Order Catalog Item from Virtual Agent

[Community Alums]

Hi Community,

Service Catalogs are the core functionality in ServiceNow platform. Likewise, Virtual Agent helps in promoting self-service.

It is then a great combination that if we are able to order Catalog Items from Virtual Agent as users won't have to search for them anywhere else while chatting with Virtual Agent.

I have shared my first project on 'ServiceNow Share' and built a custom workflow in Virtual Agent. This workflow calls OOB Topic Blocks to search and order the catalog Item.

Link to code

The code can be found here in ServiceNow Share

Demo
The demo can be seen on the YouTube link mentioned below

Please let me know if you have any suggestions on this.

Please mark this article as Helpful if it helped you.

Cheers,

Hardit Singh

YouTube

LinkedIn

[JLeong]

Thanks for sharing Hardit!

[Community Alums]

Thanks for spending time to read it @JLeong 

[JLeong]

Hi Hardit,

Since our catalog items are long and have lots of fields to complete, I only need to give our user a link to the catalog item. I think I can still use the OOB Search Catalog Item topic block or should I go a different route?

Thank you!

[Community Alums]

There are 2 ways to proceed.

1) You can have some of the items displayed in a static list which are used most often (At the end of static list you ask user to navigate to list of catalog items, if his choice of item is not present in the static list). Then use Order Catalog Item topic(OOB) and order those items (also, see the variables are limited, so the UX is not hampered)

2) The one which you suggested, just show a link to list of catalog items

[JLeong]

Thanks Hardit!

[Travis Rogers]

Jocelyn,

There is a property that controls the maximum number of variables a catalog item can have before it will automatically return as a hyperlink.

• A catalog item cannot have more than the number of questions specified in the glide.sc.conversational.request.question.limit property. By default, this number is set to 10.

You might want to check this out, which explains the catalog item VA process in detail: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/quebec-servicenow-platform/page/product/service-catalog-management/concept/request-topic-blocks-va.html

[JLeong]

Thanks so much, Travis! I will check this out.

[Community Alums]

Thank you Travis for sharing the info!

[A Rahul]

Thanks @Hardit Singh ,  have used the same process but after selecting the catalog item  and conforming i am getting an message cannot find anything message. please provide any suggestions 

[Community Alums]

Hi Rahul,

Are you getting this problem with all items or specific items? Can you try with some other items as well?

Please let me know the type of variables in the item you are testing with. Thanks!

[A Rahul]

yes i am getting all the catalog items from the bot but once i select the item next step it shows the details and next

when i select yes in should i proceed next it displays can't find a valid record message for all the items . 

to cross check i have downloaded the update set from the link and imported in my PDI there also when i select test there also i have seen the same message so i am stuck at both points how to proceed further.

[Travis Rogers]

Hi - Are you using the out of box topics/topic blocks provided through a ServiceNow plugin? (Submit a Request, Search Catalog Item, and Request Catalog Item) or just the ones Hardit provided in the update set?

I'd suggest you try this using out of box from the ITSM Virtual Agent Conversations plugin. 

[Victor Chen]

Hi @Hardit Singh , love the video. Any insights on comparing your topic with the one ITSM delivered as an out-of-box topic: "Submit a request"? What prompted you to create a new topic with a similar flow? cc: @Travis Rogers 

[Community Alums]

Hi Victor,

Hope you are doing fine. Thanks for taking out the time to watch video!

I had missed seeing the 'Submit a Request' topic and I tested it on my PDI and it is very similar to what I have built. I will update this article asap. 

Thanks a lot for pointing that out. I appreciate it.

Cheers,

Hardit Singh

[Community Alums]

@Community Alums : Thank you for the above Video.
i am trying to submit a laptop request by directly using the sys id of the item in topic block. i,e 

But I am getting below error

Could you please help me how I can address this issue? Thank You!

Regards,

Ganesh

[Community Alums]

Hi @Community Alums 

Did you try using the above topic mentioned by Victor? ServiceNow provides the topic OOB to integrate with Catalog Items. Let me know if the issue persists. 

Thanks,
Hardit Singh

[Community Alums]

@Community Alums : Thank you for your reply.
When I use "TEST" button on the topic designer page, I am still getting the error. But when I test the functionality in VA Chat, its working fine. Bit strange but worked for me. 

Regards,

Ganesh

[Community Alums]

@Community Alums 

I have posted a new video for this where I am using OOB Topic Block now. This might help.

[ritesh_k18]

Hi Hardit , saw the video and it was very helpful. Just wanted to check whether the service catalog items which are shown to the user in VA chat should be according to the permission or roles the user have to access that item?

[ErickAlbertJ]

thank, for sharing!