The service portal in ServiceNow Helsinki is rather new; not available in Geneva or earlier versions. It is generally used as a front page for IT, and allows users (even those without any permissive roles in ServiceNow) to submit tickets for IT (or other departments) to handle. The service portal is effectively a replacement for the CMS, and includes many enhancements over the old Jelly-driven CMS application, but many companies will still be on a legacy CMS until they have a reason to convert/upgrade to the service portal for their self-service interface.
To create your own Service Portal, start by navigating to System Definition | Plugins to activate the Service Portal for Enterprise Service Management ...
