K20 Lab3000 - Use Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to Improve Virtual Agent Success Rates

[Joseph Baiocco]

This article is for questions and answers for K20 Lab3000 - Use Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to Improve Virtual Agent Success Rates. The lab is being presented multiple times throughout the live K20 event May 5 - 7, 2020. During the live event post your questions in the comments of this article and one of our lab gurus will be happy to answer it.

Use the link and article attachments to help you complete your lab.

• Digital Guidebook

[Joseph Baiocco]

Thanks for creating this!

[Joseph Baiocco]

What does NLU stand for?

[Joseph Baiocco]

Natural Language Understanding.

[Notorious BFG]

For the 11am PST session (Lab3000b) the URL for your instance is https://clabs.link/lab3000-291 - these lab instances will only be active until shortly after the session has concluded.

[d_cammack]

Will lab instances be available for some time after this session?

[Shelly Laubert]

The labs are available for 30 minutes after the session is scheduled to end.

[Joseph Baiocco]

Due to technical limitations, the instances expire approximately 1/2 hour after the session ends. However, an "on demand" version will be ready in late May or early June that gives you a chance to revisit the content.

[Notorious BFG]

This is the list of plugins that was flipped on specifically in the instances:  

[d_cammack]

Thought so, but wanted to ask.  I would probably play around with it on my personal dev instance anyway, but wanted to confirm how much time I would have to be in this instance.  Thank you!

[Notorious BFG]

For those who wanted the "Official K20 PlayList" https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4AYJj6YZaQ0QTC1GZbii0r?si=nsUkTLCvQNCac1qK7aft1w

[Darren10]

For those interested in Virtual Agent and NLU On Demand Course in Now Learning: https://nowlearning.service-now.com/lxp?id=overview&sys_id=9de2ecd31babc4506d6c7550cd4bcbeb&type=cou...

[Notorious BFG]

From the chat: "Are there docs that explain the codes we can't read in the read only OOTB content blocks?"

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/orlando-performance-analytics-and-reporting/page/administer/virtu...

[Michael Starkey]

What was that about flipping a switch?

[Joseph Baiocco]

Did Dan and Nabil answer your question?

[Elizabeth Turne]

Good evening all from DFW! Looking forward to learning with you. 

🐱‍🏍✨

Liz Turner

http://linkedin.com/in/turnerliz  

[Joseph Baiocco]

Welcome to the session!

[Notorious BFG]

Welcome!

[Notorious BFG]

Some misc update set content to aid config for this specific exercise

[Elizabeth Turne]

Thanks guys! Ben, I'm getting major podcast vibes from your soundbooth setup. Is that Auralex foam?! 👀

[Notorious BFG]

The two plugins that need repairing:

Make sure you also add demo data for this one!

[Notorious BFG]

Related to making sure your VA has all the info it might need in the platform we recommend checking out the CSDM!  https://nowlearning.service-now.com/lxp?id=overview&sys_id=5df9c9761be140145c28997fbd4bcbe5&type=cou...

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  Is sentiment analysis part of VA in Orlando?

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  Do we need to create the NLU before installing the VA?

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question: if a form is having high level client validation will VA will be feasible/viable option for creating those ticket.(for example incident form)?

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  Does the Show me everything option appear when using the virtual agent in Teams?

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  do we have flexibility to have more than one NLU...example : native and Watson?...will there be any need/benefit to have more than one NLU?

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  what is the best practice if a customer has ITSM and HR portals...should we have one version of VA or two variants - one for IS specific , one more for HR?

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  Is there any guidance at this point on how to structure responses to seem more natural/human? Any Turing style responses that will obscure from the end user that they're chatting with a bot?

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  VA accepts voice commands ?

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  does your model work with ALexa?

[maneesh_gupta]

From an end user's perspective, I would like to visit one place to get help across the organisation. So 1 portal with a combined VA conversations would be ideal.

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  do u have anything like skills in Alexa?

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  We don't have to account for spelling mistakes when creating the utterances, right?

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  Is VA accessible for blind users?

[Simona Lewis]

No, but you need to install the NLU Model plugins. These plugins come with in-built NLU intents. You can then re-use these.

[maneesh_gupta]

Not really, you can install and use these 2 capabilities separately. But if you want to use NLU models in your conversations, then you will need to have NLU setup, prior to configuring the VA conversation. 

[Notorious BFG]

Good eye!  It certainly is!  Occasional podcast guest, but mostly I play a virtual technical instructor for ServiceNow.  We just like to make sure our students have the best audio experience possible.   

ʕﾉಠᴥಠʔﾉ*:･ﾟ✧.   

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  Do you have to define the NLU's or can you build those phrases into the workflows?

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  Can you still complete the lab using your PDI?

[maneesh_gupta]

I would actually add common spelling mistakes as part of the utterances, as users will do the same in real life.

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  How do we manage switching from one NLU to other?

[maneesh_gupta]

You would be able to.

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  Does the VA take/guide the user through steps to troubleshoot/solve a problem along wth them?

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  will VA know that there are mandatory fields on the form and collect that information from user automatically OR do we have to configure the Topic to collect such info?

[Shelly Laubert]

Student question:  Are there additional actions available other than create or update a record? Not sure what else I would want, but thought I would ask.

[Simona Lewis]

Sentiment analysis is not part of Orlando OOTB. You can integrate with external sentiment analysis or you can build sentiment intent into the NLU models.

[maneesh_gupta]

You will need to add them via user input during the conversation. If the mandatory fields are on the form (like UI policy), then the agent can create a record without the mandatory fields. But if there is a data policy on the table which requires certain fields before a record is created, then you will need to provide those values.

Hope this make sense.

[NancyS1]

My contextual search only returns one knowledge article, but the screenshot shoes 3. I know you said something about the sys_id, but I think I didn't catch it all.

[maneesh_gupta]

Yes there are like decision actions, replying to the user, looking up records, etc.

[Joseph Baiocco]

We'll look into that and respond here.