Employee Center release notes

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 4 minutes to read
  • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Employee Center release notes

    The ServiceNow® Employee Center is a dynamic, multidepartment employee portal designed for unified service delivery and engagement. The Zurich release enhances Employee Center with new AI capabilities, improved user experiences, and performance optimizations to help ServiceNow customers deliver a more efficient and engaging employee service portal.

    Show full answer Show less

    Key Features

    • Company News & Events AI Agent: Employees can now access the latest company news and upcoming events via Now Assist in Virtual Agent, enhancing communication and engagement.
    • Now Assist for Employee Experience Summarization Skill: Provides summaries of requests, requested items, or cases within approval tasks to simplify task management.
    • Now Assist for Employee Experience Plugin: Enables conversational task resolution and approvals through chat in Virtual Agent, streamlining employee interactions.
    • Browser Extension for Employee Center: Allows users to view and manage content and company resources conveniently through a browser pop-up or new page, compatible with Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge.
    • Enhanced My Requests Experience: Offers improved segmentation, filtering, and keyword search for a scalable and dynamic request management experience.
    • Portal Performance Optimization: Introduces deferred and lazy loading preferences to reduce page load times by displaying content dynamically and on demand.
    • High-Traffic Experience Support: Provides user communication during heavy usage or slower network conditions, helping manage expectations during live events or announcements.
    • Taxonomy and Content Management: Facilitates automated cleanup and syncing of outdated content to maintain portal quality with less manual effort.
    • Mega Menu Load in Background: Speeds up homepage interactivity by loading the mega menu asynchronously for faster user engagement on first visits.
    • Notification Enhancements: Integration with Employee Center Pro enables notifications for content engagement improvements.
    • Quick Start Tests: Provides test scripts to verify Employee Center functionality after upgrades or customizations, ensuring smooth deployments.
    • Coral Theme: Introduces a fresh, brand-neutral default theme with optional dark mode for portals, web, and mobile experiences, improving the user interface.

    Activation and Compatibility

    Employee Center is available via the ServiceNow Store and must be requested for installation. The Browser Extension is supported on Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers only.

    Related Features

    The Now Mobile app integrates with Employee Center, enabling task management and resource access on mobile devices and auto-assigning default employee taxonomy for mobile portals.

    The ServiceNow® Employee Center application is a standard multidepartment, dynamic employee portal for unified service delivery and engagement. Employee Center was enhanced and updated in the Zurich release.

    Employee Center highlights for the Zurich release

    Zurich Patch 1
    • Enable employees to check their latest company news and upcoming events using Now Assist in Virtual Agent with the Company News & Events AI Agent in the Now Assist for Employee Experience. The AI Agent displays a list of all the latest news and planned events in the company. For more information, see Check latest company news and events.
    • Employees can check all their to-do tasks and pending approvals using Now Assist in Virtual Agent for Microsoft Teams.
    • Enable a summary of the request, requested item, or case for approval task using Now Assist for Employee Experience. The skill provides a summary of the selected item from the available list that you want to work on. For more information, see Now Assist for Employee Experience Summarization skill.
    Zurich Early Availability
    • Use the Now Assist for Employee Experience application so that your employees can have a seamless conversational interaction with Now Assist in Virtual Agent.
    • View and manage content and other company resources through the Browser Extension for Employee Center.
    • Improve the My Requests experience with adoptive and scalable enhancements.

    See Employee Center for more information.

    Important:
    Employee Center is available in the ServiceNow Store. For details, see the "Activation information" section of these release notes.

    New in the Zurich release

    Zurich Patch 1
    Check latest company news and events
    Use the Company News and Events AI Agent to enable employees to check their company-related news and any upcoming events using the Now Assist in Virtual Agent.
    Now Assist for Employee Experience Summarization skill
    Enable a summary of the request, requested item, or case for approval task using Now Assist for Employee Experience. The skill provides a summary of the selected item from the available list that you want to work on.
    Zurich Early Availability
    Now Assist for Employee Experience plugin
    Enable employees to resolve and approve tasks easily through chat conversation using the Now Assist for Employee Experience plugin with Now Assist in Virtual Agent.
    Browser Extension for Employee Center
    View and manage content and other company resources through the Browser Extension for Employee Center. Access the extension as a pop-up window, or select the Browser Extension for Employee Center icon on the portal to open it in a new page.
    Enhanced Requests Experience
    Enhance the My Requests experience with features like easy segmentation, filtering, and keyword search. These features create a dynamic and scalable experience on the Employee Center portal for your admins, service, process, and experience owners.
    Portal performance optimization
    Control how your portal pages load, such as all at once or as needed, by using the new deferred and lazy load preferences. Lazy loading is enabled by default and displays content dynamically, reducing page load time.
    High-traffic experience
    Communicate the information about heavy usage and slower network conditions during high usage scenarios, such as live events and major announcements.
    Taxonomy and connected content
    Streamline the cleanup and syncing of outdated or invalid content, helping admins maintain a high-quality, well-performing portal with less manual effort.
    Mega menu load
    Load the Mega Menu in the background to speed up home page interactivity and enable your users to engage with visible content faster during first-time visits.
    Notifications for Employee Center enhancements
    Get Notifications for Employee Center in Content engagement that is available with Employee Center Pro. For more information, see Employee Center Pro release notes.
    Quick start tests for Employee Center

    After upgrades and deployments of new applications or integrations, run quick start tests to verify that Employee Center works as expected. If you customized Employee Center, copy the quick start tests and configure them for your customizations.

    UI changes

    Coral theme
    Coral is now the default theme for new portal, web, and mobile experiences with Next Experience or Core UI enabled. This theme provides a fresh look and feel, featuring brand-neutral illustrations to enhance your user experience. A dark theme option is available for web and mobile experiences.

    Activation information

    Install Employee Center by requesting it from the ServiceNow Store. Visit the ServiceNow Store website to view all the available apps and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes.

    Browser requirements

    The Browser Extension for Employee Center is only available with Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge browsers.