Thanks for checking out CMS Lite. While it is not a certified ServiceNow app, it’s been utilized a lot and has proven to be quite stable, even for Helsinki. I hope you enjoy!

Get Started

  1. Download the Current Update Set from Share
  2. Navigate in the native UI to “Retrieved Update Sets” and Import Using XML
  3. Commit Update Set
  4. Download any visual assets used within the CMS Lite app (slide images)
  5. Watch training videos to configure:
    1. Overview
    2. Content
    3. Utilities, Chat, Live Feed, Login, Cart, Footer, My Items
    4. Features, Type-ahead Search, Knowledge, Catalog

Background/Purpose:

CMS Lite is an app designed to be a rapid prototyping tool to demo other options for elevated User Experience. Each site is responsive/mobile-ready and brings together many of the features that customers have requested over the previous few years. While Service Portal is being finalized and launched, this serves as a nice stop-gap for those customers needing CMS.

For best experience, demo via Chrome, Firefox or Safari.

Configuration Notes

Configuration

Navigate to CMS Lite > Configuration. You will see 3 pre-loaded Site Configurations to choose from. Each Configuration is associated with an actual Site (CMS Lite > Sites). The site record references the configuration record.

For specific detail on configuration, make sure to watch the training videos (above).

Site Options

OOB there are 3 site options to choose from:

CMS Lite: IT Portal: Branded Portal:
CMS Lite Home Page itportal_home branded_home
Live Example: https://nowcms.service-now.com/cmslite/
un: testuser
pw: servicenow
Live Example: https://nowcms.service-now.com/itportal/
un: testuser
pw: servicenow
Live Example: https://nowcms.service-now.com/branded2/
un: testuser
pw: servicenow

 

For Branded Portal: make sure you activate (with demo data) the Facilities Service Management, Finance Service Management, Human Resources Application, Legal Service Management and Marketing Service Management plugins if you want to utilize the OOB menu. You can also just make menu items inactive if you don’t intent to use that specific catalog/area.

Create a New Site

If you want/need to create your own new Site (rather than modify one of the 3 that are there) the easiest way is to open one of the current sites and click “Copy”. However, note that it will make a copy of all Content Blocks, Layout and CSS.

Important: make sure you always choose “CMS Lite – Layout” for the Default layout of the site as well as “CMS Lite – Theme” as the Default theme.

Layouts

There are 2 distinct layout options, but really all that changes is the way the header/navigation is displayed.

The standard version is with the menu items inline. Layout Option 2 is with the menu on it’s own line.

Standard:

standard

Layout Option 2:

option2

Layout Option 2 is ideal for sites with more than 4 menu items to keep the header clean.

Icons

Font Awesome is the icon set loaded with CMS Lite. It’s referenced via URL so implies that you’re connected to the internet during demo. You can always download the CSS and load it locally if that won’t work.

To chose your icon, just head over to http://fontawesome.io/icons and you only have to capture the actual class of the item.

Chat

Plugins Required: Connect and Connect Support  (Do not load Chat plugin as it and Connect Support should not be used together per the documentation).

Then create a chat queue by going to Collaborate -> Queues

Copy the sys_id of that Queue and add to the CMS Lite > Properties area.

Photos

If you want to download any of the images for the slider or Branded Portal home page, you can view the assets here.

As well, a great way to access new imagery is to go to www.flickr.com and do a search. Once you get the results, under the “Any license” dropdown, select “Commercial use & mods allowed”. Then you can download any of the images for demos.

Ideal Image size for slider: 1200px X 400px with a dpi of 72

Ideal Image size for Branded Home page image: 1140px X 500px with a dpi of 72

Support

If you need help with CMS Lite or have a more complicated CMS usage requirement that you need help with, feel free to email metten at gmail dot com.

Author

With over a decade of experience, I have managed online marketing for a wide range of industries including biotech, high-tech, financial, higher education, non-profit, manufacturing, hardware providers, and startups. My specialty is helping business make the right turn with their online efforts focusing on lead generation and analytics.

Leave a Reply