---
sourceDocument: Australia Conversational Interfaces
sourceDocumentLink: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/conversational-interfaces

 Release :

    - australia

ft:locale :

    - en-US

ft:publication_title :

    - Australia Conversational Interfaces

ft:clusterId :

    - convint

bundleId :

    - convint

workflow :

    - Platform


---

# Using pre-chat surveys with context variables for topic discovery

# Using pre-chat surveys with context variables for topic discovery {#ariaid-title1}

* Release version: Australia
* 
* Updated March 12, 2026
* 
* ![](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ico-clock) 1 minute to read

Capture user input from pre-chat surveys to use as utterances or keywords for topic
discovery.
If you're using a pre-chat survey, you can use information supplied by the user to direct them
to the appropriate Virtual Agent topic without asking them to choose from a list
of available topics.

A good example of this is the CSP Anonymous Pre-Chat Survey, which is included with the Customer Service Management (CSM) application. This survey applies to guest users on the CSP portal. In
addition to asking for the user's name and email address, the last question asks the user to
briefly describe the issue. The answer is mapped to the short_description field in the question
settings. This is the context for the user's answer.  
Figure 1. Question settings for the CSP Anonymous Pre-Chat Survey in Survey Designer

The user response can be passed to Virtual Agent for use in topic discovery. In order to do
this, you must create a record for it in General Chat Settings.  
Figure 2. Topic context intent card in General Chat Settings

The Pre-chat short description as NLU intent record allows the CSP Anonymous Pre-Chat Survey
input to function a bit like an NLU intent. When the survey runs, the interaction's
short_description is used as the search text for the conversation. Virtual Agent
uses this input for topic discovery so that users don't have to select a topic from the
Greetings screen.  
Figure 3. The Context topic intent record that corresponds with the pre-chat survey
* **[Define topic context intent configurations](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/MZP2RFXDscPiaa1ccN~P5Q)**   
  Use pre-chat survey information to determine the appropriate Virtual Agent conversation topic automatically displayed to end users (requesters), rather than prompting them to choose from a list of conversation topics.