Launch Service Catalog to Customers

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Explain what the Service Catalog site and supported frameworks are.
  
• Describe the site’s custom components.
  
• List the required site permissions.
  
• Build a Service Catalog site.
  
  

Phew! You’re blazing through your Service Catalog learning. Great job! This unit is designed for individuals who have some understanding of Lightning Web Components, Experience Cloud, and Experience Builder.

If this is your first foray into these topics, make sure you complete the listed modules first. The work you do here builds on the concepts and work you do in these badges.

• Experience Cloud Basics
  
• Create and Customize Data Categories
  
• Customize Your Experience Cloud Site
  
• Lightning Web Runtime for Experience Cloud
  
• Set Up a Customer Site with Experience Cloud
  
  

Learn the Basics

Maria has reached the final setup phase: creating a Service Catalog self-service site with Experience Cloud.

Maria builds a site in three steps.

1. Prepare: Complete prerequisites and assign site permissions.
   
2. Build: Create the site pages and configure the components.
   
3. Launch: Configure the site's admin settings, and then publish and activate the site.
   

To build a site, Maria must have:

• The Service Catalog User permissions assignments.
  
• At least one active catalog fulfillment, item, and category.
  

No problem for Maria! She completed these prerequisites during her Service Catalog setup.

What’s a Service Catalog Site?

The Service Catalog Site is a help center where customers browse and request catalog items. You build, customize, and manage the site with point-and-click components, templates, and themes from Experience Cloud, using either the Aura or Lightning Web Runtime (LWR) framework.

The Service Catalog site consists of two building blocks.

• Templates and themes
  
• Components and pages
  

Site Templates and Themes

Experience Cloud templates–which contain specific pages and standard components–enable you to create a site without web development. All you have to do is choose a template that suits your needs and branding preferences, and then add the Service Catalog custom pages and components.

Each supported template is based on either the LWR or Aura framework. For Service Catalog:

• LWR templates only support data categories.
  
• Aura templates only support catalog categories.
  

Here are the templates Service Catalog supports.

The Service Catalog pages and components are available on all Experience Cloud themes, which provide design and color schemes to suit your branding preferences.

Site Components and Pages

Each template supports custom Service Catalog site pages and components that provide feature functionality. Maria reviews the Service Catalog Site Basics Help article for complete details on all Service Catalog components, pages, and supported templates. For even more site customization, standard Experience Cloud components are compatible with Service Catalog.

To set up the custom pages and components:

1. Create the pages in Experience Builder.
   
2. Drag the components onto the page.
   
3. Style the components and pages to match your branding.
   

Prepare to Build a Service Catalog Site

Maria’s eager to get started. But before she can build a site, she must:

1. Determine her setup pathway.
   
2. Complete setup configurations.
   
3. Assign Service Catalog site permissions.
   

Let’s follow along.

Step 1: Determine a Setup Pathway

The Service Catalog pages and components are available for both new and existing Experience Sites.

• For newly created sites: Complete several Setup configurations, create community users, assign Service Catalog site permissions, and determine whether to use Aura or LWR.
  
• For adding Service Catalog to existing sites: Complete a modified set of the Setup configurations and add site permissions to your existing community users.
  

In addition, Maria must keep in mind that because she's using data categories, she must use the Build Your Own (LWR) template to build her Service Catalog site. If she chose Catalog Categories, she can then only use the Aura templates.

Let’s summarize: Maria is creating a new experience site using the LWR framework, so she must complete the first scenario. Maria creates a setup workflow of the exact setup process. For more detailed guidance of the specific Setup configurations, she reviews the Determining Your Setup Pathway Help article.

Maria has determined her setup pathway and moves onto the next step.

Step 2: Complete the Setup Configurations

Maria heads to Setup.

1. From Setup | Roles, she creates and assigns herself an Admin user role.
   
2. From Setup | Digital Experiences, she enables Digital Experiences and Allow using standard external profiles for self-registration, user creation, and login.
   This allows Maria to generate an Experience Site and allows customers to log into the site.
   
3. From Setup | App Launcher | Service Catalog Request, she creates a My Service Catalog Request list view and selects All users can see this list view.
   This allows site users to see a list of their requests in the Service Catalog Site.
   

Next, Maria assigns site permissions.

Step 3: Assign Service Catalog Site Permissions

Because the Service Catalog site is part of Experience Cloud, she must have one of these Experience Cloud community licenses:

• Customer Community
  
• Customer Community Login
  
• Customer Community Plus
  
• Customer Community Plus Login
  
• Partner Community
  
• Partner Community Login
  

For each license, Maria must create community users that have specific Service Catalog site user permissions.

Service Catalog has these site users associated with each framework.

Maria can choose to have a single user be both an LWR site builder and manager based on Ursa Majors organizational structure.

For each user, Maria must assign these permissions.

Maria makes an important note: External Service Catalog Site User is a custom permission set assigned to all site users for both Aura and LWR. The permission set provides users the ability to access and request the catalog. It contains:

• The Use Service Catalog system permission.
  
• Read, create, and edit object permissions for the Service Catalog Request and Service Catalog Request Related Item objects and their fields.
  
• Read, write, and edit access for the objects and their fields used in the screen flows that are part of the catalog fulfillments.
  

With that, Maria’s completed all prerequisites and is ready to start building!

Knowledge Check

Let’s recap the permissions Maria assigned. This knowledge check isn’t scored—it’s just an easy way to quiz yourself. To get started, drag the Service Catalog Persona in the left column next to the matching Persona Role and Permissions on the right. When you finish matching all the items, click Submit to check your work. To start over, click Reset.

Build a Service Catalog Site

Maria heads to Experience Builder to build the site and configure the custom pages and components. First, she reviews the LWR Service Catalog Site Guidelines Help article and notes these important points.

• The Service Catalog Grid component contains the standard Grid component, and the Service Catalog Record Detail contains the standard Record Detail component. These standard components are used to configure the Service Catalog components.
  
• Service Catalog Grid is only available on the Network Data Category detail page.
  
• The Service Catalog Record Detail Component is only available on the Service Catalog Item Definition detail page.
  
• Catalog items without an assigned data category don’t show in the site. They’re only available through search.
  

Step 1: Activate Data Categories

Maria heads to Experience Workspaces in Setup to activate data categories. As a prerequisite, she’s already created an Experience Site using the LWR (BYO) Template from Setup | All Sites |New.

1. From Workspaces, select Data Categories.
   
2. From the Data Categories page, choose the categories to show in the site.
   
3. Save your work.
   

Step 2: Set Up the Service Catalog Pages

Maria heads to Experience Builder to create the custom pages.

1. From Pages | | + New Page, create the Service Catalog Item Definition object page.
   
2. Click on the left sidebar, select the Service Catalog Record Detail component, place it on the builder canvas, and then configure and style the Record Detail component.
   
3. From Pages | | + New Page, create the Network Data Category object page.
   
4. Click on the left sidebar, select the Service Catalog Grid component, place it on the builder canvas, and then configure and style the Grid component.
   

Step 3: Set Up the Search Page

Next, Maria sets up the required standard Search page and components.

1. From Pages | | + New Page, create a standard Search page and name it Service Catalog Search.
   
2. Click on the left sidebar, select the Search Bar component and place it in the Header of the builder canvas.
   
3. Click on the left sidebar, select the Results Layout component and place it in the Header of the builder canvas.
   
4. Click the component and from Objects Included in Search, select Service Catalog Item Definitions.
   This enables catalog item search in the site.
   
5. Click Publish.
   

Maria’s done building a site!

Launch a Service Catalog Site

In the final site setup phase, Maria takes the steps in Launching Your Service Catalog Site to:

1. Finalize site customizations.
   
2. Add Service Catalog users as members of the site and set the site’s Login & Registration settings.
   
3. Activate the site and provide customers access.
   

With site customizations complete, the Ursa Major Solar self-service site is ready to help customers self-service their inquiries.

Wrap It Up

With Service Catalog, Ursa Major has streamlined its service operations and limited its cases. It now leads the competition with exceptional service automation, agent productivity, and customer satisfaction. Next stop: Solar market dominance!

Resources

• Salesforce Help: Setting Up Your Service Catalog Site
  
• Salesforce Help: Getting Oriented with the Service Catalog Site
  
• Salesforce Help: Preparing to Build Your Service Catalog Site
  
• Salesforce Help: Building Your Service Catalog Site
  
• Salesforce Help: Launching Your Service Catalog Site
  
• Salesforce Help: Learn About Experience Cloud Frameworks and Templates.
  
• Salesforce Help: LWR Service Catalog Site Guidelines.