Implement Virtual and Live Agent chat

The Mobile SDK enables you to easily implement Virtual and Live Agent chat services within your Android application.

You use the NowChatSDK API to create the chat service. Once the service is created, you must then start the chat user interface.

The following is a snippet that shows how to create the chat service and start the interface.

/**
 * Helper class used to handle different Now service instances.
 */
@Singleton
class SdkManager @Inject constructor() {

    private var chatService: NowChatService? = null

    /**
     * Create the NowChatService once in the lifetime of the application, inside the Application class or another manager class
     * that will be injected into other classes via dagger/hilt.
     * NowChatService should be created after initializing the NowSDK.
     */
    suspend fun getNowChatService(): NowChatService? {
        if (chatService != null) return chatService

        return NowChatSDK.makeChatService(URL("https://instance-name.service-now.com"),
            object : NowChatSdkCallbacks {})
            .getOrThrow()
            .also { this.chatService = it }
    }
}

//Activity that will start the NowChat
class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {

    @Inject
    lateinit var sdkManager: SdkManager

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)

        //Start NowChat using the activity
        lifecycleScope.launch {
            sdkManager.getNowChatService()?.start(this@MainActivity)
        }
    }
}

Before you can leverage the chat functionality within your application, you must configure Virtual Agent within your ServiceNow instance. For details, see Virtual Agent.

Passing context variables to Live Agent and Virtual Agent chat

You can pass chat context variables when starting a chat session by passing the contextData parameter in the NowChatService-start() function. For additional information on chat context variables, see Live agent chat context variables.

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
  @Inject

  lateinit var sdkManager: SdkManager

  override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) { 
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)

    val contextData = mapOf("sys_id" to "123456789", "table" to "wm_task")
    //Start NowChat using the activity 
    lifecycleScope.launch {
      sdkManager.getNowChatService()?.start(this@MainActivity, contextData = contextData)
    }
  }
}

Theme the chat user interface

You can customize the colors of the Live Agent and Virtual Agent chat UI by passing a theme object in the start() call. For a list of elements that you can customize, see NowChatService - launchIntent(context:Context, nowChatTheme:NowChatTheme):Intent. By default, the chat UI uses the nowUIColor theme for all NowSDK UI elements. Refer to the sample application for an example on how to apply a theme to your chat UI.