Updated June 15 with some more details about recommendations.
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Agent Assist automatically searches for possible solutions when an agent is working on a record in Agent Workspace.
In this blog, I will use the Orlando version of Agent Assist for IT Service Management (ITSM) as an example.
Agent Assist for ITSM is preconfigured to assist an agent who is working on an Incident, Problem, or a Change and uses Contextual Search to search for possible Knowledge articles, Questions (also known as Social Q&A), Catalog items, Incidents, Problems, Changes, and Outages. Optionally, Predictive Intelligence can also be used to search for Knowledge articles, Incidents, Problems, and Changes.
Clicking the graduation cap (icon) in the Contextual Side panel will display Agent Assist.
When an agent opens a record, Agent Assist runs an automatic search based on a field in the record, typically the short description. Each search result is shown in a card.
If more than one search source is available to the agent, they can use the source selector to switch to a different source to search.
Agent Assist search components diagram
You can adjust the width of the Contextual Side panel to see more cards at a time or provide a wider preview when you select a card.
Some of the Agent Assist search components are as follows:
Clicking the menu (icon) on a card will display the list of actions available for this search result, for example, Attach, Helpful, Flag Article, and View Full Article.
Table Configuration
Table Configuration is the place where you configure the Agent Assist title, search context, and search actions for the record type the agent is working on. Agent Assist table configurations are configured as part of Contextual Search.
To configure Agent Assist components, navigate to: Contextual Search > Table Configuration where the UI type is Workspace.
From Orlando, Agent Assist for ITSM is preconfigured for Incident, Problem and Change. To know how to enable Agent Assist on other record types on your system, refer to Set up Agent Assist.
The Search Action Configurations can be found in the Search Action Configurations related list within a table configuration. The search actions are preconfigured, the available search actions are based on the selected search context. For more information, refer to Modify or disable search actions available for contextual search.
Note: It is not currently possible to create your own search actions.
Search Contexts
The Search Context is where you configure the search sources that are available to the agent for a given table configuration.
Navigate to Contextual Search > Search Contexts module.
From Orlando, Agent Assist for ITSM can include any of the following preconfigured search sources:
- Knowledge articles or Questions (also known as Social Q&A).
- Catalog items: if your agents order items to fulfill requests, for example: sending a keyboard to the requestor.
- Incidents, Problems, Changes or Outages.
Note: Additional preconfigured search sources may be available when you are licensed for Customer Service Management (CSM), Human Resources (HR) or Finance. It is not currently possible to create your own search sources or your own search actions.
Review the search sources available in Agent Assist for the Incident record
In the base version of ServiceNow, the Incident table configuration of Agent Assist for ITSM uses the Incident Deflection search context.
How to find out which search context is being used for a table configuration:
- On the platform, go to: Contextual Search > Table Configuration.
- Open the Incident table configuration where the UI type is Workspace to see the selected search context, which typically should be Incident Deflection.
You can navigate to the search context through the table configuration, or directly, go to: Contextual Search > Search Contexts.
The Incident Deflection search context:
- The Searcher defines whether this search context will include Knowledge articles, Questions or Catalog items.
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- The searcher is a preconfigured group of search sources. It is not currently possible to add your own searcher group, but you can select one of the preconfigured searchers. For example: Knowledge only, Catalog only, Knowledge, and catalog.
- The Searcher is optional (from Orlando).
- Additional search sources can also be included by using the Additional Resource Configurations related list.
- Select the Additional Resource Configurations related list:
-
- You can select which preconfigured standard or Predictive Intelligence additional search sources to make available to the agent by using the Edit button.
Additional search sources are optional. - Typically, the incident deflection search context includes Open Incidents, Resolved Incidents, Problems, Open Problems, Resolved Problems, Open Changes, Closed Changes, Outages, and Open Outages.
- You can select which preconfigured standard or Predictive Intelligence additional search sources to make available to the agent by using the Edit button.
- The agent will only be able to select from additional search sources when the Search on tab setting is checked.
To set the default selected source for this search context, refer to Set default source for search context.
Search Result Display Configuration
The Search Result Display Configuration is where you configure the title, description, or additional fields that are shown for a search result card.
For cards other than Knowledge or Catalog items, you can typically also define the fields for the detailed preview when you select a specific card in Agent Assist.
Navigate to: Contextual Search > Search Result Display Configuration module.
ITSM includes the following preconfigured display cards:
- Incident
- Problem
- Change
- Outage
- Knowledge articles
- Questions
- Catalog items
Note: It is not currently possible to add your own card configurations.
How to add the Knowledge article number into the Knowledge articles card
- On the platform, go to: Contextual Search > Search Result Display Configuration.
- Open the kb_knowledge display configuration where the UI type is Workspace.
- Card additional fields: number.
- Select Update.
- That’s it!
Filter based on form values
From Orlando, you can create filter configurations (known as dynamic filters) that filter based on fields in the form for the following search sources:
- Knowledge articles or questions.
- Incidents, problems, change requests or outages.
Examples:
- Filter knowledge articles using the category from the form.
- Filter incidents to those created by the caller from the form.
How to filter knowledge articles using the category from the form
The Filters can be found in the Filter Configurations related list within a table configuration.
- On the platform, go to: Contextual Search > Table Configuration.
- Open the Incident table configuration where UI type is Workspace.
- Select the Filter Configurations related list.
- Select New.
- Select the Resource configuration: Knowledge Articles.
- Scripted filter: checked.
- Save (right-click the header and select Save).
- Use the following script:
(function(current, query_table){
// current: A GlideRecord representing the Form or Record producer.
// query_table: The table to apply the filter on.
// Active results only.
query_table.addActiveQuery();
// The selected category in the form.
var formCategory = current.getValue('category');
// Filter the knowledge query_table based on the selected category in the form.
// Note: Dot-walk the knowledge table kb_category reference to be able to
// filter by the label.
query_table.addQuery('kb_category.label', '=', formCategory);
// Return the encoded query
return query_table.getEncodedQuery();
})(current, query_table);- Select Update.
- That’s it!
- Now, the dynamic filter will be applied based on the form category when searching for knowledge articles with agent assist from an incident record.
Predictive Intelligence recommendations
If you are licensed for Predictive Intelligence, Agent Assist can provide recommendations when an agent is working on an incident record to save them time.
The following recommendations are based on using Predictive Intelligence to find similar records (incidents) to the current record (incident) the agent is working on. Then looking for trends on those similar records (incidents).
Recommendations
To see the available recommendations, navigate to: Contextual Search > Agent Assist > Recommendations.
The recommendations are evaluated in this order:
| Recommendation name | Current record |
Predictive Intelligence | Recommendation trends (to evaluate against the similar records) |
| Major Incident Recommendations | Incident | Major Incident Recommendation |
This recommendation is included if you are |
| Common Incident Recommendations | Incident | Similar Incidents |
|
Recommendation trends
The trends for the above recommendation similar records are evaluated in this order:
| Trend name | Trend action | Condition (for the current record) | Trend to evaluate |
| Similar Major Incident | Link to an existing Major Incident | Major incident state is None AND Parent incident is empty |
Any of the similar records are linked to a major incident. This recommendation is included if you are licensed for Major Incident Management. |
| Potential Major Incident | Propose a Major Incident | Major incident state is None AND Parent incident is empty AND Incident state is not Resolved |
Any of the similar records have high urgency but are not linked to a major incident. This recommendation is included if you are licensed for Major Incident Management. |
| Common Problem | Link to a Problem | Problem is empty | 3 or more of the similar records are linked to the same problem. |
| Common Change | Link to Change | Caused by is empty | 3 or more of the similar records are linked to the same change request. |
| Common Knowledge Article | Attach | 3 or more of the similar records are linked to the knowledge article. | |
| Common Resolution Code | Copy resolution | Resolution code is None | 3 or more of the similar records share the same resolution code. |
Note: It is not currently possible to create your own search actions.
Example Agent Assist recommendation: Link to Problem
More than one Agent Assist per table
Optionally, you can provide a more targeted experience by splitting up your search sources across multiple Agent Assists in the Contextual Side panel.
Examples:
- Knowledge Assist to only search for knowledge articles and questions.
- ITSM Assist to only search for catalog items, incidents, problems, changes, or outages.
- Employee Documents enables HR users to search for employee documents, filtered by the Caller in the HR Case record.
For more information, refer to Set up multiple Agent Assists.
Next steps
You can read more about the Orlando Agent Assist release in the documentation and New Agent Assist features in the release notes.
To share your ServiceNow product ideas, please visit the idea portal.
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