Service Portal / Widgets

Announcements

Allows the communication of important and often time-sensitive information

Overview

  • Release version
    Yokohama
  • Available sinceUtah
  • A11Y WCAG 2.1 AA

The Announcements widget is designed to display important, time-sensitive information that needs broad visibility. It serves as a visual alert, ensuring critical messages, updates, or notifications are easily noticed.

Info

Use the Announcements (CD) widget for advanced scheduling and audience based control.

ServiceNow Docs link
Announcements widget documentation

Additional information about the widget

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When to use

Use when conveying urgent or time-critical messages like system downtime, updated policies, breaking news, or new product features.

When not to use

Do not use the Announcements widget for multiple or non-essential updates, personalized messages, or if you require to display on a particular page. They can become cluttered or intrusive if used excessively, so use them sparingly.

Usage

Use the Announcements widget to deliver timely information within the portal. Sometimes these are from ServiceNow tables and other times URLs/APIs. Prioritize clarity, visibility, and accessibility, ensuring announcements are concise and strategically placed. Keep the following suggestions in mind:

  • Ensure strategic placement and visibility: Announcements should be placed in a prominent location on the portal, typically at the top of the page, to ensure maximum visibility.
  • Prioritize clarity and concision: Announcements should be brief and to the point. Avoid lengthy paragraphs, and use clear, direct language that is easily understood by all users. Displaying too much text can cause visual problems. Follow our guidelines on Writing with words.
  • Handle different announcement types: Use a distinct visual style for urgent, informational, and scheduled announcements.

Examples

The Announcements widget is suitable for a range of scenarios, like:

  • System updates: Inform users about scheduled maintenance, new features, or system outages.
  • Company news and policy changes: Share important company-wide announcements.

Anatomy

Header:

  1. Glyph (optional): A visual cue that represents the announcement type. The default is the megaphone. Hide this by selecting the blank icon in the instance options.
  2. Widget title: A brief, descriptive heading that summarizes the widget’s contents. If left blank, it defaults to Announcements.

Body:

  1. Title: A brief, descriptive name for the announcement
  2. Message (optional): A short message area displays when the accordion panel is opened. Can contain links and buttons.

Footer (conditional): Present only when the number of announcements are more than the max records field

  1. Pagination bar: Allows users to navigate between announcements in the widget
  2. Page counter: Text noting current page as well as total number of pages
  3. View all link: Links to a separate page where a user can see all announcements

Empty state

  1. Glyph (optional): A visual cue that represents the announcement type. The default is the megaphone. Hide this by selecting the blank icon in the instance options.
  2. Widget title: A brief, descriptive heading that summarizes the widget’s contents. If left blank, it defaults to Announcements.
  3. Empty state message: A brief, descriptive message that lets users know there are no announcements

Instance options

The instance options below define the announcements widget.

Announcements banners

If an announcement record is defined as a banner, it will automatically display. No widget is required for banners to display. They’re built into the portal.

Announcements widget

Data Field Description
Type Select your type. Choose from an announcement banner or announcement widget. If the type is not defined, the widget will display all active announcements.

Presentation

Field Description
Title Widget header title.
Glyph Select the icon that displays to the left of the title. If this field is not defined, it will default to an icon of a megaphone. If you don’t want an icon to display, select the first empty icon, where no icon is displayed, in the dropdown.
Use display style If selected, each announcement displays according to the style defined in the announcement record. Before selecting this option, consider how the widget will display if multiple announcements in the widget use different styles. It may look disjointed to users.

Behavior

Field Description
Pagination Turn this on to break up a list of announcements into multiple pages
Maximum records Number of announcements to display per page
View all page Click target for “View all” link. The “View all” link only displays when: There are more announcements than can be displayed in a single page. The Max Records field defines the number of records displayed per page. A view all page is defined.

Usability

The Announcements widget complies with all internationalization and accessibility requirements.

Internationalization

Announcements banner

Announcements widget

Accessibility

Learn how to access the actionable elements of the Announcements widget through keyboard interactions and screen readers. 

Announcements banner tab order

Announcements widget tab order

Keyboard interactions

You can access the actionable elements of the announcements widget with these keyboard interactions: 

  • Tab: Focus moves to the next interactive element within the announcement (e.g., close button, call to action)
  • Shift + tab: Focus moves to the previous interactive element
  • Enter/spacebar: Activates the focused element (e.g., closes the announcement, follows the call to action link)
  • Escape (esc): Closes the announcement, if open