Tasks and requests

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated April 2, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Tasks and requests

    Tasks and requests (formerly Inbox) offers ServiceNow customers a unified interface to manage all tasks, approvals, and active service requests assigned to an employee in a single consolidated view. This replaces the need to navigate multiple queues and modules for work management, streamlining task and request tracking across the enterprise.

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    Key Features

    • Unified Work Item Aggregation: Displays tasks assigned to the employee and active service requests submitted by them. Filters enable viewing by To-Do configurations for tasks and My Request configurations for requests.
    • Employee Slate Integration: Provides detailed task and request pages with comprehensive context, supporting a seamless employee experience.
    • AI-Powered Prioritization and Summaries: Using Now Assist, each task card on the To-Dos tab includes AI-generated summaries explaining who is requesting, what is needed, and why it matters. Tasks are automatically prioritized based on urgency, due dates, business impact, and dependencies to highlight items needing immediate action.
    • AI Insights for Approvals: Now Assist analyzes approval requests and surfaces a checklist showing conditions met or requiring review, based on knowledge articles and policies. Customers should verify AI insights against official policies before decision-making.
    • Conversational Filters and Chat-Driven Actions: Employees can use chat commands to filter tasks and approvals by criteria like overdue status or request type, reset filters, and approve or reject requests directly from the details page. Chat enables quick tracking and action on specific incidents, cases, or requests.

    Practical Considerations

    AI capabilities such as summaries, prioritization, insights, and chat-driven actions require Now Assist. Deployments using Moveworks without Now Assist will have tasks and requests functionality but lack some AI features. Administrators can manage AI consumption limits to control daily processing caps.

    Tasks and requests provides a unified interface for managing tasks, approvals, and action items.

    The Tasks and requests (formerly known as Inbox) replaces the fragmented experience of managing work across multiple queues and modules. All tasks, approvals, and active requests assigned to an employee appear in a single consolidated view.

    Tasks and requests contents and configuration

    The tasks and requests section aggregates the following work item types:

    • Tasks assigned to the employee.
    • Active service requests that the employee submitted.

    You can use the filters to view and track the tasks and requests from the following sources:

    • To-Do configurations for task items.
    • My Request Filter configurations for request items.

    Tasks and requests pages

    Employee Slate provides task and request detail pages with all the context that an employee needs. Task and request types natively render with the full AI-native experience with AI Insights for approvals. For other types, the tasks and requests provides a link to Employee Center.

    AI prioritization and summaries

    With Now Assist, each task card in the To-dos tab includes an AI-generated summary. The summary covers the following information:

    • Who is asking
    • What is needed
    • Why it matters

    By default, the To-dos list sorts by AI prioritization. Items that need immediate action appear first. The following details describe how prioritization works:

    • The assistant evaluates urgency, due dates, business impact, and dependencies to rank items.
    • Consumption details are available in the sn_ex_ai_portal_to_do_activities table with scores for each task.
    • The smartpriority_daily_assist_consumption_limit system property defines the daily execution cap.
    • Logs are available in the sys_generative_ai_log_list table. Search by the skill name to view the reasoning behind a particular task score.
    Note:
    When you exhaust the daily execution cap, the skill stops running for the rest of the day. The default is 3,000 executions per day. Administrators can increase the consumption limit based on usage.

    AI Insights for approvals

    For approval items, Now Assist analyzes the approval request. It surfaces a checklist of the conditions that apply to the decision. The insights highlight:

    • Conditions that the request meets based on associated knowledge articles and policies such as keyword, body text, short description, or meta description.
    • Conditions that the request doesn't meet or that require review.

    AI-generated insights may not reflect every relevant policy condition. Verify AI-generated insights against authoritative policy sources before making approval decisions.

    Conversational filters and chat-driven actions

    Access all your tasks, approvals, and requests from a unified space, Employee Slate. You can view, track, and act on pending tasks, approvals, and open requests across enterprise systems. These systems include HR approvals, IT tasks, learning content, and surveys.

    • Apply a filter by asking the chat to narrow the items, for example by overdue status or by request type.
    • Clear filters by asking the chat to reset the view.
    • Approve or reject an approval from the details page with prompts and chat.
    • Filter tasks by state, for example, select Completed to view all completed tasks.
    • Ask about a specific incident, case, or request to track and take action from chat.

    Conversational filters apply along with the filters that administrators configure.

    Note:
    AI summaries, AI prioritization, AI Insights for approvals, and chat-driven actions require Now Assist. Employee Slate deployments that use Moveworks without Now Assist include the tasks and requests without some AI capabilities.