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11-07-2021 09:02 PM - edited 08-05-2024 11:10 AM
Articles, Blogs, Videos, Podcasts, Share projects - Experiences from the field
Hi there,
One of my favorite nice new elements on the new Employee Center, is the Quick Links widget. Quick Links are a way to quickly access internal and external resources related to specific departments within your organization. You can create Quick Links, associate Quick Links to topics, and restrict access to Quick Links with ease.
Though what if you want to display a certain Quick Link always, independent of a topic like HR or IT? Or actually when having demo-data installed, you might notice out-of-the-box there are some Quick Links like these. How have these been made static/always displaying?
Let's have a close look at this undocumented piece.
Quick Links
Just a snipped of out-of-the-box Quick Links when having demo-data installed.
Create a Quick Link
The ServiceNow Docs does describe clearly how to create a Quick Link. Also how to assign Topics or how to restrict access to Quick Links is described well. See this page:
Create a quick link
What's not documented, is the part of Quick Links that are always shown, even when not attached to an active Topic. Looking at the earlier image, all these Quick Links will still be displayed when the Taxonomy is deactivated (or the many-to-many relationship deactivated or removed).
"Static" Quick Links
So why are some Quick Links always shown? What if you want to remove one of these Quick Links or actually add a static Quick Link yourself? In my search after this, I grabbed the sys_id of one of the Quick Links and performed a full instance search for any text containing the sys_id. One unclear result popped up: an Instance record [sp_instance] and more specifically:
(Employee Center)
https://your-instance.service-now.com/sp_instance.do?sys_id=2fd7d372775530104cdac0c23e5a9953
(Employee Center Pro)
https://your-instance.service-now.com/sp_instance.do?sys_id=9781a44153b030101865ddeeff7b129c
In the "Additional options, JSON format" field, I found the sys_id of the Quick Link:
"quick_links": {
"value": "fed413e5e71130104cda66ef11e8a95f,3b445ba5e71130104cda66ef11e8a96f,12e413e5e71130104cda66ef11e8a965,9b729365e71130104cda66ef11e8a9a7,aff317a5e71130104cda66ef11e8a939,4e116048e76530104cda66ef11e8a9bc",
"displayValue": "Our Company, Org Chart, Careers, Password Reset, System Status, Request Standing Desk"
}
Interesting! So if you would like to remove (not delete) the out-of-the-box Quick Links which will still be shown even without Taxonomy or Topics active/related, this is the place to be. Or when wanting to add your own Quick Link which always should be shown, this is the place to be! Simply add the sys_id of the Quick Link you want always to be shown.
And good to know… using User Criteria on static Quick Links is also possible, just works the same as regular Quick Links.
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And that's it. If any questions, let me know!
C |
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Kind regards,
Mark Roethof
ServiceNow Technical Platform Architect @ Quint Technology
2x ServiceNow Developer MVP
2x ServiceNow Community MVP
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hi Mark, The recommended way to show a quick link on the home page is via the instance options of the quick links widget. For more information on the available options please see this doc.

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Yeah a saw this later than when I wrote the article. It does make it simpler.
There is a downside of these Instance options though. If there's no active Quick Link, then the widget Instance won't be shown on the portal. You could still access it through the page designer, though the most commonly used ctrl+right click and selecting Instance Options (which is also the one mentioned on the Docs) won't be an option then unfortunately.
Kind regards,
Mark
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Sorry, but what do you mean by full instance search? How do you do this?
I've set up my quick links via instance options but am finding that the order the quick links are displayed changes randomly sometimes. I am looking for a way to fix the order.
Thank you!
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What is the size for those quick link images? I want to add my own, but not sure on the sizing so it matches the out of box ones.
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Thank you, but quick links creation is not captured in update sets. So what is the best way to move quick links from dev to test to prod? Export each quick link record as xml and then move the update set where we configure the quick links for widget instance options? I am new to ServiceNow. Please suggest!

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Hi there,
Export to XML might work for some companies. This is also the method demo'ed in one of the recent Employee Center academies, though in my opinion an incorrect method. Since it depends on the maturity level of companies and if you have such access on higher environments. Within larger serious environments, this a no no.
Else use the out-of-the-box option Create Application Files, which will be captured in an Update Set.
Kind regards,
Mark
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Hi Mark,
We are trying to add quick links (basically external links) but want to show as sub menu (meaning when I click on Jobs from Human resources menu, it should take me to external link ) is there any possible way to do that
@Mark Roethof