guidance step.
        Footer Footer that's displayed in the modal of the help content in the UI.
        Provide Custom HTML Custom HTML for your help content.
        Alternate Text Alternate text that displays in the modal of the help content in the UI.
      6. Click Submit.
      7. On the image form, fill in the fields.
        Table 5. Help Content image form
        Field Description
        Title Title of the help content.
        Subtitle Subtitle that's displayed in the modal of the help content in the UI.
        Type Type of guidance that's selected.
        Image The image selected to display in your guidance.
        Application Application scope for the guidance.
        Guidance Step Help Guidance Step that this Help Content is associated with. For example, Intro/welcome, All menu, and History.
        Default Help content that is the default for the guidance step.
        Footer Footer that's displayed in the modal of the help content in the UI.
        Provide Custom HTML Custom HTML for your help content.
        Provide Image Link The image link is displayed in the guidance.
        Alternate Text Alternate text that displays in the modal of the help content in the UI.
      8. Click Submit.
      9. On the question form, fill in the fields.
        Table 6. Help Content question form
        Field Description
        Title Title of the help content.
        Subtitle Subtitle that's displayed in the modal of the help content in the UI.
        Type Type of guidance that's selected.
        Application Application scope for the guidance.
        Guidance Step Help Guidance Step that this Help Content is associated with. For example, Intro/welcome, All menu, and History.
        Default Help content that is the default for the guidance step.
        Footer Footer that's displayed in the modal of the help content in the UI.
        Provide Custom HTML Custom HTML for your help content.
      10. Select Submit.
      11. Select New in the Help Question related field.
        Table 7. Help question form
        Field Description
        Question The content of the question to add in the guidance.
        Order The order of the question in the guidance.
        Variant The variant of the question.
        • Radio is selected for questions with only one answer.
        • Checkbox is selected for questions with multiple answers.
        Application Application scope for the guidance.
        Help Content The Help Content that the question is created for.
        Mandatory The question is Mandatory when selected.
      12. Select New in the Help Answers related field to create answers.
        Table 8. Help answer form
        Field Description
        Label The label for the answer.
        Value The value for the answer.
        Order The order of the answer.
        Application Application scope for the guidance.
        Question The question the answer is created for.
      13. Select Submit.
    5. Create any additional guidance that you want to build your onboarding experience.
    6. When you're done building your onboarding guidance, confirm that the status of your guidance is set to Published on the Guidance form.
    7. On the Guidance form, select Update.

    Result

    Your onboarding modal is created and published. The modal contains all configured guidance steps with their associated help content. Users with the specified roles can now see the modal when it is triggered.

    What to do next

    Configure a launch trigger for your modal. See Launch an onboarding modal.