Integrating Virtual Agent with IBM Watson Assistant

Set up the IBM Watson Assistant topic to run dialog skills (conversations created in IBM Watson Assistant) in the web-based chat client. This topic returns information exchanged during the Virtual Agent conversation to IBM Watson Assistant.

Before you begin

Note:

An updated Assistant Designer Asset library user interface is available when you install Now Assist in Virtual Agent and turn on the Now Assist Topics skill. This content assumes that you have activated this skill and can see the list view. If this skill is not activated, you see the legacy UI and topics page. For more information, see Virtual Agent Designer legacy topics page.

• In IBM Watson Assistant:
  • Create the dialog skill (conversation) in your IBM Watson Assistant workspace. The skill includes the dialog and any intents and entities that you define.
  • Navigate to your skill tile and in the tile menu, select View API Details. View the Skill Details and Service Credentials. Copy the following items: Skill ID, Workspace ID, Username, and Password. You need these items when setting up this integration.
• Activate the IBM Watson Assistant Integration plugin (com.glide.cs.ibm.watson.assistant).

Role required: virtual_agent_admin or admin

About this task

This topic runs an IBM Watson Assistant dialog in Virtual Agent. It doesn't require enabling Natural Language Understanding (NLU) or setting IBM Watson Assistant NLU as the NLU service provider for Virtual Agent.

Procedure

1. In your ServiceNow instance, update the watson_assistant.workspaceID system property.
   1. In the navigation filter, enter sys_properties.list.
   2. In the System Properties [sys_properties] table, locate the watson_assistant.workspaceID property.
   3. Replace the existing Value with the Workspace ID for your skill, and select Update.
2. Verify that the REST message for IBM Watson Assistant provides the correct authentication endpoint for your IBM skill:
   1. Navigate to System Web Services > Outbound > REST Message.
   2. Select the IBM Watson Assistant record to open the REST Message IBM Watson Assistance form.
   3. Confirm that the Endpoint field and the Endpoint column displayed on the Authentication tab have the correct endpoint URL for your IBM Watson account.
      
3. In the Basic auth profile field on the Authentication tab, open the Assistant Profile record.
4. In the Basic Auth Configuration form, enter the Username and Password values from your IBM Watson Assistant Service Credentials, then select Update.
   
5. Publish the IBM Skill topic:
   1. Navigate to Conversational Interfaces > Virtual Agent > Designer, and then slide the discovery type toggle switch to NLU/keyword.
   2. On the Virtual Agent Designer home page, select the IBM Watson Assistant topic to open the Topic Properties page.
      Notice that the Keyword for this topic is IBM Watson Assistant and the Category is IBM.
   3. In the Topic Properties page, select Publish to deploy the topic to your Virtual Agent chat widget.
6. Configure the default topic for the Virtual Agent chat widget in one of the following ways:
   • Provide the URL that specifies the IBM Watson Assistant topic as the default topic that opens in the Service Portal client:

     For example: https://<Your instance URL>$sn-va-web-client-app.do?sysparm_skip_load_history=true&sysparm_topic=<sys_id> where <sys_id> is the sys_id of the published IBM Watson Assistant topic. The sysparm_skip_load_history parameter doesn't load the conversation history in the chat widget.

   • Configure the Service Portal widget by selecting the edit (pencil) icon in the upper right corner of the Virtual Agent widget.
     To set the default topic using the widget instance parameters, enter sysparm_topic=sys_id (where <sys_id> is the sys_id of the published IBM Watson Assistant topic) in the Virtual Agent Client URL Parameters field, and select Save.

     Note:

     You can find the sys_id of a topic in the Topics [sys_cs_topic] table.

   Important:

   Use the sysparm_topic parameter only to load the given topic in the Service Portal chat client or when using the IBM Watson Assistant chat integrations (com.glide.cs.ibm.watson.assistant.topic and com.glide.cs.ibm.watson.assistant.topicV2 plugins). This parameter doesn’t allow users to start a new conversation or transfer to a live agent. It also disables the context menu and doesn't support other third-party chat clients.