Replace the Service Portal search page

This is for:

Developer System Administrator

A Coveo-powered search page not only matches keywords with items, it also leverages machine learning and usage analytics to ensure that the content returned to each user is the most relevant for them, based on their profile and inferred intentions. A Coveo-powered search page also makes it possible for users to search many content sources at once, which typical search engines don’t allow. Therefore, to take full advantage of Coveo for ServiceNow and leverage Coveo’s unique features to improve your users' search experience in your Service Portal, you should replace your Service Portal search page with a customizable Coveo hosted search page.

To replace your ServiceNow Service Portal search page with a Coveo-powered search page

  1. Create and customize a Coveo hosted search page for use in your ServiceNow Service Portal.

  2. Replace your Service Portal search page with a Coveo-powered search page.

Create and customize a Coveo hosted search page for your ServiceNow Service Portal

How you create and customize a Coveo hosted search page for ServiceNow depends on your version of Coveo for ServiceNow.

Replace your Service Portal search page with a Coveo-powered search page

  1. In the Now Platform UI of your ServiceNow instance, navigate to Service Portal > Configuration.

  2. Click Designer.

  3. Open the Service Portal search page you want to replace with a Coveo-powered search page.

    Note

    If you’re using Page Route Maps (Service Portal > Page Route Maps), you must open the search page to which the redirect is routed. For example, if you redirect to sp_search, you must open the sp_search page.

  4. Delete all widgets and containers on the page, or reorganize them to make room for the Coveo search widget.

  5. Add a one-column container, or a two-column container if you want to display personalized recommendations next to the search results list.

    Example

    The Main Search and the Recommendations widget in a two-column container:

    The Main Search and the Recommendations widget in a two-column container | Coveo for ServiceNow

  6. Drag one of the following Coveo search page widgets inside the container. The widget to use depends on whether you created the Coveo search page using the Simple builder or Legacy Interface Editor.

    • Coveo Atomic Search Page (Coveo for ServiceNow 25.1.5+): Use this widget if you created your Coveo search page using the Simple builder.

    • Coveo Main Search: Use this widget if you created your Coveo search page using the Legacy Interface Editor.

  7. At the upper-right corner of the Coveo search page widget, click Edit widget icon | Coveo for ServiceNow.

  8. Specify the widget options:

  9. Optionally, specify other widget options as required.

    Examples

    • Use the Scope and Component options to name the widget according to your naming convention.

    • You can use the CSS classes option to define page-specific CSS rules to modify how the Coveo search page renders on the page, such as to adjust the widget’s vertical alignment.

  10. Click Save to save your widget options.

  11. For navigation purposes, you may also want to add a one-column container with a breadcrumbs widget above the container with Coveo search.

Note

To edit your Coveo-powered search page, on the Search Pages (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page of the Coveo Administration Console, click the search page, and then click Edit in the Action bar.

Configure your query pipeline

Once you have implemented the widget in your ServiceNow instance, you must link it to a query pipeline in your Coveo organization.

  1. On the Query Pipelines (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page of the Coveo Administration Console, do one of the following:

    • Click an existing pipeline, and then click Edit components in the Action bar.

    • Create a new pipeline for your Coveo for ServiceNow widget to use.

  2. In the query pipeline panel, create a condition enforcing a specific search hub (Search hub is) for the pipeline. The filter value to enter depends on your widget configuration:

    • If you didn’t provide Scope and Component values in the widget options, enter ServiceNow.

    • If you provided a scope and a component, enter them in the following format: Scope_Component.

      Example

      For a widget with a Portal scope and a MyWidget component, your condition value should be Portal_MyWidget. Your complete pipeline condition is therefore Search Hub is Portal_MyWidget.

      With such a condition, your pipeline will be used for all queries originating from the widget.

      Note

      If your pipeline already has a condition, ensure to include this previous condition in your new one with an OR operator.

      For example, your pipeline has the following condition: Search Hub is Portal_MyWidget. You want to link a new portal widget to this pipeline, so your new condition is Search Hub is Portal_MyWidget OR Search Hub is Portal_MySecondWidget. With this condition, your pipeline will be used for all queries originating from one of these widgets.

What’s next?

Replace the current search boxes in your Service Portal pages with standalone Coveo search boxes in order to properly forward queries to your Coveo-powered search page, and to eventually provide Coveo Machine Learning (Coveo ML) query suggestions to your customers.