Using Virtual Agent Topic Recommendations

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Using Virtual Agent Topic Recommendations

    The Topic Recommendations app helps ServiceNow customers quickly identify and implement pre-built Virtual Agent topics tailored to their organization's needs. By leveraging Intent Discovery, the app analyzes your organization's data to find relevant pre-built topics and suggest new topics that would be beneficial to create. This functionality supports Virtual Agent topics using both keyword and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) topic discovery, enabling more effective self-service automation.

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    Key Features

    • Data Analysis Configuration: Choose which ServiceNow data to analyze for topic recommendations.
    • Automated Analysis: Run configured analyses to identify common use cases that Virtual Agent can address or deflect.
    • Pre-built Topic Utilization: Duplicate suggested topics, such as those from ITSM Virtual Agent Conversations available in the ServiceNow Store.
    • NLU Intent Integration: For NLU-enabled discovery, add new intents and create corresponding empty topics; flows for these topics must be designed in Virtual Agent Designer.
    • Compatibility: Supports ITSM Virtual Agent recommendations as of the Yokohama release and integrates with both keyword and NLU topic discovery methods.

    Prerequisites and Requirements

    • Plugins and Applications: Requires activation of Glide Virtual Agent plugin (com.glide.cs.chatbot), NLU Workbench (for NLU discovery), Intent Discovery (for NLU), and ITSM Virtual Agent Conversations from the ServiceNow Store.
    • Entitlements: Valid ServiceNow entitlements must be ensured for the app and related Store applications.
    • Installation: Topic Recommendations is automatically installed with Glide Virtual Agent plugin activation starting in the San Diego release; otherwise, it must be installed from the ServiceNow Store.

    Installed Components

    • Scheduled Jobs: Jobs that run Topic Recommendation reports at set intervals.
    • Tables: Includes tables for default recommendation settings and staging recommended topics, facilitating management of source data, taxonomy, filters, and generated topic recommendations.

    Practical Use and Next Steps

    • Get started by defining default settings for recommendations.
    • Run analyses to generate topic recommendations based on your organization’s data.
    • Add recommended topics or intents to your Virtual Agent to expand automated self-service capabilities.
    • Link or unlink topic recommendations to existing Virtual Agent topics to customize your conversational workflows.
    • Consult troubleshooting resources if issues arise during implementation or analysis.

    This app streamlines the process of identifying valuable Virtual Agent topics, helping ServiceNow customers enhance their self-service offerings, improve user experience, and reduce manual workload through automation.

    Use the Topic Recommendations app to identify pre-built Virtual Agent topics that can be quickly implemented in your organization. Topic Recommendations uses Intent Discovery to analyze data from your organization and to find relevant pre-built topics that your organization can benefit from, and new topics that would be useful to create.

    The Topic Recommendations app lets you evaluate the common use cases that Virtual Agent can help resolve or deflect. You can use Topic Recommendations with Virtual Agent topics that use either keyword or NLU topic discovery. Use it to do the following:
    1. Choose the ServiceNow data to analyze (configure analysis).
    2. Analyze your existing data (run the analysis you configured).
    3. Review the analysis results and use pre-built solutions:
      • Duplicate a pre-built topic suggestion, such as a topic from ITSM Virtual Agent Conversations (available from the ServiceNow Store).
      • [NLU only] Add an intent to your model and a new empty topic. You must provide the flow for the new topic in Virtual Agent Designer.

    The Topic Recommendations app requires NLU Workbench and ITSM Virtual Agent Conversations from the ServiceNow Store. The Yokohama release of Topic Recommendations supports only ITSM Virtual Agent recommendations. Although Topic Recommendations uses NLU Workbench for machine learning purposes, it does not require that NLU be enabled in Virtual Agent.

    For information about the apps that are automatically installed with Topic Recommendations, see Update Topic Recommendations.

    Required plugins

    • Ensure that the application and all of its associated ServiceNow Store applications have valid ServiceNow entitlements. For more information, see Get entitlement for a ServiceNow product or application.
    • Topic Recommendations requires the following plugins and ServiceNow Store applications. Ensure that they are activated before you install Topic Recommendations.
      Required ServiceNow plugins
      Glide Virtual Agent (com.glide.cs.chatbot)
      Activates all the plugins needed to run Virtual Agent Pro. For details, see Activate Virtual Agent.
      Note:
      Starting with the San Diego release, the Topic Recommendations app is automatically installed when you initially activate the Glide Virtual Agent plugin (com.glide.cs.chatbot). Subsequent updates for this app must be installed from the ServiceNow Store.
      NLU Workbench (NLU topic discovery only)
      Activates the plugins needed to run Natural Language Understanding in your instance. For more information, see Activate the NLU Workbench.
      Required ServiceNow Store applications
      Intent Discovery (NLU discovery only)
      Identifies user intents from analyzing incident/case data. To learn more, see Intent Discovery.
      ITSM Virtual Agent Conversations
      Provides pre-built IT service management conversations to help your organization quickly deploy automated self-service conversations. For more information, see ITSM Virtual Agent.

    Items installed with Topic Recommendations

    The following items are installed with Topic Recommendations:
    • Scheduled jobs: Run Topic Recommendation Reports for running Topic Recommendation reports at scheduled times.
    • The following tables are installed:
      Table Description
      Default settings for Topic Recommendations

      [sn_topic_recommend_default_setting]

      The source data (table and text field), taxonomy, and filters used when running a Topic Recommendations analysis
      Installed recommended topics

      [sn_topic_recommend_topic_staging]

      Topics generated for recommended topics

    Request apps on the Store

    Visit the ServiceNow Store website to view all the available apps and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes.

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