Articles, Blogs, Videos, Podcasts, Share projects - Experiences from the field

Hi there,

The "My items" widget on the Employee Center homepage displays all user activity that requires your input or review. What is displayed under the "My active items" section is highly configurable through Activity Configuration. On the widget also a section "Quick tasks" is shown when the count for the primary activity is equal or greater than 1.

While the My active items section is highly configurable, the options for the Quick tasks are very limited. Basically what is displayed as Quick tasks is related to the primary activity. Though what if we want to show a different number of Quick tasks? Or if don't want to show any Quick tasks at all? How do we achieve this?

Instance Options

The Quick tasks section on the My items widget is only configurable through (overriding) CSS, changing the primary activity, and one instance option. Only one instance option, though it is the one for what we are after: changing the number of Quick Tasks shown under My active items.

By default, three cards for the primary activity are displayed on the Quick tasks. You can configure the instance options to view more cards. On the Employee Center homepage, press and hold the control key, right-click the My items widget, and then select Instance Options.

The options available are "-- None --", "3" and "5". Selecting 3 or 5 will be immediately effective. Selecting -- None -- actually does not work!

Applying different number of cards

So what if you are after displaying a different number of cards, for example 2 or 4? And since -- None -- actually does not work, how can show no Quick tasks at all? It's a small workaround, though a proven mechanism: editing the instance option record from within the platform. On the Employee Center homepage, press and hold the control key, right-click the My items widget, and then select Instance Options. On the top left hamburger menu, select Open in platform. On the Data record which is opened within the platform, notice the "Additional options, JSON format" field. This field holds the values for all instance options. To change the default 3 cards, simply update the value and displayValue to for example 2 or 4. If after not showing any Quick tasks at all, update the value and displayValue to 0.

Setting the value and displayValue will result in something like:

---

Hope you like it. If any questions or remarks, let me know!

Kind regards,

Mark Roethof

Independent ServiceNow Consultant

3x ServiceNow Developer MVP

3x ServiceNow Community MVP

---