Service Portal properties

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated June 16, 2026
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Service Portal properties

    Service Portal properties allow administrators to configure and control the user experience and functionality of Service Portal for both admins and end users. These properties are primarily managed through the Service Portal properties page, with some advanced settings accessible via the System Properties [sysproperties] table. Proper configuration of these properties helps optimize portal behavior, security, and usability.

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    Key Properties and Their Uses

    • Default 404 page: Sets the fallback page users see when a requested page fails to load, ensuring a consistent error experience.
    • Browser error messages for admins: Enables display of error messages to admin users to aid troubleshooting.
    • Stream entry limit: Controls how many conversation entries are visible in widgets, improving performance and user focus.
    • Notification timeout: Defines how long info and error messages stay visible before auto-dismissing, enhancing message visibility without clutter.
    • Announcement sort order: Customizes the display order of banner announcements for better information prioritization.
    • Debug runtime info: Enables Angular.js debug info to support widget and page development, disabled by default for performance reasons.

    User Criteria Properties

    If user criteria are enabled, additional properties allow you to:

    • Use User Criteria records instead of roles for widget and page permissions, providing more granular access control.
    • Specify roles that bypass user criteria checks, useful for admin overrides.

    System Properties for Advanced Configuration

    • Enforce ACLs on encoded queries: Controls security enforcement on Simple List widget filters.
    • Human-readable URLs: Enables friendly URLs for portal pages to improve SEO and user experience.
    • Cross-scope privilege enforcement: Ensures secure data access when forms fetch data across application scopes.
    • Notification threshold: Sets the number of notifications before a "clear all" option appears.
    • SSO early redirect: Allows direct redirection to Single Sign-On Identity Provider login pages, bypassing portal login pages for seamless authentication.
    • Language selector: Enables users to choose their preferred language on portals with multilingual content.
    • SSO starting page ignore list: Skips intermediate SSO pages so users land directly on their intended start page.
    • SCSS parsing option: Determines whether compiled SCSS files are loaded as external links or inline to optimize page load performance.
    • Performance Analyzer portals: Specifies which portals show the Performance Analyzer icon for performance evaluation by admins.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    By configuring these properties, customers can tailor the Service Portal to match organizational requirements for usability, security, and branding. Settings like notification duration, error pages, and user criteria improve user experience and operational efficiency. System properties provide control over security enforcement, authentication flows, and performance tuning, supporting secure and scalable portal deployments.

    Administrators can expect a robust and customizable portal environment that supports multilingual users, secure access controls, and effective troubleshooting tools, all managed through intuitive property settings.

    Service Portal properties control aspects of the portal experience for admin and end users.

    The most commonly used Service Portal properties are set on the Service Portal properties page. Some less commonly used properties are available only from the System Properties [sys_properties] table.

    You can access the properties listed in the following table by navigating to All > Service Portal > Properties.

    Table 1. Service Portal page properties
    Property Description

    Default 404 page (page ID or sp_page sys_id) for Service Portal

    glide.service_portal.default_404_page

    		 Set the default page that your users see whenever a page can’t load properly.The string must match the name of the page exactly.

    Show a message to admin users in Service Portal pages if a browser error is encountered

    glide.sp.show_console_error
    • Type: true | false
    • Default value: true

    Maximum number of stream entries displayed in Service Portal (activity widget, conversation widget, and so on)

    glide.service_portal.stream_entry_limit

    		 Limit the number of entries users can see in the ticket conversation widget. Users only see the most recent entries and can’t go further back in the history than the maximum allowed amount.
    • Type: integer
    • Default value: 100

    Duration (in seconds) info and error messages persist in the Service Portal before auto-dismissal

    glide.service-portal.notification_timeout.seconds

    Set the duration in seconds that non-critical notifications remain on the screen before they are auto-dismissed. If set to 0, messages do not auto-dismiss and require that a user close them.

    • Type: integer
    • Default value: 5

    Critical notifications should be tagged with the sn-sticky-notification HTML class attribute to prevent them from being automatically dismissed.

    If the glide.ui.accessibility preference is enabled, messages don’t auto-dismiss, regardless of the system property value. To set this preference, see Enabling accessibility features.
    Default sort order for announcements

    glide.service_portal.announcement.default_sort_order

    		 Define the sort order for banner announcements.
    • Type: choice list
    • Default value: Start Date Descending
    Options include:
    • Start Date Ascending: The oldest start date appears first.
    • Start Date Descending: The most recent start date appears first.
    • End Date Ascending: The oldest end date appears first.
    • End Date Descending: The most recent end date appears first.
    Enable debug runtime information

    glide.sp.debug

    		 Controls whether the Angular.js flag $compileProvider.debugInfoEnabled is set to true or false. This option allows debug runtime information in the compiler, such as adding binding information and a reference to the current scope on to DOM elements. This property is turned off by default to improve performance on the instance.
    • Type: true | false
    • Default value: false
    If user criteria [com.glide.service-portal.user-criteria] is enabled, the following properties also appear in the Service Portal properties page:
    Table 2. User criteria properties
    Property Description

    Enable use of User Criteria records instead of Roles fields for Service Portal entitlements

    glide.service_portal.user_criteria_enabled

    Define permissions for Service Portal widgets, widget instances, pages, and search sources.

    List of roles (comma-separated) that bypass User Criteria validation in Service Portal

    glide.sp.entitlement.override

    		 Allow users with a specific role to see any page, widget, widget instance, or search source regardless of user criteria.
    • Type: string
    • Default value: admin

    You can access the properties listed in the following table in the System Properties [sys_properties] table.

    Table 3. Service Portal system properties
    Property Description
    glide.service_portal.enable_acls_for_encoded_query_in_list

    Option to always enforce read ACLs for filter conditions specified in Simple List widget instances. If false, the Enforce field-level Read ACLs on Filter query terms option in Simple List widget instances determines whether to enforce the ACLs.
    glide.service_portal.enable_human_readable_urls

    Option to allow configuring human readable keywords in portal page URLs for the instance.
    glide.service_portal.enforce_cross_scope_check_in_form Option to enforce validating cross-scope privileges to a table when the form widget fetches data from a table.
    • Type: true | false
    • Default value: true
    • For more information, see Form widget.
    glide.service-portal.notification.threshold

    Specify how many notifications should appear before users have the option to clear all notifications at once.

    • Type: integer
    • Default value: 5
    glide.service_portal.sso.early_redirect.portals Redirects users to the SSO Identify Provider (IdP) login page without first redirecting them to the portal login page. Provide a comma-separated list of portal suffixes.
    Note:
    If your portal uses a customized version of the Login widget, you must update the sp_sso_early_redirection UI macro as needed to redirect users to the SSO Identify Provider (IdP) login page without trying to load the portal page first.
    glide.sp.portals.language_selector_enabled Allows any user to choose and view content in their preferred language.

    This property contains a list of portal sys IDs separated by commas. By default, the sys IDs for the Knowledge (/kb), Customer Support (/csm), and Customer Service (/csp) portals are included. For any portal specified, the language selector appears in the portal header if any languages are installed and active on the instance in addition to English.
    glide.sp.starting.page.ignore.list Ignores intermediate pages used during SSO authentication in order for users to be directed to their starting page rather than an intermediate page. Provide a comma-separated list of page IDs.
    • Type: String
    • Default value: login_with_sso,idp_disco
    glide.sp.theme.parse_scss

    Option to allow compiled SCSS files to be loaded as links to improve repeat page view performance. If set to false, SCSS files are included inline in the page HTML instead.

    • Type: true | false
    • Default value: true
    sp_allow_perf_debug_option_for_portals Specify the portals to evaluate using the Performance Analyzer by providing a comma-separated list of portal suffixes. For users with the sp_admin or admin roles, the Performance Analyzer icon (Open Performance Analyzer) appears on pages in the specified portals.