How to Enable Next Experience UI (Polaris) in the ServiceNow - San Diego

[Saiganeshraja]

Step 1. Make Sure your personal developer instance is in San Diego.

Step 2: Navigate to sys_properties and set below properties to true

• glide.ui.polaris.experience - true
• glide.ui.polaris.dark_themes_enabled - true     

After performing above steps we can experience the new UI

       

 

[Brian S5]

I just spun up a new PDI on San Diego and the polaris option doesnt exist in sys_properties.list. Ive read that its enabled by default on new instances of ServiceNow however its still using the older platform view. Any suggestions ?

[Saiganeshraja]

Can you share the stats of your PDI?

[MichBala]

Is there a way to enable this property on a per-User/Group basis? We'd love to do a soft rollout of this functionality but we're not sure if it's possible with the current configuration of the property. 

[Saiganeshraja]

Searching again on the ServiceNow Product Documentation"glide.ui.polaris.use" is mentioned though as System Property. Clearly this is incorrect. The description mentioned is "Toggles Next Experience for a specific user." That sounds interesting!

Updating the value of User Preference "glide.ui.polaris.use" which has System checked, to false, and logout/login... UI16 is active! Because this is a User Preference with System checked, let's duplicate this User Preference, uncheck System, and add our own user:

Logout/login... Next Experience is active! Impersonating a random user who can access the Platform UI... UI16 is active!

So that's it for making Next Experience active on a user level. Obviously System Property "glide.ui.polaris.experience" does need to be active for this. Though just change the value of User Preference "glide.ui.polaris.use" which has System checked to false, and add User Preferences for individual users. 

[Dhaval3]

Hi,

You should be able to enable/disable polaris at individual user level using following :

Go to User Preferences. 

Check if following property is there for that user: glide.ui.polaris.use , if yes, make it false.

if not, create a new property as shown below.

Log out and log back in as that user and you should see old UI.

Hope this helps,

Thanks

Dhaval

[Erik24]

I just upgraded my PDI from Rome to San Diego and have the same issue, I cannot find the "glide.ui.polaris..." items in the system properties.

[Allen Andreas]

Hello,

Your reply above is taken from @Mark Roethof article, located here: https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=45b5b7d7db29c510e2adc22305961...

I'd recommend giving appropriate credit and not copying and pasting the entire article for use in your own.

Please mark reply as Helpful, if applicable. Thanks!

[Boris12]

I had the exact same issue. Turned out to be a simple case of the context search not working properly. When searched for through the column search option glide.ui.polaris.experience does show up as intended. 

[Mike322]

It can happen that if you disable it per user preference, the homepage still tries to send you to the Unified Navigation page which won't work once it's fully loaded.

I'm not sure why this works this way (I don't understand a lot of the design choices for the Next Experience for that matter but that's a different subject), but it has something to do with the availability of the system properties described by OP in the initial post. I got this to work without issue on my PDI but that was a fresh San Diego installation.

The only workaround that I found so far for upgraded instances, is that once the header and UI16 navigator is loaded, you press the 'Stop' button in your browser. If timed correctly, you can use the navigator properly. If timed to late, you're redirected to the Unified Navigation page and if timed to early, the Navigator won't work at all.

Another option is to edit the url to navigate directly to a table. Not an ideal solution but it at least won't try to redirect you.

Maybe it's a bug that needs to be ironed out (IF ServiceNow actually fixes this since I notice that they seem to force feed the Next Experience as if it's gonna save the world somehow).

[Praveen Bairi1]

Hi Mate,

Do you see any other possibility for setting up this property for all the users by default by any other means ? any script or any other settings that will help.. 

Thanks
Praveen 

[shakoor]

Use this system properties,  then individual users will be able to switch in the user preference to U15,U16 or polaris

glide.ui.polaris.on_off_user_pref_enabled

[Piotr Ignaciuk]

Hey,

We got a separate developer instance and it seems something is wrong, after enabling the new UI I cannot see the menus that are after NOW button, any idea why is that ? 

Best regards,

Piotr

[davesekerak]

I'm having the same issue the banner is "Blank" no navigation.

[Sandra P_1]

Hi,

Check this property:

/nav_to.do?uri=sys_properties.do?sys_id=28f0672501222010fa9bb175acb74d2f

Value must be set to TRUE.

Best regards,

Sandra

[Yadin]

Even these forums are deficient... how can you not have the ability to reply to other comments in threads?

How can this big deal new UI be so hidden?  Why is it not a GUI setting?  This continues to be the most obtuse platform I've ever seen.  You want people to use this new UI experience but it's buried so deep it's not accessible.  

"glide.ui.polaris.on_off_user_pref_enabled" does not exist.  There are 12 system properties in Utah that contain "polaris" in the name, and this is not one of them.  It continues to boggle how people constantly suggest things that don't exist.  It indicates there is no consistency in the platform because everyone's instance is different in fundamental ways.

/nav_to.do?uri=sys_properties.do?sys_id=28f0672501222010fa9bb175acb74d2f is set to true

glide.ui.polaris.experience was set to false despite accepting the Next experience on upgrade.  Platform fail.  FWIW this was the critical issue in my case.  Enable this and reload the session and Next is finally working like it should have been out of the box or with easy checkbox.

glide.ui.polaris.core.notification_preference.enabled is the only other item that is false.  However it can't be changed because "This record is in the Notification Advanced Preferences application and cannot be edited. The installed application 'Notification Advanced Preferences' is private."  What?  Switching to that app though a series of clicks allows edit (because the normal "click here" is missing to do so), but then another Suffix field is required which was apparently not required when they implemented it.  Huh?  Why just this record?  How can this platform constantly be totally inconsistent with itself?

All this because submitting an app for Utah certification requires testing in Next Experience but no information at all is given for what that means or how to do it.  We make an app to help our customers.  Wish ServiceNow believed in helping their customers.  Also wish they held their own platform to the quality requirements they hold 3rd party plugins.

[Mike322]

@Yadin This is a platform article on the community pages. I believe these are different than regular forum posts where you can reply with the reply button. Your point stays though: Why hide it? Why must a post like this be different conversation-handling-wise than any other forum post? As I've done here, I can reply to you but must use '@' instead for some reason.

"This continues to be the most obtuse platform I've ever seen."

Nah, that 'honor' goes to JIRA. How that platform is so widely used in organisations is either a baffling mystery or they have the sales department fueled by some unholy amount of money.

That also doesn't take away the legit criticism ServiceNow faces dealing with it's own issues, for example, but not limited to ServiceNow's weird prioritization of features: Want long awaited quality of life features as a dev? Is the HR application a total mess that needs a lot of customization to even work right? Reduce app-scope sprawl which is at new all time heights and makes the platform harder to maintain? Naah, we got a brand new UI noone asked for or needed! Also we archived (read: hidden) some community information that might help you out and put more important HI support pages on lockdown so you'll have to reinvent the wheel all over again and waste ridiculous amounts of time. The rejoicing can now commence.