Virtual Agent FAQs
As of the Vancouver release
Table of contents:
- Getting started with ServiceNow Virtual Agent
- Virtual Agent Designer and conversations
- Virtual Agent Integrations
- For more information
1. Getting Started with ServiceNow Virtual Agent
How do I tell if I have access/entitlement to Virtual Agent?
If you have the Pro/Enterprise package and above, e.g. ITSM Pro, HR Pro, CSM Pro, you have access to Virtual Agent. If you have the ITSM Standard package, you have access to Virtual Agent Lite.
What is the difference and restrictions found in Virtual Agent Lite?
The following are restrictions in Virtual Agent Lite (usable in Standard packages):
- In Virtual Agent Designer, you are unable to create your own topics. You are still able to duplicate and publish predefined topics. In full Virtual Agent, you can create your own topics, topic blocks, and custom controls.
- ITSM provides two predefined topics for Virtual Agent Lite. The full Virtual Agent contains much more.
- NLU is not enabled in Virtual Agent Lite.
- Only the following integrations are allowed in Virtual Agent Lite: Slack, MS Teams, and Workplace by Facebook.
For more information, see the Product Documentation.
To access the full capabilities of Virtual Agent, contact your account representative about the Pro packages.
How do I activate Virtual Agent?
If you are entitled to Virtual Agent, you can activate it for your instance by navigating to the Plugins page and installing the Glide Virtual Agent plugin - com.glide.cs.chatbot. This will install several other plugins that are needed.
You can install the plugin package, Virtual Agent, which also installs multiple needed plugins.
It is recommended to use our Conversational Interfaces Home page to start your configuration journey.
For a list of Virtual Agent-related plugins, see this article: Conversational Interfaces (VA, Agent Chat, AWA) plugins list, by release
How do I install Now Assist in Virtual Agent (with generative AI)?
Now Assist in Virtual Agent is available with a Pro Plus/Enterprise Plus license with Now Assist for ITSM, HRSD, or CSM. You can then configure Now Assist in VA in the Conversational Interfaces Home page. See here for more resources on Now Assist in Virtual Agent: https://www.servicenow.com/community/now-assist-articles/now-assist-in-virtual-agent-resources-guide...
What skills are required to build a Virtual Agent conversation and/or NLU model? Do I need to be a programmer or data scientist?
You don't need to be a programmer or data scientist to build great Virtual Agent experiences! At a minimum, you should be familiar with ServiceNow platform administration and navigation. The Virtual Agent topic designer is a low-code, drag-and-drop tool to build conversations. You can use scripting for more complex workflows if desired. The NLU Workbench is another low-code tool where you can type in sample utterances, and train and test models with a single click.
When starting my Virtual Agent implementation, what are some tips to consider?
Check out our Community article on tips for implementation success here. To learn 7 habits for a highly effective chatbot, read our white paper here.
What are the latest features released for Virtual Agent?
You can find the Virtual Agent release notes here.
Is Virtual Agent supported on Mobile? How do I activate it?
Yes. Virtual Agent is available in the Now Mobile, Onboarding, and Agent apps. See here on how to activate it in the app.
Is Virtual Agent supported on-prem/self-hosted?
Virtual Agent is supported on-prem via the web portal using keywords. NLU is also supported on-prem but requires additional configuration, see: KB0782052. Messaging integrations such as Teams and Slack are not supported on-prem. The Conversational analytics dashboard is also not supported on-prem.
How do I change the Virtual Agent’s branding and appearance to personalize it for my organization? What options are there?
You can access a variety of branding options for the Virtual Agent by navigating to Conversational Interfaces Home > Settings > Branding. Configuration options for branding include the color and logo of the chat, icons, and chat menu options.
You can also change the appearance of the portal button by navigating to Service Portal > Themes, creating a new theme record, and modifying the CSS variables field. See the documentation for steps here.
What languages are supported for Virtual Agent? Is localization supported?
You can use dynamic translation to automatically VA topics and NLU models. See this Academy video for more information.
Virtual Agent topic outputs support all languages available on the Platform today. The Translated Text table, sys_translated_text, stores translations for Virtual Agent keywords and topic titles. The Messages table, sys_ui_message, stores translations for messages and menu items in Virtual Agent topics. Messages for predefined topics have been translated out-of-box, e.g. “No Chat Agents currently available”.
To localize text within the conversation, you can use localization method: gs.getMessageLang() in your script output. The gs.getMessageLang method searches for a record on the Messages table with a Key value and a language value matching the user’s language. The method returns the translated version of the text, which is stored in the message field of the record. Below is an example of it used to translate a Greetings topic.
How do I best migrate Virtual Agent topics from a sub-prod instance to prod?
See this article on how to migrate using a utility and update sets. If you are also migrating NLU models, be sure to also re-sync your Vocabulary Sources and re-train and publish your NLU model after migrating.
I get an error: "This topic version is not supported on this instance. Check with your ServiceNow Administrator for assistance."
You are likely attempting to migrate a Virtual Agent topic created in a newer version instance to an older version instance, e.g., from a Utah instance back to a Tokyo instance. Topics built in a newer release version rely on code that is not supported/present in older releases, hence the error.
2. Virtual Agent Designer and Conversations
What out-of-box conversations are available for the Virtual Agent? How do I access them?
ITSM, HRSD, and CSM has provided content packs that include pre-built conversations to serve the most popular workflow needs. For example, out-of-box conversations for ITSM are provided and regularly updated through Store releases. See the ServiceNow Store for ServiceNow Products > ITSM Virtual Agent conversations.
How do I change the Virtual Agent greeting experience?
First impressions matter! To configure greeting and promoted topics, navigate to Custom Greetings & Setup page. This is found in the Conversational Interfaces Home page. You can customize your greeting to show promoted topics, which appear as shortcut buttons at the beginning of a conversation. You can also show different greeting experiences based on the portal visited.
For more information, see the documentation on Custom Greetings & Setup here.
You can also change the text of the “Show me everything” menu button that appears in your Greeting. Navigate to the Messages table (sys_ui_message) and create a Key = “Show Me Everything” and Message with the desired text of the button.
How do I access the transcript of a Virtual Agent conversation?
Each time a Virtual Agent conversation occurs, an interaction record captures the entire conversation as a chat record type in the Interaction [interaction] table. The record maps to an entire conversation and includes all topic elements used in the conversation, as well as live agent transfers.
The contents of the conversation are contained in the Transcript field. The data within the transcript is also accessible via a script method: vaSystem.getTranscript(). Note that conversations transferred to Connect Support are not captured in the Interaction record.
When a user does not get a Virtual Agent topic matched to their query, they get routed to the Fallback topic. How do I change the experience to open a Search topic instead?
If your users keeping getting the message, “I am sorry but I didn't understand your request.”, this means that Virtual Agent was not able to find a relevant topic and thus reverted to the default fallback topic. You can decrease the chance of this occurring by adding more keywords to a topic or tuning your NLU model to add more utterances.
Rather than ending the user’s conversation, you can also take users to a Fallback Search topic. This will use what the user typed as a search term to surface helpful data like Catalog Items or Knowledge articles.
Navigate to Custom Greetings & Setup and in the “Setup Topics” tab, update the setup topic for “Fallback” topic type to “Search Fallback Topic”. If AI Search is enabled, the fallback logic will first use the AI Search Fallback topic.
How are idle conversations handled in Virtual Agent? Is the behavior configurable?
Virtual Agent conversations that are abandoned by requesters remain open or "idle" until they are automatically closed by the scheduled job, “Time Out Abandoned VA Conversations”. This job runs hourly each day.
The default timeout period for abandoned virtual agent conversations is two hours (7200 seconds). An admin can change the default timeout period for idle Virtual Agent conversations by adding the system property: com.glide.cs.conversation_idle_timeout (in seconds). The timeout value that you specify in this property applies to all conversations in supported Virtual Agent channels.
The “Time Out Abandoned VA Conversations” job closes any conversations that have been open longer than one hour (3600 seconds). To change the time that the hourly scheduled job runs, Navigate to System Definition > Scheduled Jobs and open the “Time Out Abandoned VA Conversations” record.
The time out also applies to 3rd party channels, and it can be further overwritten by channel. More information can be found in the documentation here.
How can I track and analyze my organization’s Virtual Agent usage?
The Conversational Analytics dashboard is available with a refreshed UI. In the navigator, search for “Conversational Analytics > Virtual Agent dashboard". The dashboard contains metrics on topics, topic nodes, and conversations. Custom metrics can also be created and tracked. A scheduled job refreshes the dashboard data roughly every 15 minutes. Conversations data has a retention of 3 months.
Is the Conversational Analytics dashboard available in GCC/regulated environments?
Unfortunately not at this time (Vancouver release and prior). In the meantime you can use Performance Analytics (PA) dashboards to measure the usage and effectiveness of your Virtual Agent. If you don't have access to the Virtual Agent PA dashboards, log a ticket with Support to enable them.
How do I secure the Interactions table that has shared IT and HR data that is potentially sensitive?
Because each organization deploys Interactions differently, it is recommended to use platform security to ensure proper viewing restrictions across HR and IT data. Utilizing scopes, Business Rules, and ACLs are all ways to prevent admins and IT professionals from viewing and accessing sensitive HR records on the Interaction table.
Is Domain Separation supported in Virtual Agent?
Yes, Virtual Agent has basic support for domain separation. Branding and General Settings can apply per domain. More information can be found in the documentation here.
Am I able to integrate Virtual Agent with other bots? How?
Yes, ServiceNow released a Virtual Agent API that allows the ServiceNow bot to interact with other bots.
ServiceNow Virtual Agent can integrate with other bots such as IBM Watson Assistant, Microsoft Azure bot, or a homegrown bot. Your third party bots could handle specific types of end user requests, while using the ServiceNow Virtual Agent to serve ServiceNow topics and data.
For more information on getting started with the Virtual Agent API, see this Community article: Link
Virtual Agent API documentation can be found here.
I need more help with NLU.
See our NLU FAQ, best practices, and general troubleshooting.
3. Virtual Agent Integrations with channels
What 3rd party channel integrations are available for the Virtual Agent?
Customers can enable users to run Virtual Agent and Agent chat conversations in other 3rd party messaging apps. ServiceNow provides several out-of-box integrations that support popular messaging apps.
Integrations are available for the following enterprise channels: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Workplace by Facebook. Integrations are available for the following consumer channels: Facebook Messenger, Line, SMS, Whatsapp. These are integrations are now available via the ServiceNow Store. Search for “conversational integration” and filter by Integrations, Offered by ServiceNow.
Install and configure these integrations in Conversational Interfaces > Settings > General > Channels and Integrations
How do I integrate Virtual Agent with a chat application not mentioned above, such as Webex?
If we don't have an integration for your application, you can use our custom chat integration framework that can connect to our Virtual Agent chat server. We continue to observe the customer landscape to determine whether to invest or partner on additional out-of-box integrations.
How do I install an integration with MS Teams/Slack/Workplace from Facebook?
Visit the ServiceNow Store and search for the integration of your choice. Request an install of the integration for your instance. After successfully requesting the app, you can install it from the Plugins page. After installing the plugin, navigate to Messaging Apps Integration, and the “Install” will be enabled and clickable. For example, this is what the page looks like once the Microsoft Teams integration plugin is installed.
For further documentation on how to set up and configure each of the integrations, see here.
To see a Virtual Agent Academy recording of integrating with MS Teams, see here.
How do I integrate Virtual Agent with SMS?
Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio enables users to initiate conversations with Virtual Agent by messaging your Twilio phone number. Visit the ServiceNow Store and search for and request the integration: Conversational SMS integration with Twilio (sn_va_sms_twilio). After successfully requesting the app, you can install it from the Plugins page.
For further configuration steps after installing your SMS integration, see here.
Not all VA designer input and response types are supported in SMS. Consult the documentation to see the supported input and response types.
Can users receive notifications via integration channels?
Yes, however guest users do not receive notifications. The Virtual Agent can send 100k notifications per day by default. There is no max limit, however certain channels such as Microsoft Teams or Slack may have limits. Virtual Agent can roughly send out 19 notifications per second, or about 10k messages in ~8.8 minutes.
Do Virtual Agent integrations use IntegrationHub transactions?
ServiceNow's out-of-box integrations with Teams, Slack, Workplace, etc., do consume Integration Hub transactions. This includes chats and notifications. Also custom integrations and certain Teams features (chat-to-call, Notify Connector) consume Integration Hub transactions. This includes custom integrations built on the Custom Chat Integration Framework (CCCIF).
What are some usable shortcuts or commands when in a 3rd party channel?
When in a third party channel, you can use the following commands for actions such as beginning and ending conversations.
|
Command |
Description |
|
Hi |
Begin a new conversation or access option for transferring to a live agent. |
|
agent |
Begin a new conversation or access option for transferring to a live agent. |
|
bye |
Leave a live chat conversation when no live agent is available (the bot does not respond). |
|
help |
Displays a short list of useful commands. |
|
logout |
Unlink your ServiceNow account from a messaging integration. |
|
notification or notifications |
Subscribe to or unsubscribe from notifications. |
|
restart |
End the current conversation and begin a new one. |
4. For More Information
Where can I learn more about ServiceNow Virtual Agent?
- Visit the product documentation site: Link
- Visit our Community forum: Link
- Subscribe to our bi-weekly Virtual Agent Academy videos: Link
- Catch up on our past Knowledge labs: Link
