Now Assist for Software Asset Management (SAM) AI agent collection to help manage software asset request agentic workflow

Use the Help manage software request agentic workflow to fulfill a software request by either allocating the available entitlements or generating a purchase order for the software model.

Help manage software request overview

Use the Help manage software request agentic workflow to automate software asset sourcing through auto-allocation or purchase order creation.

To use the Help manage software request agentic workflow, the Procurement (com.snc.procurement) plugin needs to be installed along with the Now Assist for SAM (sn_now_assist_sam) plugin

The following three scenarios are supported for software requests:

• User-based allocations: a user requests a software model with user-based entitlements.
• Device-based allocations: a user requests a software model with device-based entitlements.

  When a user who has requested the software has multiple devices assigned to them, the agent asks the fulfiller to select one of the user's devices for the allocation process. If the device isn’t assigned to the requested item number user during the software fulfillment, then a message appears in the Now Assist panel stating that the user has no devices associated. The user must associate a device and try again. If the device is assigned after this, then the fulfiller user should initiate a new Now Assist panel chat and provide an utterance in the Now Assist panel to fulfill the requested item number, rather than using the existing Now Assist panel chat.

• Purchase order flow: if no entitlements are available, a purchase order is created.

The Help manage software request agentic workflow needs the following conditions to execute. Once these conditions are met, the agentic workflow is automatically triggered.

• The requested item is approved.
• The requested item belongs to a software category.
• The requested item isn’t sourced.
• The Assigned to field in the Requested item [sc-req item] table isn’t empty.

The Help manage software request agentic workflow supports both Azure OpenAI Service and Now LLM Service.

Help manage software request agentic workflow

By automating the sourcing of software assets through auto-allocation or purchase order creation, the agentic workflow streamlines request resolution and enhances operational efficiency.

A one-time manual activation is required before the Help manage software request workflow can run automatically. To activate the workflow:

1. Navigate to the AI Agent Studio and select the Help Manage Software Request agentic workflow.
2. Select Add triggers.
3. Select the Help manage software request link, in the Name column.
4. In the Edit a trigger dialog box, toggle the trigger status from Off to On.
5. Save your changes. The status of the Help manage software request agentic workflow changes from Inactive to Active

To automatically trigger the Help manage software request workflow for sourcing software requests, follow these steps:

1. Initiate and approve a software asset request:
   1. A user with any role creates a software asset request in the Service Catalog application.
   2. If the requested items in the cart amount to a thousand dollars, the request is automatically approved. For amounts more than a thousand dollars, the request must be approved. Auto-approval rules can differ from organization to organization; the default amount for auto-approval is a thousand dollars.
2. Assign the software asset request for sourcing:
   1. Once the request is approved, the procurement_user role navigates to the Procurement module that resides in the Asset Workspace. If the Hardware Asset Management application is installed, the name of the workspace changes to Hardware Asset Workspace.
   2. The procurement_user role selects the Items tab in the Procurement module and selects a value in the Assigned to field for the requested item.
      Note:

      The itil, the procurement_user, and the now_assist_panel_user roles have access to the Now Assist panel. The fulfiller needs the itil and procurement_user roles if you have the Now Assist for IT Service Management (ITSM) store application installed. If you have the Now Assist for Software Asset Management (SAM) store application but not the Now Assist for IT Service Management (ITSM) store application, then the fulfiller requires the itil, procurement_user, and now_assist_panel_user roles to fulfill the request via the Now Assist panel trigger.

   The procurement_user role gets notified in the Now Assist panel that the software request is getting fulfilled.

   Once the software asset request is assigned, the Help manage software request agentic workflow gets triggered to source the request.

   • If entitlements are available for the software request, allocations are automatically made.
   • If entitlements aren’t available, a purchase order is generated. The AI agents take inputs and confirmation from you when needed.

To view the licenses allocated by the agentic workflow, navigate to the AI Activity log in the Activity center of the Software Asset Workspace. Select the Licenses allocated link in the AI Activity log to open the Procurement request items page in the Asset Workspace or the Hardware Asset Workspace.

AI agents used in the Help manage software asset requests agentic workflow

The Help manage software request agentic workflow uses the following AI agents to execute instructions.

Table 1. AI agents and their role in the Help manage software request agentic workflow

AI agent	AI agent role
Software entitlement allocation AI agent	Validates software license requests and allocates licenses from existing inventory when available, using the request item number (RITM).
Purchase order creation AI agent	Sources a request item by creating a purchase order. Asks for inputs sequentially and takes user input in case there are multiple options such as with stockrooms, vendors, metric group, or license metrics.