Virtual Agent interaction records
Summarize
Summary of Virtual Agent Interaction Records
The Virtual Agent interaction records capture conversations between users and the Virtual Agent, storing them in the Interactions [interaction] table. This table logs conversations across multiple channels such as chat widgets, mobile apps, and messaging integrations, providing insights into user interactions for administrators and support teams.
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Key Features
- Comprehensive Logging: Each interaction record includes details about the conversation, including topic elements, live agent transfers, and sentiment analysis.
- Attachment Management: If a conversation transcript exceeds 4000 characters, it is stored as an attachment in the Attachments [sysattachment] table.
- State Management: Interaction records capture various states such as in progress, closed complete, and closed abandoned, allowing users to track the conversation lifecycle.
- Interactive Insights: Administrators can view key fields like agent response time, sentiment, and conversation state, enabling better support management.
- Security Controls: Users can implement access control lists (ACLs) to protect sensitive information in transcripts.
Key Outcomes
By utilizing the Virtual Agent interaction records, ServiceNow customers can:
- Gain visibility into user interactions with the Virtual Agent and live agents, improving overall support efficiency.
- Analyze conversation trends and user sentiment to enhance service delivery and optimize agent performance.
- Ensure that incidents and requests generated during conversations are appropriately tracked and managed through related tasks.
- Maintain security and compliance by controlling access to sensitive conversation data.
Each time a Virtual Agent conversation occurs, an interaction record captures the entire conversation in the Interactions [interaction] table. The record includes all topic elements used in the conversation, as well as live agent transfers.
Interactions [interaction] table
These interaction records provide administrators, Virtual Agent administrators, support agents, and support managers with a convenient way to review what happened during a conversation. The records also provide a quick way to see the type of conversations that occur: Virtual Agent, live agent transfers to Agent Chat, and live agent transfers to Connect Support.
- When a conversation transcript for live chat exceeds 4000 characters, the transcript is handled as an attachment to the interaction record.
- File attachments that the user uploads are recorded in the Attachments [sys_attachment] table, which corresponds to the interaction record. Attachments are automatically displayed in the activity stream.
- For Virtual Agent conversations that have live agent transfers to Connect Support, only the Virtual Agent conversation is included in the interaction transcript. Live agent conversations in Connect Support are recorded in the activity stream.
Key fields in the Interactions table
To view the Interactions table, navigate to All, and then enter interaction.list in the navigation filter. You can configure the fields displayed in the table using the list collector (slushbucket).
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Agent average response time | Average time based on how long the agent takes to respond to each message sent by a requester. For example: 00:00 Requester: I have a question. 00:01 Agent: What is it? 00:04 Requester: How do I reset my password? 00:05 Requester: I forgot it and can't access my account. 00:07 Agent: Here is the answer. Pair #1 00:01-00:00 = 00:01 Pair #2 00:07-00:04 = 00:03 (00:01 + 00:03) / 2 = 00:02 average |
| Agent chat | Flag that indicates the conversation was transferred to a live agent in Agent Chat: true or false. |
| Application | Scope of the application. Scope determines the accessible files and data available to other applications. |
| Assigned to | Name of the fulfiller: Live agent name or Virtual Agent |
| Domain | The domain the conversation took place in. For more information, see Domain separation and Virtual Agent. |
| Number | Number of the interaction record. |
| Opened | Date and time that the conversation started. |
| Opened for | Name of the requester. Anonymous users are identified as Guests. |
| Sentiment | Shows the sentiment level of the interaction, if sentiment analysis is enabled on the instance. This value can be shown to agents in the Agent Chat interface. Business rules can be created based on this value at handoff (Virtual Agent to live agent, live agent to live agent, or live agent to queue). Valid values are as follows:
This value is also entered in the Interaction Insights table. |
| State | Conversation states:
Note: There are different State Reasons for the Closed Complete and Closed Abandoned states, depending on whether you're using Virtual Agent only, Virtual Agent with Live Agent, or Live Agent only. For details on
the State Reasons, see Reasons for Closed Complete and Closed Abandoned states. |
| State Reason | Detailed explanations (reasons) for the conversation states Closed Complete and Closed Abandoned. To learn more, see Reasons for Closed Complete and Closed Abandoned states. |
| Transcript | Log of the conversation between the requester and agents (virtual or live). |
| Type | Type of interaction record. Virtual Agent conversations are record type Chat. |
| Updated | Date and time that the conversation record was last updated. |
| Virtual agent | Flag that indicates whether the conversation is for Virtual Agent: true or false. A Virtual Agent conversation is flagged when a requester selects a conversation topic or when the topic discovery process starts the appropriate conversation. |
Reasons for Closed Complete and Closed Abandoned states
Virtual Agent closes completed and abandoned conversations for various reasons, depending on whether the conversation is for Virtual Agent (VA) only, Virtual Agent with Live Agent (VA-LA), or Live Agent (LA).
| State | State Reason | Virtual Agent | Virtual Agent & Live Agent or Live Agent only |
|---|---|---|---|
| Closed Abandoned | Left Before Engagement | Not applicable. | Requester chose to be routed to a live agent, but closed the conversation (selecting + End) before an agent was assigned. Dashboard message: User closed LA - before Agent engagement |
| Closed Abandoned | No Activity | Requester opened a conversation, but didn't engage with the bot (for example, closed the browser) and didn't initiate topic discovery. The system closed the Virtual Agent idle conversation after the default
timeout.
|
Requester chose to be routed to a live agent (not through pre-chat setup) but didn't engage with the agent. If the conversation timed out and the Time Out Abandoned VA Conversationsscheduled job ran, the interaction state is Closed Abandoned with No Activity. Dashboard message: System closed LA - before Agent engagement |
| Closed Complete | User Ended | After engaging with the bot (requester entered at least one utterance during a conversation or completed a conversation), requester closed the conversation session by selecting End. Dashboard message: User closed VA - Clicked End/X |
Requester started to chat with live agent but closed the chat client by selecting End. Dashboard message: User closed LA - Clicked End/X |
| Closed Complete | Auto Closed | Requester interacts with VA topic and completes the conversation. No live agent interaction. Dashboard message: System closed VA - Auto Closed |
Not applicable. |
| Closed Complete | No User Response | Requester engaged with the bot (entered at least one utterance), but left without actively closing the conversation. The system closes the idle conversation after two hours (default).
|
Requester engaged with live agent but stopped and left the agent hanging (idle live chat). The system closes the idle live chat after six minutes (default).
|
| Closed Complete | Topic Complete | Requester engaged with the bot in a topic but didn't respond to the Anything Else setup topic, or chose Yes to continue but didn't respond. The Time Out Abandoned VA Conversations job
closes the interaction after the default timeout.
|
Not applicable. |
| Closed Complete | Left for search | Requester engaged with the bot (entered at least one utterance), but selected Search in the middle of the conversation and didn't return to the conversation. The system closes the conversation because of
inactivity. Dashboard message: System closed VA- Left with AI search |
Not applicable. |
| Closed Complete | Agent Ended | Not applicable. | After requester started a chat with a live agent, the agent actively closed the conversation by selecting End Chat. Dashboard message: Agent closed LA - Clicked End/x |
| Faulted | Error | A runtime exception occurred while processing a message. | Requester’s conversation was closed due to a runtime error. |
Detailed view of a Virtual Agent interaction record
From the Interactions table, you can open a specific record to see additional details about the Virtual Agent interaction: a transcript of the conversation, related tasks, and interaction logs.
- Conversation transcript
- The transcript shows the dialog exchange between the agent (virtual or live) and requester, as well as the time stamp for each dialog turn.
- Related Tasks
- Any cases, incidents, or requests created or updated during the conversation are automatically attached to the interaction record as a Related Task. To ensure that these tasks are included with the interaction record,
design your conversation topics using certain Assistant Designer utilities and the system method vaSystem.attachRecordToConversation. For details, see Topic design considerations below.
- Interaction Logs
- The Interaction Logs tab lists all the topics that run in a conversation, including the setup topics and the topics executed by topic discovery or by user selection. Each topic element is assigned a
number that indicates the sequential order in which the topics run.
Security considerations
Information in conversation transcripts is viewable to all users. If you need to control access to records containing sensitive information, you can use scoped access control lists (ACLs) and lock scripted access to those records by using the Restricted Caller Access (RCA) feature. For details, see Set application scope, application resource, and event access and Manage Restricted Caller Access.
Topic design considerations
- Action utility to create or update incidents or cases
- Lookup utility to view information
- System method vaSystem.attachRecordToConversation(String tableName, String sysId) to attach the task to the interaction record