ServiceNow Otto: how to open the Otto panel to interact with agents after triggering an agentic work

akshatbari
Tera Contributor

Friday - last edited Friday

Hi everyone,

I’m on an Australia release instance and I’m building a custom agentic workflow for ITAM in AI Agent Studio. I’d like to know how the user is supposed to interact with the agents after the workflow is started from a UI action on a record.

Setup

  • Custom Workflow: “Hardware Asset Review Workflow”, with two custom agents. The first assesses the refresh risk of a hardware asset, and the second creates an ITAM review task after asking the user for an assignment group.
  • Under “Select channels and status” I have two channels:
    • Engage via the Otto panel: Display is on.
    • Engage via UI actions on specific records: UI action “Assess asset & Create review task”, table alm_hardware, condition “Sys ID is not empty”, Display on.
  • Plugins installed: ServiceNow Otto core, ServiceNow Otto for HAM, ServiceNow Otto for SAM and the other ITAM-related Otto/Now Assist plugins. I have also used the out-of-the-box ITAM agentic workflows, and they work.
  • Roles: the user has the roles needed for ServiceNow Otto and the ITAM modules.

What works

  • When I start the workflow by typing a message in the Otto panel at the top right, it runs correctly. The agents show the group options, I reply, and the task is created.

What doesn’t work

  • When I click the generated UI action `Assess asset & Create review task` on an alm_hardware record, in both the core UI form and the Hardware Asset Workspace, the workflow starts. The Otto icon on record's header shows “At least 1 or more AI activity is paused or running”, with a Review activity button.
  • Clicking Review activity does nothing. No panel opens and I can’t reply to the agents.

What I noticed

  • On an incident in Service Operations Workspace, the right-hand sidebar shows an AI Activity panel and an Agentic Processes icon.
  • On an asset in Hardware Asset Workspace, the right-hand sidebar shows only Asset lifecycle events and a few other panels. There is no AI Activity panel or Agentic Processes entry.
  • So I suspect the asset workspace has nowhere to show the AI activity, which would explain why Review activity does nothing.

My questions

  1. After a workflow is started from a UI action, which component is supposed to open so the user can interact with the agents? Should the Otto panel open automatically?
  2. Is the AI Activity panel something I have to add to the Hardware Asset Workspace side panel myself, or should the ITAM plugins have done this? If I add it, which component or configuration should I use or configure and how?
  3. Is there a setting that enables the AI Activity panel for alm_hardware and alm_asset?
  4. Is there a supported way to make the UI action open the Otto panel and start the conversation in it, so the user can reply to the agents?

 

Screenshots for reference:

1. UI Action enabled for the agentic workflow in AI Agent Studio.

akshatbari_4-1793355366420.png

 

2. Record's page with Otto/Now Assist icon on header in native form view

akshatbari_3-1793355305243.png

 

 

3. Hardware asset workspace view for same record with no options to interact with agent

akshatbari_5-1793355458726.png

 

I’m happy to share more screenshots. Thanks in advance for any help.

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6 REPLIES 6

sanjaygupta
Giga Guru

Monday - last edited Monday

Hello @akshatbari 

Yes. Your diagnosis is likely correct. The workflow is starting successfully, but Hardware Asset Workspace does not appear to have the AI Activity experience needed to continue a paused workflow. https://www.servicenow.com/community/servicenow-otto-articles/in-product-experience-for-agentic-work...

 

When you start the workflow from the UI action, ServiceNow does not normally open the Otto chat panel automatically. The expected experience is the AI Activity panel, where you can review the running workflow and provide input.

Your screenshots support this. The asset shows the AI activity indicator and Review activity, but Hardware Asset Workspace has no AI Activity or Agentic Processes panel to display the conversation.

I would test this first in Core UI before changing anything.

Open the same alm_hardware record in the standard form.

Click Assess asset & Create review task.

Check whether Review activity opens the AI Activity panel there.

If it works in Core UI but not Hardware Asset Workspace, your workflow is fine and the problem is the workspace integration.

Then open the Hardware Asset Workspace record page in UI Builder and compare its contextual side-panel configuration with a workspace such as Service Operations Workspace where AI Activity works.

Do not add a generic Otto or chat component yet. The required component is the platform's AI Activity/in-product agentic experience, which needs to be connected to the agentic activity.

Also check com.glide.agentic_processes_view.enabled. ServiceNow uses this for the in-product agentic experience, although it may be a protected property that you cannot simply change yourself.

Check your versions of the ITAM AI Agents/Now Assist plugins and the AI engagement experience as well. Australia release/patch level matters because the agentic experience has changed across releases.

For your fourth question, I would not customize the UI action to force-open Otto as the first solution. The UI-action channel is designed to start the workflow from the record and use the AI Activity experience for the subsequent interaction.

If Hardware Asset Workspace does not support that experience in your release, the cleaner supported alternative is to use the Otto panel for the conversational part rather than building a custom client-side solution.

So, in short, your next three checks should be:

  • Test the UI action in Core UI.
  • Check whether com.glide.agentic_processes_view.enabled is enabled.
  • Compare the Hardware Asset Workspace contextual panel configuration and application versions with a workspace where AI Activity already works.

I would not change the workflow or agents yet. The evidence points more toward the missing AI Activity presentation in Hardware Asset Workspace than a problem with your workflow.




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akshatbari
Tera Contributor
In response to sanjaygupta

Monday

I have tested the UI action in Core UI, the workflow is triggering. An indicator of AI activity is coming on header of the form and clicking on it is showing the "Review Activity" button and then nothing is happening on clicking that "Review Activity" button. 
This behavior is already displayed in the screenshots attached in the above post.

 

com.glide.agentic_processes_view.enabled is already enabled.

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RJ33
Tera Contributor
In response to akshatbari

17 hours ago

Hi Akshat, did you find a solution to this?

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akshatbari
Tera Contributor
In response to RJ33

14 hours ago

No, I have not found the solution yet for this.

I think the AI activity or contextual panel is not configured for Asset workspace or core UI in servicenow OOB.

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