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Release: Australia · Updated: 2026-03-12 · Official documentation · View source

Configure help popups for layouts

Implement buyside help popups in ServiceNow CPQ.

Help popups give the user more information about a field in a layout. They resemble the tooltip message display type, but differ in the following ways:

  • Tool tips appear only when the condition of a message rule is met, whereas help popups are always present on the layout
  • Tool tips display only plain text, whereas help popups can include hyperlinks, lists, italics, bold text, newlines, images, and dynamic text
  • Tool tips appear on hover, whereas help popup icons must be clicked to display messages

Note: To learn how to display a message that appears as the result of a message rule, see Change how messages are displayed to the end user.

The image below shows a popup message that appears when the user clicks its help icon. To illustrate dynamic text in a help popup, the second image shows additional text that appears as the result of a selected picklist option.

Image omitted: cpq-help-message-popups-1.png
Help message popup
Image omitted: cpq-help-message-popups-2.png
Help message popup showing dynamic text

To implement a message popup, add a column header called "help" in cell K1 of your CSV layout.

For a tier, columnset, or field, the format for a help popup is as follows:

{"content":"<help body>","heading":"<help heading>","trigger":{"type":"icon","url":"<image.url>”,“label”: “<Label>”}}

To assign the popup a button instead of an icon, use "type":"button". The button resembles the following:

Image omitted: cpq-help-message-popup-button.png
Keyboard icon

If you don't specify an image URL, a question mark will appear:

Image omitted: cpq-help-message-popup-default-icon.png
Question mark icon

If you don't specify a label, the default value is "Help."

Formatting the popup contents

The following table shows how to control the formatting of the content of a message popup.

Formatting optionSyntaxOutputNotes
BoldBold text\[text display in bold\]Can use underscores instead of asterisks
Italic`Italic text`\[text displays in italics\]Can use underscore instead of asterisk
Unordered list`Item\r- Item\r- Item`- Item - Item - Item 
Ordered list`1.Item\r2. Item\r3. Item`1. Item 2. Item 3. Item 
Newline
first line\nsecond line
first line second line 
Link`link display text`\[link display text appears as a clickable link\]Javascript will be sanitized
Image \(GIF\)`![alt text](image url \"title text\")` Quotes around the title text must be escaped
Dynamic text`{{ fieldVariableName }}` Outputs the value of the selected field in the text