Platform Help Optimize Team Productivity Agentic Workflow

samyukthare · 2 hours ago

Platform Help Optimize Team Productivity Agentic Workflow

Help Optimize Team Productivity is an AI-powered platform agentic workflow within ServiceNow that helps managers quickly and fairly assign the right work to the right agents. Instead of manually reviewing open tickets and agent capacity, this workflow uses the Work Allocator AI Agent to intelligently distribute backlog tickets based on agent skills, historical performance, current workload, and availability, while keeping the manager fully in control.

Learn more about the Help Optimize Team Productivity Agentic Workflow in our product documentation.

What Problem We're Solving

Support operations teams face a persistent challenge: distributing incoming and backlog tickets equitably and efficiently is a manual, time-consuming process that depends heavily on manager availability and judgment.

Common Pain Points	How This Workflow Addresses It
Manual ticket allocation does not scale as volumes grow	AI-assisted advisor generates fair, transparent recommendations using real-time data
Managers rely on incomplete information leads to burnout and underutilization	Factors in agent skills, historical performance, and current queues to prevent imbalance
Lack of real-time visibility into workload and skills impacts SLAs and customer satisfaction	Managers retain full control, accept, adjust, or reject any recommendation before dispatch
High-volume incidents or peak periods create sudden backlog surges	Scheduled trigger option lets managers automate daily or weekly backlog rebalancing

Target Users & Personas

Primary Persona — Agent Manager: For managers of assignment groups who allocate backlog tickets to their respective assignment group agents. They trigger workflows in the Now Assist Panel, review AI-generated ticket assignments, override as needed, and approve batches for dispatch.

Where Users Find It

The workflow is triggered exclusively through the Now Assist Panel (NAP). Once the manager triggers it and approves the output, ticket assignments are automatically reflected in the task records assignments.

Now Assist Panel (NAP): The only access point for triggering the workflow. The manager types a prompt (e.g., 'Help allocate work for Deskside Support') and the workflow is invoked.
Assignment Group is mandatory: If the assignment group is not included in the prompt, the workflow will ask for it. This is a required input.

Results in workspace / task record: Once assignments are approved, they appear automatically in the relevant records, with an AI activity indicator showing the assignment was made by the agentic workflow AI agents.

How the Workflow Operates

The Work Allocator AI Agent is the execution engine behind this workflow. When triggered for an assignment group, it distributes all active backlog tickets to the most suitable agents by combining rule-based filtering with AI-powered reasoning.

AI Agent Step-by-Step Flow

Load & Fetch: Loads the assignment group's configuration and fetches all open (backlog) tickets along with all available agents in that group.

Eligibility Filtering: Each ticket is evaluated against configurable eligibility filters skills, location, and language to determine which agents qualify for each ticket.

Direct Assignment: Tickets with only one eligible agent are assigned directly, without AI scoring.

AI Scoring Batch: Tickets with multiple eligible candidates are queued for AI scoring. The agent computes each candidate's 60-day performance metrics, workload score, and ticket similarity score, then calculates a fair quota to ensure balanced distribution. These inputs are sent in configurable batches (default: 50) to the LLM, which returns an optimized ticket-to-agent mapping.

Output: Structured results showing assigned tickets with agent details and reasons for unassigned tickets.

Batch Size: Default batch size is 50 tickets per run. This can be increased to 100. The look back period for agent performance metrics is up to 60 days. Both settings are configurable in the Now Assist skill config record.

Supported Capabilities

Capability	Description
Backlog ticket retrieval	Automatically fetches all active (open) tickets in the specified assignment group
Eligibility filtering	Agents are scored after filtering by skills (if config set), location, and language.
AI-powered assignment scoring	LLM scores eligible agent-ticket combinations using performance, workload, and similarity signals
60-day performance metrics	Agent scoring considers up to 60 days of historical performance data (configurable)
Fair quota distribution	Calculates fair ticket quotas per agent to prevent overloading top performers
Explainable output	Results include assigned tickets with agent details and unassigned tickets with reasons
Manager review & control	Managers review all recommendations before dispatch. Autonomous mode is also available.
Scheduled trigger	Admins can configure a scheduled job so the workflow runs automatically (daily, weekly, etc.)
AI activity indicator	Assigned records show an AI indicator and activity note confirming the agentic workflow made the assignment

Outcomes & Business Benefits

For Agent Managers

Faster backlog cleanup — no more manually reviewing dozens of tickets every morning

AI-driven recommendations based on skills, performance, and workload — ready in seconds

Configurable automation: supervised mode for full control, or autonomous mode with scheduled runs

Transparency through explainable output - every assignment includes agent details and unassigned reasons

For Organizations

Fairer workload distribution - prevents chronic overloading of top performers

Improved SLA compliance - high-impact tickets are routed to qualified, available agents

Scales without a proportional increase in manager bandwidth

Works across ITSM, HR, CSM, and any application with the appropriate data access roles

For the Platform

Complements Advanced Work Assignment (AWA): comprehensive coverage across both live intake (AWA) and backlog optimization (this workflow)

Reusable foundation: scheduled jobs, assignment group configs, and eligibility filters are all customizable

AI activity indicator on records provides an audit trail of AI-made assignments

Demo

Watch the Platform Academy session that walked through this workflow live, including a full demo and Q&A.

Overview 5:28 – 19:15 │ Demo 21:57 – 27:18 │ Config walkthrough 27:18 – 33:37 │ Q&A 33:37 – 40:26

What's covered: Live demo showing a manager triggering the workflow from NAP for the 'Deskside Support' assignment group with 100+ unassigned tickets, verifying assignments in the incident table, and a full walkthrough of AI Agent Studio config including roles, skill config, and trigger frequency.

Help Optimize Team Productivity vs. Advanced Work Assignment

This workflow is designed to complement not replace Advanced Work Assignment. AWA acts as autopilot for real-time incoming tickets, while this agentic workflow serves as a co-pilot to help managers rebalance the existing backlog.

Dimension	Advanced Work Assignment (AWA)	Help Optimize Team Productivity
How it triggers	Automatically when a ticket enters the queue - real time	On-demand by a manager, or on a configured schedule
Focus	Incoming / live ticket routing	Existing backlog optimization
Intelligence type	Rule-based: skills, availability, capacity thresholds	AI-powered: 30-day performance, workload, ticket similarity, location, language
Human review	None - tickets auto-dispatched	Manager reviews and approves before dispatch
Best used for	High-volume routine ticket flow where speed matters	Backlog review sessions, post-peak rebalancing, fairness-driven distribution

Together = Comprehensive Coverage: AWA ensures new tickets route to agents in real time. Help Optimize Team Productivity lets managers periodically rebalance work already in the system. Used together, they provide coverage across both live intake, queues and existing backlog.

Setup Requirements

License: Professional or Enterprise+

Minimum Plugin version: ZP7 / AP1 / YP13 with Now Assist for Platform and Store app v12.0.12

Required plugins: Now Assist for Platform (automatically installed if Now Assist for ITSM, CSM, or similar apps are already active)

Required Agentic Workflow and AI Agent Roles

Two ACL roles are required for this workflow. These are added to your system by default when you install or upgrade the plugin, but verify them if you encounter issues.

Role	Purpose
sn_uxc_gen_ai.platform_ai_help_allocate_work	Workflow-level user access. This is the parent role and must be assigned to manager users. It includes the AI agent role as a child. This role allows the user to execute the workflow.
sn_uxc_gen_ai.platform_ai_work_allocator	AI agent-level access. Automatically inherited from the parent workflow role. Also assign if using the AI agent standalone.
Data access role (e.g., itil role for ITSM)	Required for the workflow and AI agent to read, update, and assign task records. Use the appropriate role for your table (e.g., itil for incidents; use the equivalent for HR cases or other modules).Note on ITSM vs. HRSD: Data access roles differ depending on the application. For ITSM, itil is used as an example (grants access to incident records). For HRSD or case management, use the appropriate table-level role.

Required User Roles

Require the following for each manager user who triggers this workflow:

now_assist_panel_user - required to access the Now Assist Panel
sn_uxc_gen_ai.platform_ai_help_allocate_work - mandatory workflow role

Note: Ensure that the manager user is added to the relevant assignment groups in the platform. This is required for the workflow to fetch those groups' tickets and agents when triggered.

Recommended (Enhances Quality)

Agent skills configured for skill-based eligibility filtering

Location data populated on agent records (country-level filter is available by default)

Scheduled trigger configured if managers should not need to manually invoke the workflow each time

Note: This article applies to Zurich-Patch-7, Yokohama-Patch-13, and Australia-Patch-1 with Platform AI Agent & Skills app v12.0.12. For the latest updates, refer to the release notes or contact your account executive.

Required Activation & Configuration Steps

Verify Plugin & License

Confirm license: Professional or Enterprise+

Confirm minimum version for Now Assist for Platform Store app v12.0.12 is installed (auto-installed with Now Assist for ITSM, CSM, etc.)

Configure Roles in AI Agent Studio

Note: Typically, an admin with sn_aia.admin access to AI Agent Studio will complete the following configuration and activation steps.

Roles granting data access should be assigned to the Agentic workflow, user and corresponding AI agent that require such permissions to update records.

Navigate to All → AI Agent Studio → then select Help Optimize Team Productivity from Agentic workflows.

Click on Define key requirements → scroll down to select the AI agent ‘Work Allocator AI Agent’

Go to Define data access → confirm sn_uxc_gen_ai.platform_ai_work_allocator is assigned and ensure that you assign the appropriate role so the AI agent can read and update the task record (e.g., itil role for ITSM incidents).

Make sure for every change you click on save and continue to save the changes for each page.

Go back to Agentic workflow and go to Define Security Controls → Define data access.

Confirm sn_uxc_gen_ai.platform_ai_help_allocate_work is assigned at the workflow level. Ensure that you assign the appropriate role so the workflow and its AI agents can read and update the task record (e.g., itil role for ITSM incidents).
Make sure for every change you click on save and continue to save the changes for each page.

Note: If you need a step-by-step guide for activating an out-of-the-box agentic workflow and adding roles, or if you'd like to duplicate it to include customizations, please check out our guided setup article in the community. Agentic Workflows End-to-End Setup Guide

Configure User Roles

For each manager user, assign:

> now_assist_panel_user (Now Assist Panel access)

> sn_uxc_gen_ai.platform_ai_help_allocate_work (Allows user to

enable Agentic workflow via Now Assist Panel)

> itil (Grants workflow and AI agent permission to update

Incident records; ITIL is an example role for ITSM incidents —

customers may use different role names.)

Ensure that manager users are included in the appropriate assignment groups so workflows can accurately assign tasks to group agents when a manager initiates a workflow for an assignment group (e.g., Manager user – Adam Haro).

Configure the Skill Config Record

Navigate to All → type ‘sn_nowassist_skill_config_list.do’ → search for ‘Optimal Ticket Assignment’ and open the record.

The settings for Work Allocator and Trigger frequency are set within sn_nowassist_skill_config → Optimal Ticket Assignment and can be modified to suit your specific needs.

In the Work Allocator Var Set, you can review and adjust the variables per your specific needs:

> Tickets per batch (The number of tickets processed by the

agentic workflow for evaluation. default: 50, max

recommended: 100)

> Lookback period for performance metrics (default: 60 days)

> Location filter scope (default: country-level)

> List of Assignment groups for this workflow to operate on

> Table Query (The table used to gather information about the

work assigned to team members.)

> Backlog ticket Query (Filter conditions for determining what

counts as "backlog" work for team members to complete.)

> In the Trigger Frequency Var Set, configure the scheduled

job(default: 1 day) if you want the workflow to run automatically.

Test & Verify results

Log in as a manager user.

Open the Now Assist Panel and type a prompt such as: 'Help allocate work for [Assignment Group Name]' or any similar prompt.

Verify the workflow triggers, the Work Allocator AI Agent appears, and results are returned.

Check the incident/task table to confirm assignments are made with the AI activity indicator.

Troubleshooting: If the workflow does not appear or assignments fail, check: (1) plugin version, (2) workflow role is assigned to the user, (3) data access role is added in AI Agent Studio, (4) assignment groups are added to the skill config record.

Additional Resources

Explore the following resources to learn more and stay up to date:

Conclusion

Congratulations! You've completed this article.

Help Optimize Team Productivity brings AI-powered backlog management directly into the flow of work , no extra context switching, no black-box decisions. The Work Allocator AI Agent gives managers a structured, data-driven way to distribute work fairly and efficiently, while keeping them fully in control of every assignment. Available from ZP7 / AP1 / YP13 with Platform AI Agents & Skills app v12.0.12, this workflow is designed to scale with your organization and improve over time as performance data accumulates. Future enhancements will be released periodically — review the release notes for the latest plugin versions and updates.

We Value Your Feedback!

Have any suggestions or topics you'd like to see in the future? Let us know!

Check out the Agentic Workflows End to End Setup Guide for more resources

Platform Help Optimize Team Productivity Agentic Workflow

Platform Help Optimize Team Productivity Agentic Workflow

Table of Contents

Resources