Enhanced chat

Starting the conversation

With enhanced chat, chat and search capabilities are intertwined. Suggested conversational prompts and searches may appear in a drop-down list on the portal's search bar. The Ask Now Assist section header may appear at the top of the portal search bar's drop-down list. When you select one of these suggested queries, you’re redirected into a conversation within a chat window or full-page experience. You receive relevant answers based on the prompt that you have selected. If you select a suggested type-ahead search outside of the Ask Now Assist header, that search query begins in either the portal's search results page or within the full-page experience's Search tab.

When you're using enhanced chat and you enter a search query through your portal's search bar, you’re redirected to the portal's search results page. At the top of the search results page, you see Genius Results in a synthesized response generated by Now Assist. This synthesized response answer provides inline citations that appear at the end of each sentence. You can select citations and if applicable, such as for conversational catalog items, select whether to Request with form or Request in chat. Similar options also appear in the regular search results area, as indicated by the request in chat icon ( ) and request with form icon (). Depending on your selection, the catalog request flow launches within either the Virtual Agent chat or a form.

You can start the chat experience either through the chat icon on the portal's search results page or through the portal's chat widget button.

After selecting the chat widget button on the portal, the floating chat window opens and replaces the chat button. A greeting message appears, and a chat is created only after you have entered an initial utterance. If you have an active chat ongoing, the current active chat appears instead of a greeting message. You can select a predefined action, topic, suggested search query, or start a new conversation.

If language detection is turned on and the initial utterance entered into the portal's search bar or chat differs from the user's profile language preference, the conversational language automatically switches to the detected language. For more information and examples of language detection in enhanced chat conversations, see Using language detection and dynamic machine translation in Virtual Agent enhanced chat conversations.

Navigating the chat window resizing options and controls toolbar

After selecting the chat widget button, the floating chat window opens and replaces the chat button. You can move the chat window by selecting the header and dragging the chat window to the desired location. You can resize the chat window by using the window's edges to resize to your desired size or use the toolbar icons. The following list details the chat window adjustment icons:

• : Selecting the expand icon expands the chat into a 90% screen-size window. The 90% screen-size window can’t be resized or moved. Selecting outside of the 90% screen-size chat window resizes the chat back into the floating window.
• : Selecting the pin icon pins the chat to the side of the browser but you can still resize this window to fill half the browser, if desired. When you duplicate a browser tab, open a new tab, or use the browser back button, the chat window state persists as long as you have not minimized the chat.
  Important: By default, pinning a chat window is enabled for Service Portal. For all other portals, an admin needs to create a system property to enable pinning a chat window. For more information, see Now Assist in Virtual Agent system properties.
• : Selecting the down arrow minimizes the chat and the chat widget button reappears.

The Now Assist sub-header consists of four elements. The following figure and table shows an example and description of those elements.

Table 1. Now Assist sub-header elements

Element	Description
1. Chats ()	All chats appear. Chats are organized with the most recent conversations at the top. Selecting a chat opens the chat in the conversation area. If there are unread chats or notifications, a badge number appears on the Chats icon (). Any unread chat or notification appears with a red dot next to it and the chat title appears in bold. Additionally, if you switch to a new chat while another active chat is ongoing, a pop-up message on the Chats icon () appears: Your previous chat was saved. You can revisit all of your past chats and continue ones that are still active. The following list includes the chat sections that you may see in the chats area. Active: Chats where you can continue the conversation. If applicable, active chats move to the Closed chats section after two hours of inactivity. This 2 hour time limit can be configured within the Messaging Channels {sys_cs_channel.list} table. To change the inactivity time limit, from the Messaging Channels {sys_cs_channel.list} table, select the NASS record and populate the Conversation Idle Timeout field with your preferred active chat time limit. If you have no active chats, No chatter at the moment is displayed. If more than 12 active chats are running, a Show more link appears to view more chats. Selecting Show more displays an additional 10 chats. Updates: Updates for important notifications and reminders can be configured to display. When sn_nowassist_va.nass_notification_enabled is set to true (the default), simple (nonactionable) Virtual Agent notifications appear on your portal home page. After selecting a notification, you’re redirected to this Updates section. If you have no updates, You're all caught up is displayed. If more than four updates are available, a Show more link appears to view more updates. Selecting Show more displays an additional 10 updates. Note: If sn_nowassist_va.nass_notification_enabled is set to false, the Updates section doesn't appear. Closed: Closed chats can be configured to display. You know that a message has closed when the designated time has passed (2 hours of inactivity) or you receive the following response in the chat: It looks like you're finished with this chat, so I'll go ahead and close it. Turn on closed chats by selecting the Show closed chats check box within Conversational Interfaces > Assistants > [Selected Assistant Name] > Chat experience > Closed chats. After being turned on, closed chats are displayed for as long as they’re available within the Conversations (sys_cs_conversation) table. Closed chats appear in a read-only mode and can’t become active again. If more than four closed chats are available, a Show more link appears to view more closed chats. Selecting Show more displays an additional 10 closed chats. After a conversation has closed, you can’t reopen it. Hovering over a closed chat displays the delete icon (). Confirm the chat deletion on the Delete this chat? modal to permanently delete the chat from the interface.
2. [Chat name]	The name of the conversation. If you select a promoted asset or query, that asset's title appears as the chat name. If instead you enter an utterance into the Reply to Now Assist field, your initial utterance becomes the chat name. The chat name appears in both the Now Assist subheader and Chats list > Active section.
3. New chat ()	A new conversation begins. You may be prompted with a greeting message along with any promoted conversational assets such as topics, subflows, and/or actions, or suggested queries.
4. Support and settings ()	Support contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses are listed. If live agents are available, an active Contact Live Agent button is displayed. Although multiple active conversations are possible, you can only have one live agent conversation at a time. Selecting Contact Live Agent begins a chat with a live agent. After a live agent enters the chat, the Contact Live Agent button becomes inactive. If live agents are unavailable, an inactive No live agents currently available button is displayed. Settings toggles for Audio notifications and Notifications appear. By default, audio notifications are turned on and notifications are turned off. If admins have enabled notifications within the guided setup, users can turn on the notifications.

Chatting with Virtual Agent

After the user enters an utterance and a search result is found, a synthesized response may appear. A synthesized response includes a brief summary of the requested information and search results along with Genius Results. For more information on how these search results are found, see Now Assist Actions Genius Results and Now Assist Q&A Genius Results.

If multiple results are found, you can follow inline citations to either begin an action or learn more. The option to Show sources appears at the end of the synthesized response for internal and external Knowledge Base articles. Virtual Agent can only return available catalog items that match a user's request when the Now Assist Multi-Turn Catalog Ordering skill is enabled.

Whenever only a single search result for topics is found, the synthesized response and options are bypassed by default and users are brought directly into that action's flow. You may consider bypassing the synthesized response and options by automatically launching catalog items, too. For more information on automatically launching single search result actions, search for the sn_nowassist_va.synthesized_autostart_items system property in Available system properties.

You can create a new query from within a Now Assist conversation using mid-topic discovery. For more information, see Mid-topic switching during Now Assist in Virtual Agent conversations.

If Now Assist Guardian is enabled and your request contains profane content, the Virtual Agent responds with a message prompting you to re-enter an appropriate request without profanity or offensive content. If your request is too ambiguous on the portal search, a synthesized response appears along with an Ask a follow up option. Selecting the Ask a follow up option redirects you to a Virtual Agent chat. In the Virtual Agent chat, you can submit your follow-up question or request, but the synthesized response links are only available to select on the portal page and are unavailable to select in the chat window. If your follow-up question or request is too ambiguous in the Virtual Agent chat, Virtual Agent asks a clarifying question and displays the go to search results icon () in the feedback panel.

Each Virtual Agent response includes a feedback icons panel. The feedback icons panel appears on the latest Virtual Agent response and whenever you hover over any Virtual Agent response. You can indicate if the response was helpful by selecting the like thumbs up icon (). If the response wasn't helpful, select the dislike thumbs down icon (). Depending on the context of the response, an additional go to search results icon () may appear in the feedback icons panel. This icon appears alongside synthesized responses in Virtual Agent, clarifying questions in Virtual Agent, and regular search results or Virtual Agent fallback topics whenever a synthesized response is unavailable. Selecting the go to search results icon () redirects you to the search results page and begins a search query using the last five chat utterances you entered.

Responses generated in Now Assist in Virtual Agent can come from a combination of catalog items, Virtual Agent topics, subflows and actions, knowledge articles, attachments, external content sources, and people citations. Inline citations appear at the end of the relevant synthesized response sentence. Selecting an inline citation results in a popover containing either a link to an article or source, or a description and action to start the action. The following options may appear as synthesized response in-line citations depending on what search results are returned:

• Catalog
• Topic, subflows, or actions
• Q&A Knowledge Base articles
• External content connections
• People
• Extended entities and additional records

Agentic conversations

When you submit a single question to the Virtual Agent, the agent understands the query and begins a flow. When you submit a message with multiple questions or requests, Virtual Agent answers the multiple questions consecutively in a response. It can reason, plan, and execute across AI agents, Virtual Agent topics, conversational actions and subflows, catalogs, Knowledge Base articles, custom skills, and any Now Assist in Virtual Agent supported skills to help you. Before receiving a response, you receive acknowledgment messages from the Virtual Agent and on-screen messages to let you know where the agent is at in the agentic processing flow. After the processing has completed its flow, a View AI Steps section header appears, where the processing flow steps can be expanded and viewed. You can stop the agentic processing flow at anytime by selecting the End flow icon (). After an action starts, it cannot be stopped. Selecting the End flow icon () only stops the proceeding processing steps.

Catalog citation

If you're accessing the catalog citation through the synthesized response popover, the popover options vary depending on where you’re located. The only popover option when in chat is the Start request option which begins the catalog action within the chat. There are two popover options when you select the synthesized response through the portal's search bar: Request with form and Request in chat. Similar options also appear in the regular search results area, as indicated by the request in chat icon ( ) and request with form icon (). Depending on your selection, the catalog request flow launches within either the Virtual Agent chat or a form.

If you chose to complete the catalog request through chat, after the catalog order is complete, Virtual Agent displays a summary card for the order.

Topic, subflows, or actions citations

These assets are associated with the chat icon () and if selected, that flow begins within Virtual Agent. The popover is not applicable to these types of assets.

Q&A Knowledge Base citations

The answer is shown with the option to view your sources through the numbered inline citations icon () and in the Show sources section. These Knowledge Base inline citations show which ServiceNow knowledge articles were used to generate the response.

External content connections citations

The answer is shown with the option to view your sources through the numbered inline citations icon () and in the Show sources section. If external search sources are added to your information sources when Configuring Now Assist in Virtual Agent and Now Assist panel assistants, you can search through external content connections. This can include information from attachments and knowledge blocks, or from the following list of content connections:

• Amazon S3 external content connector
• Atlassian Confluence Cloud external content connector
• Atlassian Jira Cloud external content connector
• Box external content connector
• GitLab external content connector
• Google Drive external content connector
• Microsoft OneDrive external content connector
• Microsoft SharePoint Online external content connector
• Microsoft Teams external content connector
• Microsoft Viva Engage external content connector
• ServiceNow documentation external content connector
• ServiceNow instance external content connector
• Slack external content connector
• Webcrawler external content connector
• Zendesk Guide external content connector

For more information about external content connections, see External Content Connectors.

People citations

Information about people in your organization can be found if you have activated Knowledge Graph.

Information about the person you're searching for appears in the synthesized response, along with an inline people citation. If a direct match doesn't occur and multiple people are found, try providing more information to narrow down the people search results. Up to three people can appear in a synthesized response. You may be asked a clarifying question, such as Are you asking about [user_1], the programmer, or [user_2], the faculty member? to yield better results. Selecting the person's name redirects you to the portal's user profile landing page.

Selecting the person's name presents a popover. The information in the popover can include the following information:

• Manager
• Location
• Email
• Teams
• Phone
• Shared files
  Important: Shared Microsoft SharePoint files only appear if a Knowledge Graph admin has activated the sn_kg_conn_user_shared_files record in the Knowledge Graph Related Data Map [sn_kg_related_data_map_list] table. Shared Microsoft SharePoint files between you and the person found appear only on the people popover. These shared files only appear after you have completed the prompt to Log in, signed in successfully, and have entered a new search query for that person. A new search query is necessary after you have signed in so that up to three shared Microsoft SharePoint files can appear. You’re automatically logged out of your Microsoft account every three months and must repeat the Log in prompt again to see shared files.

  If you do not have a valid token, you are prompted to sign in and are redirected to the Microsoft login page. If you have not configured the Microsoft OneDrive application, see Configure Microsoft OneDrive application for Knowledge Graph.

Although rare, when you receive a synthesized response that includes a person, you may also receive other citations associated with that person. For example, a Knowledge Base article that was authored by the person you searched for may also appear.

Extended entities and view records

Extended entity information can be found if you have activated Knowledge Graph.

These extended entities that come from the additional custom tables associated with the Knowledge Graph natural language query (NLQ) schema can include:

• Assets
• Incidents
• Recently viewed knowledge base articles
• Requests
• Tasks

Select an entity in-line citation to view that entity record in a new tab, or select View records to view a list of additional entities. Selecting a link from the View records pop-up opens a new tab with that entity table's data.

The following example is of a conversation showing 3 out of 11 incidents and the option to view records to view additional users and incident records.

Chatting with a live agent in Virtual Agent

You can chat with a live agent if you need more support. Select the Contact Live Agent button found in the Support and settings () option, enter a request such as Chat with live agent into the chat, or select the Request a live agent fallback option. After an agent has accepted your chat, the agent's name and avatar appears at the top of the chat in a banner. Only one live agent chat at a time is permitted. To exit the live chat, select End live chat. The chat history then moves to the Closed chat section.

Fallback options

Select a fallback option to launch that mode or action.