Hi everyone,
I’m working on a Virtual Agent topic where I’ve set up a loopback to allow users to continue the conversation after the first interaction. However, I’m facing an issue where an empty chat bubble appears when the loop returns to the input node.
What’s happening:
✅ The conversation continues, and the user can type freely.
❌ When the loop goes back to the initial user input node, I want to suppress the prompt (since the greeting was already shown).
❌ Even when I set the prompt to null, "", or undefined, the Virtual Agent still renders a small empty input prompt bubble.
What I’ve tried:
•Returning null, undefined, or an empty string
• Using “Skip reprompting if” conditions --> I thought this approach gonna work at first but then it reuses the old user input on the first interaction instead of waiting for new input (which doesn't align with my need).
Desired behavior:
Once the loopback happens, VA should not show any new prompt—it should just let the user continue typing naturally.
Has anyone encountered this issue before? Any ideas on how to completely suppress the empty prompt bubble?
Appreciate any insights! Thanks in advance. 😊
Hi TanyapongS,
I empathise with your frustration as ServiceNow has designed the platform to ensure that the Agent has a response after every single user input, even if that response is an empty chat bubble (via null, empty string, undefined or otherwise). E.g., If you don’t want the prompt to appear you can type a default value, but even that can’t be blank (must be a space at minimum). And, as you encountered, ‘Skip reprompting if’ is effective in not repeating the prompt, but is not effective in enabling the user to enter a new value because it will “automatically retain its original value.” However, if you flush the cache or clear the vaSystem.getSearchText() as a variable in the script so that the user can input a new value, the initial user input node still prints the mandatory prompt before a user input can be entered.
POSSIBLE WORKAROUND:
User Input > Text Input > Prompt > From the Data Pill Picker select ‘Input Variable’ > Name of the node that you’re currently editing
This allows the user to input multiple speech bubbles without being re-prompted.
If your initial Bot greeting message was in the Text Input Prompt, consider putting it in the Start Segment > Greeting Response. That way you can eliminate it from repeating in the prompt (or in this case, not appearing at all!) and having to create complex scripts to work around it.
I tested this workaround on a test topic loopback flow in my instance where unless the user types ‘Table’ or ‘End’, they can endlessly ask the VA anything and the bot will only respond when it has a matching response. It will not print a single prompt, apart from the initial Greeting Response.
I hope this helps and please let me know if you experienced any issues with this workaround!
Hi TanyapongS,
I empathise with your frustration as ServiceNow has designed the platform to ensure that the Agent has a response after every single user input, even if that response is an empty chat bubble (via null, empty string, undefined or otherwise). E.g., If you don’t want the prompt to appear you can type a default value, but even that can’t be blank (must be a space at minimum). And, as you encountered, ‘Skip reprompting if’ is effective in not repeating the prompt, but is not effective in enabling the user to enter a new value because it will “automatically retain its original value.” However, if you flush the cache or clear the vaSystem.getSearchText() as a variable in the script so that the user can input a new value, the initial user input node still prints the mandatory prompt before a user input can be entered.
POSSIBLE WORKAROUND:
User Input > Text Input > Prompt > From the Data Pill Picker select ‘Input Variable’ > Name of the node that you’re currently editing
This allows the user to input multiple speech bubbles without being re-prompted.
If your initial Bot greeting message was in the Text Input Prompt, consider putting it in the Start Segment > Greeting Response. That way you can eliminate it from repeating in the prompt (or in this case, not appearing at all!) and having to create complex scripts to work around it.
I tested this workaround on a test topic loopback flow in my instance where unless the user types ‘Table’ or ‘End’, they can endlessly ask the VA anything and the bot will only respond when it has a matching response. It will not print a single prompt, apart from the initial Greeting Response.
I hope this helps and please let me know if you experienced any issues with this workaround!
