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Getting Started
1. What is Next Experience UI?
Next Experience UI is our latest user interface introduced in the San Diego release. The purpose of Next Experience UI is to not only provide a modern visual uplift to the Platform UI versus UI16, but to provide a seamless navigation experience to users who may be using Configurable Workspaces and the Platform UI.
As of San Diego our focus is on improving the user experience for Service Delivery teams such as Agents, and Fulfillers - the users who spend most of their working day within the Now Platform. Configurable Workspaces are the solution to Tier 1 & 2 agents, and process users (i.e. Project, etc.) but these users may still need features found outside of the Workspace UI while our teams are continually improving our Configurable Workspaces.
For example, our new Service Operations Workspace released in San Diego has full parity with ITSM Agent Workspace, but Problem Managers still need to manage the Problem Lifecycle outside of Service Operations Workspace (until that functionality has been added) so they can switch to the Platform UI in Next Experience from the Configurable Workspace to do so, without having to open and work out of multiple browser tabs.
2. Does Next Experience UI replace Core UI and will Core UI be deprecated?
In our journey to re-platform with the Next Experience UI, we will continue to include more feature parity between the two platforms. There is no plan to deprecate Core UI. For more information on terminology such as Core UI and Classic Environment, see our Next Experience Architecture and Terminology article.
3. What are the capabilities in the latest release?
Check out our article: What's new in Tokyo for Next Experience
4. Are there release notes available?
Yes, they're located within our product documentation, the below link will jump to the latest version of the release notes.
Next Experience UI release notes
5. Do I need to install a plugin or purchase anything to activate Next Experience UI?
No, no additional plugins or purchases are needed to activate the Next Experience UI. The necessary plugins are packaged with the San Diego family release, and Next Experience UI is part of the Now Platform product.
6. Do I have to turn on Next Experience UI in order to upgrade to San Diego?
No, Next Experience is a feature introduced in the San Diego family release, but it is not a prerequisite for upgrading to San Diego, and is not enabled for existing customers when upgrading to San Diego. We encourage existing customers to view the product documentation on considerations for activating Next Experience before activating. Normal upgrade validation testing should be performed when activating Next Experience UI.
Note: Next Experience UI is enabled by default for new customers launching on San Diego.
For more of a deep dive on activation, see the Platform Foundations Academy - Activating Next Experience UI session.
7. How do I activate Next Experience UI if I am upgrading?
As of the San Diego release, platform administrators can turn on Next Experience by setting the value of glide.ui.polaris.experience to true.
8. Is there any guidance from ServiceNow on activating Next Experience UI?
Yes. See the product documentation for considerations on activating Next Experience UI. We have a video and pdf available on the Platform Foundations Academy - Activating Next Experience UI session.
9. Are there any walkthrough videos that I can watch about Next Experience UI?
We have recorded sessions on the Creator Toolbox series and the Platform Academy.
- Creator Toolbox (February 8th 2022): Exploring and Administering the Next Experience UI
- Platform Academy: What's new in the San Diego Release for Next Experience?
10. Are there features that are not supported by Next Experience UI?
As of the San Diego release the following functionality is not supported in Next Experience UI:
1. Connect Chat and Connect Support are not supported in Next Experience UI, functions include:
- Direct conversations between two users.
- Group conversations between three or more users.
- Conversations linked to records. Comments and work notes appear in conversations in real time and users can update the record directly from the conversation.
We encourage customers to use Agent Chat within Configurable Workspaces. For customers who cannot adopt a Configure Workspace at the moment, and would like to activate Next Experience UI while allowing a subset of users to remain on UI16 and use Connect Chat can follow the workarounds in this support article. There are some considerations when using workarounds that can be found in our Activating Next Experience article.
See the following FAQs for more information:
2. As of Vancouver, Guided Tours are supported in Workspaces, Classic Environment, and Service Portal/Employee Center. If you're on San Diego-Utah, Guided Tours are supported in Classic Environment, and Service Portal/Employee Center.
3. The JavaScript console log is not supported in Next Experience framework. Users can access the Script Debugger and Automated Test Framework Page Inspector. For more information see the product documentation: Debug Next Experience.
11. Can I use Automated Test Framework with Next Experience UI?
ATF remains compatible with Core UI (Platform) pages when activated, so customers can continue to run their existing ATF tests and suites with Next Experience UI. ATF can also test the All Application Navigation menu within the Unified Navigation. UI Builder pages are currently not compatible with ATF, so users will not be able to run ATF on Next Experience UI landing pages, as well as Configurable Workspace pages. See our Activating Next Experience article for more information.
12. Is there a migration tool for Next Experience UI?
We have released the Next Experience Readiness Checker to assist with unsupported feature detection to make more informed decisions on activating Next Experience.
13. Does Next Experience UI work with Portal experiences or custom experiences created in UI Builder?
Next Experience unifies the Platform UI with Configurable Workspace experiences as of the San Diego release. Portal and custom experiences will open in a new browser tab and does not inherit the Next Experience UI theme.
14. I think I have a bug or defect with Next Experience UI, what do I do?
If you believe you have a defect with Next Experience, log a case using the Now Support portal.
15. There is functionality missing that I would like in Next Experience UI, where can I communicate this?
For functionality you wish to be implemented, log an idea on our Idea portal.
Configuration
16. How do I change the colors of Next Experience UI to match my company's branding?
See the product documentation and our article on theming. Be advised, there are two different methods for theming, one method if Next Experience UI is enabled, which wraps the Platform UI and Configurable Workspaces in one theme, and the other method with Next Experience UI disabled which provides resources for theming Configurable Workspaces individually, and even extends to theming Portal and custom experiences which are not impacted by the Next Experience UI theme.
17. If I have a Configurable Workspace installed, can I have a different theme for it versus Next Experience UI?
No. As described in question 1, and in our article on theming when next Experience UI is enabled, Configurable Workspaces are wrapped into the Unified Navigation header and share the Next Experience UI theme. If Next Experience UI is disabled, users can theme individual Configurable Workspaces since they are not wrapped.
Agent Workspace themes are not impacted by Next Experience UI, they will not inherit the theme and they open in their own browser tab as they are not wrapped by Next Experience UI.
18. How do I change what is in the All Navigation Menu?
The modules that appear in the All Navigation Menu are configured by navigating to System Definition > Application Menu. Please see the product documentation on configuring application menus.
19. Can I pin a menu by default for all users?
Yes, but this will need to be done by a system administrator prior to the users logging in with Next Experience UI enabled. A system user preference can be created to enforce for all users.
Name: glide.ui.menu.main.pinned.id
System: true
Type: String
Value: all
User: Leave empty
20. How do I add a Workspace to the menu item?
See the Add a workspace to the Unified Navigation Workspaces menu product documentation. Note, if a user does not have access to at least one workspace, the menu item will not appear in the Unified Navigation header for the user.
21. Can I create my own menu items?
Administrators cannot create their own menu items for the Unified Navigation header as of the San Diego release. Admins can create menus based upon roles and add applications/modules to those menus as of the Tokyo release.
22. Why don't I see the landing page that is in the product documentation?
Only new customers on San Diego and customers that have zBooted an instance to San Diego will have the default landing page shipped with Next Experience UI display by default. Existing customers who are upgrading from another family release will retain their current home settings. See the Configuring Next Experience landing pages product documentation for more information.
23. Am I going to have to re-create all of my dashboards again when activating Next Experience UI?
As described in Question 7, if you are an existing customer upgrading from a previous family release, your home setting for dashboards will remain and your users will have access to them in Next Experience UI. You can continue to use dashboards within Next Experience UI for the foreseeable future, and if you wish to migrate to landing pages to replace dashboards we have out-of-the-box data visualization components to assist with the re-creation of dashboards.
24. Is there a responsive dashboard to landing page migration tool?
There is not a migration tool for responsive dashboards to landing pages at this time.
25. Do I have to create landing pages right away when turning on Next Experience UI?
If you're a new or zBooted customer you'll have the default landing page already enabled and can work with your implementation team to tailor a variant(s) of the page to your needs.
If you're an existing customer who is upgrading from a previous family release, your previous home setting is maintained and you can implement landing pages according to your organization's release cycle.
26. What if I want to test landing pages out with some users but leave the previous home settings on for the rest of my users? Or if I want to roll out landing pages to most of my users but some users need previous UI16 dashboards.
You can configure user-specific landing pages by setting a user preference. See the Configure per-user landing pages in Next Experience product documentation for a walkthrough.
27. How do I view or test the default landing page that was shipped with Next Experience UI?
If you want to see how the default landing page works on a sub-production instance, you can find the page and variants in UI Builder under the Unified App Nav experience. This is where you can create your own pages and variants if you need to alter the default landing page (we suggest doing this via a variant and retaining the out-of-the-box page) or create your own page from scratch for a landing page.
To see the page and variants in action, set the glide.login.home system property to /now/navi/ui/home. Be advised, home is the path to the default landing page and it's variants, if you've created another page in the Unified App Nav experience you would use the URL path /now/navi/ui/{yourPage}.
28. What if I want to change the landing page or create my own?
See the Configuring Next Experience landing pages product documentation for information and our article on Creating a Landing Page for a walkthrough.
29. Can I use a Workspace landing page as my Next Experience UI landing page?
You can set the glide.login.home property to a workspace homepage path and it will load the Configurable Workspace by default, but this system property is global. If you wish to load Configurable Workspaces by default for some users and allow other users to land in the Next Experience UI see the Configure per-user landing pages in Next Experience product documentation which walks through the user preference to do this. Another option is to re-create the Workspace landing page as a variant to the URL path you're setting in glide.login.home discussed in Question 12, so that you don't have to control this via user preferences and can use variants and audiences to display targeted landing pages. An example of this is the Service Operations Workspace that has a variant in the Unified Nav App Home page to display the SOW landing page variant to itil users.
30. Can I load a Configurable Workspace by default for some users?
See the Configure per-user landing pages in Next Experience product documentation which walks through the user preference, for example you can set the my_home_navigation_page user preference for the users and set the value to your configurable workspace homepage path. If you need to do this for multiple users you can use a fix script to create or update the user preferences rather than configuring the user preferences manually.
31. How do I manage the visibility of Workspaces within the Unified Navigation menu in Next Experience?
You can configure the visibility of a particular workspace in the Workspace menu in Unified Navigation, see this support article on how to configure ACLs for workspace visibility.
32. How do I change the logo when Next Experience is enabled?
See the product documentation on setting the logo.
