Skill inputs and triggers for Now Assist for IT Service Management (ITSM)

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
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    Summary of Skill inputs and triggers for Now Assist for IT Service Management (ITSM)

    Now Assist for IT Service Management (ITSM) enables ServiceNow customers to configure AI-driven skills by setting specific inputs and triggers. These configurations define how and when skills operate to support ITSM processes such as incident management, change requests, chat summarization, and more. Various AI model providers like Now LLM Service, Azure OpenAI, Google Gemini, and Anthropic Claude on AWS can be used to power these skills, with options controlled via AI Control Tower and the Now Assist Admin console.

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    Skill Inputs and Triggers

    Each skill uses defined input tables and fields to gather relevant data and triggers to initiate actions. Customers can configure these to tailor skill behavior according to their ITSM workflows. Key skills and their inputs and triggers include:

    • Incident Sentiment Analysis Skill: Uses incident-related fields (e.g., short description, priority, state) to analyze sentiment and trends. Triggered by scheduled jobs that refresh sentiment data.
    • Suggested Steps Generation Skill: Clusters incidents using the short description and filter conditions, leveraging similar incidents from the last six months.
    • Major Incident Email Content Recommendation Skill: Utilizes incident fields and additional tables like Task SLA and Collaboration chat to generate email content using Gen AI variables. Manual input of Collaboration chat table is required.
    • Chat Summarization Skill: Generates chat summaries triggered by Virtual Agent to Live Agent handoff, quick actions (/summarize), or chat wrap-up events. Summary display can be customized as bulleted lists.
    • Chat Reply Recommendation Skill: Provides chat reply suggestions triggered manually by agents, with customizable Now Assist icon properties and preset actions.
    • Sidebar Discussion Summarization Skill: Generates sidebar discussion summaries via quick actions, with optional bulleted list display.
    • Incident Summarization Skill: Summarizes incident data using fixed input tables and fields. Triggered by assignment modal opens during save actions.
    • Incident Assist Skill: Supports finding similar incidents, consulting experts, and retrieving caller assets and recent incidents within the Now Assist panel.
    • Resolution Notes Generation Skill: Creates resolution notes for incidents, triggered automatically or by user input, using incident-related fields.
    • Incident Activity Response Recommendation Skill: Generates activity responses for work notes and comments with defined trigger actions like summarizing or posting responses.
    • Knowledge Article Generation Skill: Drafts knowledge articles from incident data, relying on incident fields including resolution notes and comments.
    • Change Request Summarization Skill: Summarizes change requests using changerequest tables and fields such as risk, impact, and implementation plans.
    • Change Request Risk Explanation Skill: Explains change risks based on inputs like assignment group, blackout plan, and similar past changes.
    • Request Summarization and Activity Response Skills: Summarize and generate responses for service requests using request tables and fields including priority, state, and approval status.
    • Requested Item Summarization and Activity Response Skills: Handle summaries and activity responses for requested items with inputs covering item details, state, priority, and comments.
    • Catalog Task Summarization and Activity Response Skills: Summarize and generate responses for catalog tasks using fields such as assignment group, due date, approval, and work notes.

    Practical Considerations for ServiceNow Customers

    • Skill inputs are primarily fixed per release and include key tables and fields relevant to the ITSM process supported by the skill.
    • Triggers define when the AI-generated content or actions occur, such as manual triggers by agents, scheduled jobs, or specific workflow events.
    • Configuration of AI model providers and skill-level preferences is managed centrally through AI Control Tower and the Now Assist Admin console, allowing customization of AI capabilities.
    • Some skills require manual selection of input tables (e.g., Collaboration chat) to include specific data in AI prompts.
    • Display properties, such as bulleted list formatting for summaries, can be toggled to improve readability and usability in agent interfaces.
    • Skills support a wide range of ITSM tasks, helping to automate and enhance incident management, change management, request fulfillment, and knowledge management.

    Expected Outcomes

    By configuring skill inputs and triggers appropriately, ServiceNow customers can leverage Now Assist to:

    • Automatically generate detailed summaries and recommendations, reducing manual effort.
    • Improve agent efficiency with timely AI-driven suggestions and content generation.
    • Enhance communication quality through consistent and comprehensive email content and chat summaries.
    • Gain better insights into sentiment trends and incident details to support proactive ITSM decisions.
    • Streamline knowledge creation and change risk assessment processes with AI assistance.

    Get a quick overview of the skill inputs and triggers for Now Assist for IT Service Management (ITSM). By configuring the inputs or triggers for a skill, you can determine how and when a skill is used.

    Now Assist for IT Service Management (ITSM) overview

    Depending on the selected skill, you can configure the inputs or triggers. These settings determine how and when a skill is used. An input identifies the data that is used for a skill, such as the table and fields that are used to generate an incident summary. A trigger initiates an action, such as when the system generates a chat summary.

    You can use Now LLM Service, Now LLM Long Term Stable models (LTS), Azure OpenAI, Google Gemini or Anthropic Claude on AWS as the AI model provider for all Now Assist skills and AI agents. Use the Configuration Controls in AI Control Tower to define which options are available, then set the skill-level preferences in the Now Assist Admin console. For more information, see Large language models on the ServiceNow AI Platform®.

    Incident sentiment analysis skill

    Table 1. Inputs for the sentiment analysis skill
    Input Description
    Input table Incident [incident]
    Input fields
    • Short description
    • Description
    • Priority
    • State
    • Created
    • Additional comments
    • Task SLA
    Table 2. Outputs for the sentiment analysis skill
    Output Description
    Sentiment values
    • Positive
    • Neutral
    • Negative
    Sentiment trend
    • Improving
    • Declining
    • Stable
    Sentiment reasoning Reasons for providing the sentiment value.
    Table 3. Scheduled job for the sentiment analysis skill
    Scheduled job name Default value Description
    Sentiment analysis scheduled job (incident) True Refreshes sentiments based on the trigger frequency.

    Suggested steps generation skill

    Table 4. Inputs for suggested steps generation skill
    Input Description
    Input table Incident [incident]
    Input field Short description

    The skill uses this field to cluster incidents based on similar incidents closed in the past.
    Conditions Filter conditions to generate the suggested steps.

    Similar incidents closed within the last 6 months are used by default to create the incident clusters.

    Major Incident email content recommendation skill

    Note:
    When you create a Major Incident email content recommendation using the default templates, you can use the corresponding Gen AI variables to compose the content.
    Table 5. Inputs for Major Incident email content recommendation skills
    Input Description
    Input table Incident [incident]
    Input fields
    • Short description
    • Description
    • Additional comments
    • Work notes
    • Activities
    Additional fields
    • Business impact
    • Resolution notes

    In addition to the tables and fields listed in the table above, the tables and fields listed in the table below are also used as inputs for prompts to generate Major Incident email content recommendation.

    Table 6. Additional tables used as inputs for prompts to generate Major Incident email content recommendation
    Table Fields
    Task SLA [task_sla]
    • Target
    • Stage
    • Actual Time left
    • Business Time left
    • Has Breached
    • Pause duration
    • Pause time
    Incident [incident]
    • Short description
    • Description
    • Priority
    • CI
    • Activity stream
    Collaboration chat [sys_cs_collab_message] Payload
    Note:
    You must manually select the Collaboration chat table as an input data so that this field is used an input for the prompt. For information on choosing input data, see Customize a Now Assist for IT Service Management (ITSM) skill.

    Chat summarization skill

    For the chat summarization skill, select the triggers that determine when a chat summary is generated. You can also select the properties that control how a chat summary is displayed.

    The following table lists the triggers that determine when a chat summary is generated and how a chat summary is displayed.

    Table 7. Triggers for the chat summarization skill
    Trigger Description
    Virtual Agent to Live Agent handoff Chat summary that is generated when the chat handoff is done from Virtual Agent to a live agent.
    Quick action Chat summary that is generated when the live agent performs the /summarize quick action.
    Chat wrap-up Chat summary that is generated when the live agent ends the chat. The Chat Summary field is updated for the interaction.
    Short description Short description field that is updated for the interaction when the live agent ends the chat.
    Task creation Short description and Description fields that are auto-populated on the task record when a task is created.

    The following table lists the property for the chat summarization skill.

    Table 8. Property for the chat summarization skill
    Property Description
    Bulleted list If selected, the chat summary is displayed as an unordered list.

    Chat reply recommendation skill

    For the chat reply recommendation skill, select the triggers that determine when a chat reply recommendation is generated.

    The following table lists the triggers that determine when a chat reply recommendation is generated.

    Table 9. Triggers for the chat reply recommendation skill
    Trigger Description
    User triggered Chat reply recommendation that is generated when the agent manually triggers the skill.

    The following table lists the fields for the Now Assist icon for the chat reply recommendation skill.

    Table 10. Now Assist icon
    Field Description
    Button Props Trigger button properties, for example:
    • Variant
    • Size
    • Icon
    Refine Actions Action options shown when the Refine button is selected, for example:
    • Shorten
    • Elaborate
    Recommendation Dialog Props Recommendation dialog window properties, for example: headerLabel.
    WWNA Component ID Component ID that supports the Now Assist icon, for example: agent-chat.
    Default Preset Action Default action when the trigger button is selected with no text in the chat window.
    Table Table used for the interaction.
    Timeout Error Message Error that displays after a timeout.
    Preset Actions Action options shown when text is entered in the chat window and the trigger button is selected, for example:
    • Shorten
    • Elaborate

    Sidebar discussion summarization skill

    For the Sidebar discussion summarization skill, select the triggers that determine when a Sidebar discussion summary is generated.

    The following table lists the triggers that determine when a Sidebar discussion summary is generated.

    Table 11. Triggers for the Sidebar discussion summarization skill
    Trigger Description
    Quick action Sidebar discussion summary that is generated when the live agent performs the /summarize quick action.
    Table 12. Property for the Sidebar discussion summarization skill
    Property Description
    Bulleted list If selected, the Sidebar discussion summary is displayed as an unordered list.

    Incident summarization skill

    The incident summarization skill includes the inputs that identify the table and fields that are used when an incident summary is generated.

    In this release, you can't modify a skill's input data source. The data source contains the tables and fields that the skill relies on.

    Table 13. Triggers for the incident summarization skill
    Trigger Description
    Assign modal Open assign modal during save action when assignment group or assigned to is changed.

    The following table lists the inputs for the incident summarization skill.

    Table 14. Inputs for the incident summarization skill
    Input Description
    Input table Incident [incident]
    Input fields
    • Description
    • Short description
    • Work notes
    • Additional comments
    • Email
    Input template states
    • New
    • WIP
    • Resolved
    • Closed

    The following table lists the descriptions for the incident summarization skill.

    Table 15. Descriptions for the incident summarization skill
    Description Mandatory for input state
    Issue
    • New
    • WIP
    • Resolved
    • Closed
    Key Actions Taken
    • WIP
    • Resolved
    • Closed
    Resolution
    • Resolved
    • Closed
    Affected CIs and Impacted Services
    • WIP
    • Resolved
    • Closed
    Service Level Agreement
    • WIP
    • Resolved
    • Closed
    Child Incidents
    • WIP
    • Resolved
    • Closed

    Incident assist skill

    The incident assist skill includes the incident topics to be available in the Now Assist panel.

    In this release, you can't modify a skill's input data source. The data source contains the tables and fields that the skill relies on.

    Incident assist topics:
    • Find similar resolved incidents
    • Consult on-call experts from support groups
    • Retrieve caller's assets
    • Retrieve caller's recent incidents

    Resolution notes generation skill

    The resolution notes generation skill includes the inputs that identify the table and fields that are used when the resolution notes are generated for an incident.

    In this release, you can't modify a skill's input data source. The data source contains the tables and fields that the skill relies on.

    The following table lists the triggers that determine when and how the resolution notes for an incident are generated.
    Table 16. Triggers for the resolution notes generation skill
    Trigger Description
    User triggered

    If selected, user input is required before resolution notes are generated.

    Otherwise, resolution notes are generated automatically by default when certain conditions are met.
    The following table lists the fields for the Now Assist icon for the resolution notes generation skill.
    Table 17. Now Assist icon
    Field Description
    Refine Actions Action options shown when the Refine button is selected, for example:
    • Shorten
    • Elaborate

    The following table lists the inputs for the resolution notes generation skill.

    Table 18. Inputs for the resolution notes generation skill
    Input Description
    Input table Incident [incident]
    Input fields
    • Description
    • Short description
    • Work notes
    • Additional comments

    Incident activity response recommendation skill

    The Incident activity response recommendation skill includes the inputs that identify the table and fields that are used when a response is generated in the work notes or comments in an activity stream.

    In this release, you can't modify a skill's input data source. The data source contains the tables and fields that the skill relies on.

    The following table lists the triggers that determine when and how the activity response for an incident are generated.

    The following table lists the inputs for the Incident activity response recommendation skill.

    Table 19. Inputs for the activity response recommendation skill
    Input Description
    Input table Incident [incident]
    Input fields
    • Description
    • Short description
    • Priority
    • State
    • Work notes
    • Comments
    Trigger actions The default trigger actions are as follows:
    • For Work notes, the actions are Summarize actions, and Post response.
    • For Additional comments, the actions are Follow up, Post response, and Acknowledge task.

    Knowledge article generation skill

    The knowledge article generation skill includes the inputs that identify the table and fields that are used when the knowledge article draft is generated for an incident.

    In this release, you can't modify a skill's input data source. The data source contains the tables and fields that the skill relies on.

    The following table lists the inputs for the knowledge article generation skill.

    Table 20. Inputs for the knowledge article generation skill
    Input Description
    Input table Incident [incident]
    Input fields
    • Short description
    • Description
    • Resolution notes
    • Work notes
    • Comments
    State
    • Resolved
    • Closed

    Change request summarization skill

    The change request summarization skill includes the inputs that identify the table and fields that are used when a change request summary is generated.

    In this release, you can't modify a skill's input data source. The data source contains the tables and fields that the skill relies on.

    The following table lists the inputs for the change request summarization skill.

    Table 21. Inputs for the change request summarization skill
    Input Description
    Input table change_request
    Input fields
    • Short description
    • Description
    • Work notes
    • Additional comments
    • Risk
    • Impact
    • Justification
    • Implementation plan
    • Risk and impact analysis
    • Test plan
    • Backout plan
    • Close code
    • Close notes
    • Service offering
    • State
    • Conflict status
    • Type
    Input template states
    • Assess
    • Authorize & Scheduled
    • Implement & Review
    • Closed

    The following table lists the descriptions for the change request summarization skill.

    Table 22. Descriptions for the change request summarization skill
    Description Mandatory for input state
    Objective
    • Assess
    • Authorize & Scheduled
    • Implement & Review
    • Closed
    Plan
    • Assess
    • Authorize & Scheduled
    • Implement & Review
    • Closed
    Risk
    • Assess
    • Authorize & Scheduled
    • Implement & Review
    • Closed
    Affected CIs
    • Assess
    • Authorize & Scheduled
    • Implement & Review
    • Closed
    Impacted services
    • Assess
    • Authorize & Scheduled
    • Implement & Review
    • Closed
    Close notes Closed
    Incidents caused by change Closed

    Change request risk explanation skill

    The change request risk explanation skill includes the inputs that identify the table and fields that are used when the change risk explanation is generated.

    In this release, you can't modify a skill's input data source. The data source contains the tables and fields that the skill relies on.

    The following table lists the inputs for the change request risk explanation skill.

    Table 23. Inputs for the change request risk explanation skill
    Input Description
    Input table change_request
    Input fields
    • Short description
    • Implementation plan
    • Assignment group
    • Risk
    • Description
    • Blackout plan
    • Model type
    • Similar change requests and the incidents caused by those changes
    • Risk condition that was met

    Request summarization skill

    The request summarization skill includes the inputs that identify the table and fields that are used when a request summary is generated.

    Table 24. Inputs for the request summarization skill
    Input Description
    Input table Request [sc_request]
    Input fields
    • Number
    • Description
    • Short description
    • Opened
    • Due date
    • Additional comments
    • Work notes
    • Priority
    • Urgency
    • Approval
    • State
    • Opened by
    • Requested for
    • Requested for → Department
    • Parent
    • Price
    • Request state

    Request activity response generation skill

    The request activity response generation skill includes the inputs that identify the table and fields that are used when the request activity response is generated.

    In this release, you can't modify the input data source. The data source contains the tables and fields that the skill relies on.

    The following table lists the inputs for the request activity response generation skill.

    Table 25. Inputs for the request activity response generation skill
    Input Description
    Input table Request [sc_request]
    Input fields
    • Short description
    • Description
    • Priority
    • Work notes
    • Additional comments
    • Updated

    Requested item summarization skill

    The requested item summarization skill includes the inputs that identify the table and fields that are used when a requested item summary is generated.

    Table 26. Inputs for the requested item summarization skill
    Input Description
    Input table Requested item [sc_req_item]
    Input fields
    • Item → Name
    • Item → Description
    • Requested for → Name
    • Requested for → Department
    • Stage
    • State
    • Urgency
    • Priority
    • Quantity
    • Price
    • Recurring price
    • Recurring price frequency
    • Due date
    • Work notes
    • Additional comments

    Requested item activity response generation skill

    The requested item activity response generation skill includes the inputs that identify the table and fields that are used when the requested item activity response is generated.

    In this release, you can't modify the input data source. The data source contains the tables and fields that the skill relies on.

    The following table lists the inputs for the requested item activity response generation skill.

    Table 27. Inputs for the requested item activity response generation skill
    Input Description
    Input table Requested item [sc_req_item]
    Input fields
    • Short description
    • Description
    • Priority
    • Work notes
    • Additional comments
    • Updated

    Catalog task summarization skill

    The catalog task summarization skill includes the inputs that identify the table and fields that are used when a catalog task summary is generated.

    Table 28. Inputs for the catalog task summarization skill
    Input Description
    Input table Catalog task [sc_task]
    Input fields
    • Number
    • Short description
    • Description
    • Assignment group
    • Assigned to
    • State
    • Due date
    • Priority
    • Request item → Number
    • Request item → Item
    • Request item → Requested for
    • Request item → Opened by
    • Additional comments
    • Work notes
    • Approval

    Catalog task activity response generation skill

    The catalog task activity response generation skill includes the inputs that identify the table and fields that are used when the catalog task activity response is generated.

    In this release, you can't modify the input data source. The data source contains the tables and fields that the skill relies on.

    The following table lists the inputs for the catalog task activity response generation skill.

    Table 29. Inputs for the catalog task activity response generation skill
    Input Description
    Input table Catalog task [sc_task]
    Input fields
    • Short description
    • Description
    • Priority
    • Work notes
    • Additional comments
    • Updated