June 21, 2023:EC Academy: Integrations with Conversational interfaces (with a focus on MS Teams) Q&A

[amrithaanayak]

June 21st 2023:Employee Center Academy : Integrations with Conversational interfaces (with a focus on MS Teams) Q&A 

1. What version of employee center or extra license costs is required on ServiceNow end?

A. No extra license required. You will need to install Zoom Desktop - 5.11.0 or later from zoom marketplace , and the employee center for zoom app from the ServiceNow store

2. Do we need to have a local account created in Microsoft for integration or an actual admin account can perform the integration?

A. On the Microsoft side, either “Global Administrator” OR Both “Teams Administrator” and “Application Administrator” roles are needed. On the ServiceNow side, either “admin” OR “external_app_install_admin” roles are needed.

3. What's the difference between Conversational Integration with Microsoft Teams
and ServiceNow for Microsoft Teams application ?Could these be installed mutually exclusive of each other or one supersedes other ?

A. Conversational Integration with MS teams brings VA and ServiceNow for Microsoft teams brings Employee center and VA.

4. Can employee center app from MS Teams get to all pages that are in your normal portal?

A. Yes it can access all the pages.

5. Does the integration between ServiceNow and Teams/SharePoint Online offer any additional flexibility in look and feel for the Employee Center?

A.  Recommendation is to have a standard consistent experience across portal and teams view.

6. Do we install TEAMS from a SYSADMIN account?

A. You can create a user which reflects the name and the role to this user can be either Global administrator or both (Teams Administrator and application administrator). On ServiceNow user you will need role admin or external_app_install_admin.

7. Are there any integration issues or feature losses in the federal space considering the differences in FedRAMP authorization levels between ServiceNow (FedRAMP High) and SharePoint Online/Teams (FedRAMP Moderate)?

A. GCC and GCC High have alternative integration paths. Please see this Regulated Market Support for ServiceNow on Microsoft Teams.

8. Can I try these on PDI?

A. Teams integration cannot be practiced on a PDI. You can test it out in sub production instance.

9. Is there a way to easily revert from the single tenant to the multi-tenant configuration?

A. The transition should be easy and single tenant config is not used once a switch to multi-tenant is made

10. If we already have the Conversation Interfaces for Microsoft Teams installed, what is the best course of action when we are installing and the "Configure Virtual Agent" step is presented? I would be concerned about creating duplicate records for the VA bot and impacting our existing configuration.

A. Our recommendation is to combine VA and Employee center so recreate manifest file and upload one.

11. Can we limit the tab initially on production environment to limited people for testing? if yes are we going to see this in todays's session?

A. Yes, viewing the ServiceNow app within Teams is completely flexible and can be rolled out to specific groups at your discretion. Please see the Recommendations article in the SN for MS Teams Community.

12. Is there an additional license or fee to use this integration between ServiceNow and Teams?

A. The plugins used in the integration are free to licensed ServiceNow customers.

An Integration Hub subscription is required and transactions to Microsoft will count against the transaction limit. On the Microsoft side, any use of the Microsoft Teams API based on a rate charge per message: The rate charge applies each time the Teams API is called. Charges will apply for messages sent from ServiceNow to Teams and vice versa.The rate charge doesn’t apply to “means to an end” actions such as searching for or adding users to a Teams group chat, user presence, or reactions. Microsoft bills ServiceNow customers directly via their Microsoft Azure account.

13. Can we disable virtual agent and enable it in later stage for teams?

A. Yes, Virtual agent step in manifest generation flow is optional.

14. We are using different HR Domains (eg. by country) for NOW HR how does the VA recognize the respective HR Resolver group

A. This is Role Based Access Control within ServiceNow. Users only see content that they have permission to.

15. Can the portal be shown in teams, like employee center?

A. Yes, showing Employee Center in Teams is core functionality of the MS Teams integration.

16. Could you please share the link to security white paper, since our digital security team has concerns over ServiceNow for Teams app having application (not delegated) level permissions to Microsoft Teams.

A.  Here is the security white paper.

17. From the integration user, does it require multi-factor authentication or it should not be setup w/o?

A. This is dependent on how your admin has set it up.

18. How to change from single tenant to multi-tenant setup?

A. You can have single Servicenow instance and multiple MS teams - Multi tenant. Our product documentation will provide you more details.

19. The main question from Microsoft admins are why this user needs an application_administrator role as this is also a Hi role and they hesitate and ask lots of questions around this but there is not much documentation on same

A. The security FAQ will help guide this discussion.

20. For the employee how is the view of the IT be HR topics or live chat in MS Teams NOW application. For the end user is it the same NOW application in MS teams for both IT and HR?

A. Yes, When the integration is setup, there is a chat tab used for all VA conversations and live agent

21. For the end user is it the same NOW application in MS teams for both IT and HR? We are in separate portals but moving to EC pro. How is the view of the IT be HR topics or live chat in MS Teams NOW application?

A. Yes, When the integration is setup, there is a chat tab used for all VA conversations and live agent transfers. Employee Center is a separate tab, and looks the same as it does in the portal.

22. I'd like to hear the recommendation/best practice for developing, maintaining, supporting this in sub-prod instances after you go live with it in Prod. How can we upgrade, enhance, test, etc. in sub-prod with this connected to Teams. Do we have to associate this with multiple tenants? Or is there a way to associate with a single tenant but have one point to prod and another point to sub-prod but with only some users seeing the sub-prod? Any documentation on this would be great to have.

A. Assuming you have a single Teams tenant, you have the following options.  

• Leverage Permissions Policy in Teams:  You can deploy the manifest file and not expose it to all end-users.  In the demo, we chose "Global (Org-wide default)".  You can create a policy and control who sees EC in production
• Connect Sub-Prod to Azure Dev Instance: You can create your own Azure Dev instance here.  Once created, you can test the deployment to ensure it is functioning as you hope

23. For the employee how is the view of the IT be HR topics or live chat in MS Teams NOW application. For the end user is it the same NOW application in MS teams for both IT and HR?

A. When the integration is setup, there is a chat tab used for all VA conversations and live agent transfers. Employee Center is a separate tab, and looks the same as it does in the portal.

24. Is there any charge on the MS side for this?

A. On the Microsoft side, any use of the Microsoft Teams API based on a rate charge per message:

The rate charge applies each time the Teams API is called. Charges will apply for messages sent from ServiceNow to Teams and vice versa. The rate charge doesn’t apply to “means to an end” actions such as searching for or adding users to a Teams group chat, user presence, or reactions.

Microsoft bills ServiceNow customers directly via their Microsoft Azure account.

25. What additional features are gained with the Viva integration? Which module of Viva does the integration support (i.e., Connections, Insights, Learning, etc.)

A. The integration is with Viva Connections. Employee Center content can be served up in Viva Connections and link directly to Employee Center.