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Table of Contents |
In the San Diego release we launched the Next Experience UI provide users with a new modern visual design and a unified experience between the Core UI and applications in the instance. Unified Navigation enables users to access content from various sources in one pane such as UI16 forms, lists, and dashboards in the same pane as a Workspace.
This article introduces users and administrators to the terminology used in Next Experience product documentation, considerations for activating Next Experience UI, and the technology used in Next Experience UI. For more information visit the Next Experience UI product documentation.
The initial launch of the Next Experience UI in San Diego is focused on improving experiences for Service Delivery Teams (Agents, Fulfillers) - the users who spend most of their working day in the Now Platform. Employee Center (built on the Service Portal technology stack) is our recommended solution for portals to keep employees engaged, productive, informed, and to easily request the services and resources they need. Employee Center was launched in Rome and will see ongoing investments and a robust roadmap with quarterly releases for the foreseeable future.
We are still defining the approach and time frame for delivering employee portals on Next Experience. We expect to support hybrid deployments - with a mix of Next Experience and Service Portal features to enable phased transitions of Service Portal based employee portals to Next Experience. We will share more details once the approach and time frames for Next Experience employee portals are defined.
Prerequisites |
The technology and concepts in this guide are based upon the San Diego release of the Now Platform.
There are two intended audiences for the technology in this guide:
- Platform Administrator (admin) - This audience has the ability to enable Next Experience, configure Landing Pages and Themes, and configure System Properties.
- User (non-admin roles such as itil, snc_internal, sn_customerservice_agent, custom app roles, etc.) - This audience will see the Next Experience UI layout if Next Experience has been enabled.
Terminology |
Term |
Definition |
| Audience | An audience defines who can see your pages. Pages can be created for targeted experiences tailored to audiences and roles such as agents and managers. |
| Core UI | Also known as UI16, or Platform/Classic UI. Core UI consists of Jelly based pages that contain content such as lists, forms, and dashboards. |
| Landing Page | When using the Next Experience UI, landing pages provide quick visibility and access to user's work. |
| Next Experience UI Framework | Formally known as Now Experience UI Framework, a ServiceNow JavaScript framework built on web components standards. Enables developers to build custom web components to create modern user interfaces for users. |
| Next Experience UI | The specific user interface launched in the San Diego release that utilizes Landing Pages and Unified Navigation. There may be technical references to Polaris within the instance and this article, which is the previous name for Next Experience UI. |
| UI Builder | The web user interface builder for the Next Experience UI Framework. UI Builder is used to build pages for Next Experience UI Landing Pages, Configurable Workspaces, App Engine Studio generated workspaces and portals, or custom web experiences using Next Experience Components and custom web components. |
| Unified Navigation | Next Experience Unified Navigation unifies classic UI16 applications and WEP (Web Experience Platform, also known as UI Builder) Workspaces within one navigation header. |
| Variant | A version of a page that features targeted content for specific audiences. For example, a variant can be created to assembled targeted content for Managers versus Agents. |
| Web Experience Platform | Comprised of multiple technologies used to deliver sharable, extensible, configurable, and consistent experiences such as UI Builder and Next Experience Components. |
Activation and Migration |
| Activating the Next Experience UI is not a mandatory requirement for upgrading to San Diego. Existing customers should refer to the information below and the product documentation when deciding to activate Next Experience UI. The San Diego upgrade does not automatically enable Next Experience UI for existing customers. |
The path to activating Next Experience UI may depend on the level of customization in your instance. We recommend receiving guidance and support from those who assisted in customizing your instance, or another certified partner, to ensure your move to the Next Experience UI goes smoothly. For more detailed information on activating Next Experience UI see the Considerations for activating Next Experience product documentation.
New Customers
New customers launching on San Diego or customers that have performed a zBoot on their instance will have the Next Experience UI automatically enabled on their instance. These customers also have the Default Landing Page that ships with Next Experience UI automatically enabled.
Existing Customers
- Low Customization - Customers upgrading from a previous release that have not implemented UI customizations in the form of UI Scripts, DOM manipulation, etc. and have not invested significantly in Workspace can upgrade by setting the glide.ui.polaris.experience system property and performing typical family release validation.
- High Customization - Customers upgrading from a previous release and have made the following modifications to their instance may need assistance from the modification authors, or an established partner to ensure a seamless activation:
- Customized user interface user as hard-coded styles or UI Scripts
- Adoption of a classic (Agent) Workspace and want to adopt a new Configurable Workspace
- Have created custom components in a classic (Agent) workspace and want to adopt a new Configurable Workspace
| Customers with heavily customized experiences should perform thorough testing before upgrading production instances to use Unified Navigation. |
System Properties |
The Next Experience UI is enabled with a system property, and other properties control whether users have the option to change their theme variant, as well as which landing page the user sees when they log in to an instance with Next Experience enabled. For a more extensive list of system properties see the Next Experience system properties product documentation.
Property |
Description |
Default |
| glide.ui.polaris.experience | An audience defines who can see your pages. Pages can be created for targeted experiences tailored to audiences and roles such as agents and managers. |
New customers: true Existing customers: false |
| glide.login.home | Path that displays when a user logs in. |
New customers: now/nav/ui/home Existing customers: previous home setting |
| glide.ui.polaris.dark_themes_enabled | Enables dark theme, as well as variants. | false |
| glide.banner.image.url | URL used when clicking the banner/logo image | Can set this to any value, if you want it to be the same as glide.login.home enter the same value. |
User Preferences |
Preference |
Description |
Default |
System |
|
glide.ui.polaris.landing_page_header_collapsed |
Determines if the onboarding section in the Default Landing page shows. If set to false, the onboarding section will show. | Created and set to true once a user clicks 'Close' in the Default Landing Page Onboarding. | No |
|
overview_help.visited.navui |
Determines if the pop-up for Onboarding appears when the user logs into an instance using Next Experience UI for the first time. | Created and set to true once a user logs in to an instance with Next Experience UI enabled for the firs time. | No |
|
glide.ui.menu.main.pinned.id |
This user preference holds which menu is pinned. If administrators want to set a default pinned menu for all users, they can create a system user preference and place the sys_id of the menu they want pinned in before any users log in and pin a menu. | No default is set, user preference is created with a user pins a menu. | Not by default |
Default Landing Page |
The Default Landing Page enables users to see their work at a glance and identify which work they can start on for the day. Landing pages may include the following items based on your role and task:
- A banner containing a link to learn about the Next Experience Unified Navigation
- New and critical tasks to keep up to date with the status and priority of your work
- Your tasks that are currently open by priority
- Lists with task records assigned to you to work on
- Performance Analytics and Reporting (PAR) data relevant to completing your tasks
- Approvals that are actionable on the landing page
- Your favorite items
- Your open requests
- More resources to identify useful features
New Customers
New customers launching on San Diego or customers that have performed a zBoot on their instance will have the Next Experience UI automatically enabled on their instance. These customers also have the Default Landing Page that ships with Next Experience UI automatically enabled.
Existing Customers
Existing customers upgrading from a previous release will not see the default landing page upon activating the Next Experience UI. Existing customers will continue to see their existing start page (Homepage or Dashboard). By utilizing existing start pages, this provides administrators the ability to turn on the Next Experience UI and allow for users to begin using the new user interface, and provides administrators the time to create organization specific landing pages. Existing customers can use the Default Landing Page by modifying the glide.login.home system property, though it is recommended to perform testing on the Default Landing Page in a sub-product instance to verify it meets current user needs.
The Default Landing Page is broken down into three areas:
- Onboarding - The Onboarding header is a feature of the Default Landing Page that highlights key Unified Navigation features to aid users in adopting the Next Experience UI.
- Visualizations - Default visualizations are based upon role and tasks. Visualizations include things such as new and open tasks, lists of task records assigned to you, Performance Analytics and Reporting data relevant to your tasks, favorite items, open requests, etc.
- Useful features - Useful features include links to resources such as Dashboards or Knowledge Base articles relevant to the user so they can access helpful information right from the default landing page.
Customizing the Landing Page
The default landing page cannot be modified, but can be used as a template for customers who wish to create their own landing pages. Landing pages can be tailored to different user experiences in UI Builder, for more information on creating pages in UI Builder and creating Landing Pages see the following resources:
- Product Documentation: Exploring your default landing page
- Product Documentation: Differences between landing pages and dashboards
- Next Experience Center of Excellence: Create a Landing Page
- Next Experience Center of Excellence: UI Builder Quick Start Guide
Unified Navigation |
Next Experience Unified Navigation unifies Core UI (UI16) applications and WEP (Web Experience Platform, also known as UI Builder) Workspaces within one navigation header. Users can access UI16 menus, view where they currently are, access notifications, use global search across platform lists and workspaces, get help, and access the user menu from the Unified Navigation header. Unified Navigation is broken down into distinct areas.
Logo
The default logo shown is the ServiceNow logo, and can be replaced by your company logo bu customizing the theme record associated to the Unified Nav App Config record. Clicking the logo will return the user to the Next Experience landing page, or the URL specified in the following system property glide.banner.image.url. Hovering over the logo will display the Instance Name and Description.
Navigation Menu
If Unified Navigation is enabled, users will have the All, Favorites, and History overlay menus by default. If users have access to a WEP (Configurable) Workspace they will see the Workspace menu item. Overlay menus allow for users to free up screen real estate while accessing applications. Menus are pin-able to allow for users to choose their navigation preference. When working with smaller window sizes, the menus will collapse into an overflow menu.
- All - Customers can customize the All menu the same as customizing the UI16 Application Navigator, for more information see the Application navigator product documentation.
- Favorites - The Favorites menu contains both Next Experience and CoreUI items. The "Edit your favorites" screen has been updated with new styling and icons. Favoriting has been made easier by the Favorite Star next to the context name in the Contextual App Pill.
- History - The History menu has been improved to include a filter and group entries by time/date.
- Workspaces - The Workspace menu displays experiences using the Unified Navigation shell as the Parent app shell. Users will not have to navigate or open a new tab to display a Workspace, and the Unified Navigation header will display instead of the WEP Workspace header. Classic (Agent) Workspaces will not be displayed within the Unified Navigation app shell. Configurable Workspaces can be added to the Workspace tab by adding a record to the Experience Category, see the Add a workspace to the Unified Navigation Workspaces menu product documentation.
Contextual App Pill
The Contextual App Pill provides context for where a user is in the instance. The Favorite star allows the user to favorite the current location they are in the instance. Note: If a Browser tab title has been set in the UI16 System Configuration, it will display in the Contextual App Shell.
Utilities
The controls that users need to do their job are omni-present on the right side of the header. Consistent search, Help, and Notifications are available to all users.
- Search can be enabled by setting the system property glide.ui.polaris.global_search to true. Search in Unified Navigation can also search through workspaces by selecting the workspace the user would like to search. For more information on Unified Navigation search, visit the Using search in Next Experience product documentation.
- Web Notifications are available if the user has access to a workspace that contains the Web Notification capability.
- Administrative functions such as the Scope Selection Menu is available if the user has access to Domain selection, Application scope, or Update set. For more information on the Scope Selection menu and information on using keyboard shortcuts see this Next Experience Center of Excellence article.
- CTI (Phone) is available on instances with the CTI Soft phone plug-in installed.
User Menu
Users can access user preferences between the Platform UI and WEP (UI Builder) experiences in one location. Some preference categories only appear dynamically depending on permissions or context such as Impersonate user or Elevate role. See the Exploring Next Experience pickers product documentation for administrator features and keyboard shortcuts.
Preferences
- Display - New preferences in San Diego: Always show top navigation. Updated preferences in San Diego: Use compact spacing mode, Put line breaks in lists, Date and time format.
- Accessibility - New preferences in San Diego: Reduce Motion. Updated preferences in San Diego: Enable data table for charts and graphs.
- Notifications - Allows users to toggle back and forth between Workspace and Core UI notifications in one pane if the user has access to Workspaces.
- Theme - Displays if more than one theme variant is available to the user and the glide.ui.polaris.dark_theme_enabled property is set to true.
- Workspace - This preference will show if a user is within a Workspace.
- Debugging - Contains Script Debugger and Automated Test Framework Inspector, only available to the admin role.
Hi Miguel,
I had the same issue. Did you check your user preference?
User Administration > User Preferences and set the preference for your name like below. You will may have to log out to get it to take affect, that's what I had to do.
In UI16 we could use Overview Help pages, but I haven't yet found out where the OOTB onboarding panels are stored and whether/how these can be amended for other announcement uses.
I can see the images stored in the images in the images table, but it looks like these cannot be changed. Also where does the text come from e.g. 'Work Your Way Pin or unpin your menus to maximize your working space'.
