Recommended Actions for ITSM overview

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Recommended Actions for ITSM overview

    Recommended Actions for IT Service Management (ITSM) in ServiceNow provide agents with actionable suggestions within the Service Operations Workspace for records such as Incident, Problem, Change Request, Interaction, and Request. These recommendations help agents efficiently respond to issues by offering context-specific advice and resources.

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    Contexts

    Contexts define the type of record for which recommendations apply. The ITSM base system includes contexts for Incident, Incident Task, Problem, Problem Task, Change Request, Change Task, Interaction, and Request. Each context enables tailored recommendations relevant to that record type.

    Rules

    Rules specify conditions under which recommendations are shown to agents with certain roles. Currently, predefined rules apply primarily to the Incident context, such as Active Incident and Major Incident without a Problem record, guiding agents when specific incident criteria are met.

    Recommendations

    Recommendations suggest helpful actions and include necessary inputs and resources. The ITSM base provides two types:

    • Guidance-based recommendations: These include AI Search results, creating Problem records for Major Incidents, linking similar incidents or problems, proposing major incidents, and accessing related knowledge base articles.
    • Field-level recommendations: Based on Predictive Intelligence and Task Intelligence, these suggest values for fields like Assignment Group, Configuration Item, and Service. These are inactive by default and must be activated manually.

    Resource Generators

    Resource generators supply the data behind recommendations, such as AI Search results, classification-based assignments, and similarity-based matches for incidents, problems, changes, and knowledge articles. They enable dynamic and relevant recommendation content.

    Guidances

    Guidances are predefined actionable instructions agents can follow, including linking incidents or problems, proposing major incidents, reviewing and attaching articles, copying resolutions, and ordering items. They support consistent and efficient workflows.

    Search Result Mappings and Configuration

    The system includes search result mappings that direct AI search queries to relevant record types across contexts such as Incident, Problem, Change Request, and Interaction. The [AIS] Recommended Actions for ITSM Search Config application underpins AI search functionality within the Service Operations Workspace.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Enables agents to receive context-aware, actionable recommendations to improve resolution times and accuracy.
    • Supports automation and intelligence through Predictive and Task Intelligence recommendations, enhancing decision-making.
    • Offers extensibility through creation and customization of contexts, rules, recommendations, resource generators, and guidances to fit specific organizational workflows.
    • Integrates AI-powered search results directly into agent workflows for faster access to pertinent information.

    IT Service Management (ITSM) includes the following base system components used to configure Recommended Actions for various records in the Service Operations Workspace, including Incident, Incident Tasks, Problem, Problem Tasks, Change Request, Change Request Task, Interaction, and Request.

    Contexts in Recommended Actions for ITSM

     A context enables agents to see recommendations for a specific type of record when certain rules are met. These recommendations can help agents by suggesting actions to take based on the record context.  For more information, see Contexts in Recommended Actions.

    The ITSM base system ships the following contexts:
    • Incident
    • Incident task
    • Problem
    • Problem task
    • Change request
    • Change task
    • Interaction
    • Request
    For more information about the field description of this context, see Contexts in Recommended Actions for ITSM.
    Note:
    To create a context, see Create a context in Recommended Actions.

    Rules in Recommended Actions for ITSM

    A rule is a set of conditions that applies to a context. A rule shows recommendations to agents with certain roles for records that meet certain conditions. For more information, see Rules in Recommended Actions.

    The ITSM base system includes the following rules:
    • Active incident
    • Active non-child non-MI Incident
    • AI Search
    • Major Incident with no Problem record
    Note:
    These rules are available only for the Incident context.

    For more information about the field descriptions of these rules, see Rules in Recommended Actions for ITSM.

    Note:
    To create a rule, see Create a rule in Recommended Actions.

    Recommendations in Recommended Actions for ITSM

    A recommendation is a way to suggest a helpful action to an agent. A recommendation includes the action and any relevant resources and inputs. For more information, see Recommendations in Recommended Actions.

    For more information about recommendation types, see Recommendations in Recommended Actions.
    Note:
    To create a recommendation, see Create a recommendation in Recommended Actions.

    The ITSM base system includes Guidance-based recommendations and Field-level recommendation types.

    Guidance-based recommendations

    The ITSM base system includes these guidance-based recommendations:

    • AI Search Recommendation
    • Create Problem Record for a Major Incident
    • Open incidents (CI & Service)
    • Open PRBs (CI & Service)
    • Similar Incidents (TI)
    • Similar Change Requests (TI)
    • Similar Problems (TI)
    • Similar KB Articles (Similarity)
    • Propose major incident (Trend)
    • Similar major incidents (Trend)
    • Similar open Incidents (Similarity)
    • Similar open PRBs (Similarity)
    • Similar resolved incidents (CI & Service)
    • Similar resolved incidents (Similarity)

    For more information about the field descriptions of the guidance-based recommendations, see Guidance based recommendations in Recommended Actions for ITSM.

    Field-level recommendations

    The ITSM base system includes the following field-level recommendations:

    • Predictive Intelligence -based recommendations:
      • Assignment Group (Classification)
      • Configuration Item (Classification)
      • Service (Classification)
    • Task Intelligence for ITSM -based recommendation: Incident Fields value prediction (TI)
      Note:
      All Predictive Intelligence -based recommendations included in the ITSM base system are inactive by default. To activate them, navigate to the Recommendations screen, edit the corresponding Active column to the required recommendation of true, and select Update.

    For more information about the field-level recommendations field descriptions, see Field level recommendations in Recommended Actions for ITSM.

    Note:
    To create a guidance and field recommendations, see Creating guidance and field recommendation in Recommended Actions.

    Resource generators in Recommended Actions for ITSM

    The ITSM base system includes the following resource generators:

    • AI Search Resource Generator
    • Assignment group using Classification.
    • Configuration item using Classification
    • Incident Fields predictions TI
    • Similar Open Incidents with same CI & Service
    • Open PRBs using CI & Service
    • Propose major incident using trend
    • Service using Classification
    • Similar KBs using similarity
    • Similar major incident using trend
    • Similar open incidents using Similarity
    • Similar open incidents with same CI & Service
    • Similar incidents using TI similarity
    • Similar PRBs using similarity
    • Resolved Incidents with same CI & Service
    • Similar resolved incidents using similarity.

    For more information about the field descriptions of resource generators, see Resource generators in Recommended Actions for ITSM.

    For more information about the types of resource generator, see Resource generators in Recommended Actions.

    Note:
    To create a resource generator, see Create a resource generator in Recommended Actions.

    Guidances

    The ITSM base system includes the following guidance:

    • Link to major incident
    • Propose Major Incident
    • Review and attach article for incident
    • Show Change request [No Action]
    • Show genius result [No Action]
    • Show Problem [No Action]
    • [Incident] Attach KB
    • [Incident] Copy resolution
    • [Incident] Link open incident
    • [Incident] Link open problem
    • [Interaction] Review and attach article
    • [ Non-ML] Copy resolution
    • [ Non-ML] Create Problem
    • [ Non-ML] Link open incident
    • [ Non-ML] Link open problem
    • [Task] Link change request
    • [Task] Link incident
    • [Task] Link outage
    • [Task] Link problem
    • [Task] Order item

    For more information about the field descriptions of the guidance, see Guidances in Recommended Actions for ITSM.

    Note:
    To create guidance, see Create a guidance in Recommended Actions.

    Search result mappings

    The search result mappings appear in AI search results for various records in the Service Operations Workspace, including Incident, Incident Tasks, Problem, Problem Tasks, Change Request, Change Request Task, Interaction, and Request.

    The IT Service Management base system includes the following search result mappings based on context type:
    • Incident: Outage [cmdb_ci_outage], Knowledge [kb_knowledge], Change Request [change_request], Incident [incident], Catalog item [sc_cat_item], Incident [incident]- Genius result for Pro plus users, Problem [problem]
    • Incident task: Knowledge [kb_knowledge], Incident [incident], Catalog item [sc_cat_item], Problem [problem]
    • Problem: Outage [cmdb_ci_outage], Knowledge [kb_knowledge], Change Request [change_request], Incident [incident], Catalog item [sc_cat_item], Problem [problem]
    • Problem task: Knowledge [kb_knowledge]
    • Change request: Knowledge [kb_knowledge], Change Request [change_request], Incident [incident], Catalog item [sc_cat_item], Problem [problem]
    • Change task: Knowledge [kb_knowledge], Change Request [change_request], Incident [incident], Catalog item [sc_cat_item], Problem [problem]
    • Interaction: Knowledge [kb_knowledge], Catalog item [sc_cat_item]
    • Request: Knowledge [kb_knowledge], Catalog item [sc_cat_item]

    Search Application Configuration

    The IT Service Management base system includes the [AIS] Recommended Actions for ITSM Search Config. This application supports the AI search for various records in the Service Operations Workspace, including Incident, Incident Tasks, Problem, Problem Tasks, Change Request, Change Request Task, Interaction, and Request.