Getting started with the Now Platform user

interface
This video provides an overview of the ServiceNow user interface, introducing
the main screen elements and taking a detailed look at the banner options. It
applies to all users, though available options vary according to user role and
access control level.

Main screen elements

Here, we’re logged into our ServiceNow instance as system administrator. The
options available to you may differ from those shown here, depending on your
roles and how your system is configured.

The main screen elements are the banner frame, which appears at the top of
every page and contains the logo, user menu, system settings, and tools…The
application navigator, which provides easy access to applications and
modules…And the content frame, which currently displays the System
Administration dashboard. Here are other dashboards we could view. Data
displayed in the content frame can be in several formats, including lists…and
forms.

User menu
The name of the logged-in user appears here, on the banner. Clicking it displays
the user menu, where we can…log out…Or view or update our user profile. By
default, Elevate Roles is available only to the System Administrator user defined
in the base system. But it can be granted to any role to require users to manually
elevate in order to receive the privileges of that role. An open lock icon
indicates that an elevated role is in effect for the current session…which lasts
until session timeout or logout, or until the role is canceled, by unassigning that
role.

Impersonate User is available to all users with the admin or impersonator role. It
allows us to view the instance from another user’s perspective, which is handy
for testing and troubleshooting. Joe Employee has limited access, so let’s go
back to being System Administrator. Joe can’t impersonate another user. This
option is here because we’re logged in as a user with the admin role, and we

© 2019 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated.
need to be able to get back to our own user menu when we’re done
impersonating another user.

Help
Clicking the help icon displays contextual help—if available—in the Help
sidebar. The badge on the help icon indicates that embedded help is available,
which provides targeted help content to the logged-in user, for the current
page, based on role. We can also access other help options here. For example,
we could view the user guide or search the product documentation.

Global search
Global search allows us to enter keywords to search the whole instance for
matching records. As the search proceeds, the progress bar shows the current
percentage of tables searched, until the search is complete. The total number
of matching records is displayed here. The current search terms appear here,
where you can refine the search or enter new search terms. And if you need
help, check the search tips. Note that Boolean operators must be in all caps.

The system displays a partial list of matching records by search group and table,
sorted from highest to lowest document score. Search results include only the
search groups and tables that the logged-in user can access, by role. These
correspond to the results summary on the right, which shows, at a glance, the
number of matches in each search group and table. You can collapse search
groups and click table names to display the associated preview list results. The
system displays up to ten matching records per table by default. Clicking a View
all link launches a filtered list showing all the matches for that table. You can
search for specific records by number and open them from the results list.

Connect
And if we needed to discuss this record—or any content—with others, we could
open the real-time messaging tool, Connect Chat.

System settings for logged-in user

System Settings is where individual users personalize the user interface for
themselves…in each of these categories, without affecting other users. For

2
© 2019 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated.
example, our Home is set to display Dashboards, and our Time zone is US Pacific.
Click the Accessibility tab to enable accessibility features. Here, you can specify
your notification preferences for system events that concern you, such as
requested approvals. Don’t confuse theme settings with global user interface
configurations, which affect all users.

Banner logo and text

Those changes can be made—by users with the admin role—here in the System
Properties, Basic Configuration module…UI16 in our case. This is also where
system administrators can change the logo and text that appear on the banner.
Clicking the logo always takes us back to our Home, which in our case is the
latest dashboard we viewed.

For more information, please see our product documentation, knowledge base,
or podcast. Or ask a question in the ServiceNow Community.

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© 2019 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated.