VA Topics and NLU Models To Different ServiceNow Instance

[Raj64]

Hello everyone,

There seems to be very little information on how to properly move a VA topic and it's associated NLU model from one SN instance to another.

Here's what I've tried:

1. Created an Update Set and made it current
2. Went into VA Designer saved a topic and published it
3. Went into NLU Workbench, trained and published the associated NLU
4. Asked SN Admin to transfer update set to new instance

What happened:

• Could not see the topics or NLU models when transferred to the new instance (they were there because if I launched virtual agent on the new instance and clicked "Show Me Everything", I could see them)
• Sys Admin had to copy records from sys_cb_topic and sys_cs_topic tables then I could so them, however the binding between the topic and NLU had disappeared
• Had to re-do bindings
• When I clicked on a term in an NLU model, screen went blank instead of letting me add an entity
• Had to clone the NLU model to be able to add an entity

So my question is: What's the correct procedure to transfer a topic/NLU model developed in one instance of SN to another?

I know there's an "Add To Update Set" utility, but my sys admin is reluctant to install this.

[Chris D]

Might want to consider opening a ticket to ServiceNow.

We do basically what you do - capturing changes in the current update set - with no issues moving between instances. You shouldn't need to copy any sys_cs_topic or sys_cb_topic records.

The only difference is that our NLU model is in a dedicated custom Application (since that seemed to be ServiceNow's ideal setup), so our VA updates usually have two update sets: one in NLU scope and whatever other scope (i.e. Global).

I think the initial setup for the NLU app may have required an additional step to move it to the other instances but I wasn't involved there. Everything since then is just simple update set retrievals and commits.

The only manual step is that I still need to retrain and publish the NLU model after NLU updates are moved.

[Brian Bakker]

Hello Raj,

Please review KB0996857: [NLU/Virtual Agent] - When transferring your NLU Model using an Update Set, the Topic NLU Binding in the Virtual Agent Designer is "greyed out" and cannot be changed until the transferred NLU Model has been trained and published on the target instance.

Please let me know if you have any further questions on this.

Regards,

Brian

[Raj64]

Thanks Brian.

I had seen this article before, but it's not really the situation I'm in. Nothing is greyed out, it's just the association between the topic and model is lost and I have to redo it.

[Brian Bakker · Accepted solution]

Hello Raj,

The reason why you are getting a blank screen instead of letting you add an entity to a sample utterance in your NLU model is because you have records in the [m2m_sys_nlu_utterance_entity] table with empty or invalid references to utterances. Usually the Updated On for those records are much older and leftover from previous attempts where the utterance no longer exists.

If you open the browser console log you should see the following error, which confirms the invalid references in the [m2m_sys_nlu_utterance_entity] table.

sn-nlu-studio.min.js?sysparm_substitute=false&x?v=12-15-2021_1427:1364 
TypeError: Cannot read property 'reference' of undefined

The VA Topics are held in the following tables -

• [sys_cb_topic] - topic design-time definition
• [sys_cs_topic] - topic runtime definition
• [sys_cb_topic_language] - topic design-time language binding
• [sys_cs_topic_language] - topic runtime language binding

When you publish the VA Topic it updates the [sys_cs_topic] / [sys_cs_topic_language] tables and the language table contains the NLU bindings for every topic in each language.

There were known issues when moving VA related Update Sets to another environment where it creates duplicate records for the same topic in [sys_cs_topic_language] and [sys_cb_topic_language] tables, which will mean that users get technical errors when using Virtual Agent. Please review KB0867676: The NLU (Natural Language Understanding) does not work after Paris upgrade.

So, based on the number of issues that you are reporting, it seems you have remnants of old NLU/VA records on the instance that are causing issues every time you transfer an updated version of VA/NLU to this instance.

I suggest you open a case with Technical Support, so that we can review the multiple issues that are occurring. I suggest two cases whereby you report VA issues in one case and NLU issues in a separate case, as they are supported by different teams.

Best regards,

Brian