Topic Flow tab

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated April 2, 2024
  • 6 minutes to read
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    Summary of Flow tab Extend ServiceNow AI Platform capabilities

    The Flow tab in ServiceNow's Virtual Agent Designer enables users to create and manage conversation flows for chat interactions. It provides tools to define user inputs, bot responses, and utilities within the conversation structure. This functionality is crucial for developing effective virtual agents that can engage users meaningfully.

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    Key Features

    • Navigation Bar: Allows easy navigation back to the Topics page and shows the status of design changes.
    • Topic Header Bar: Includes tabs for different views (Flow, NLU Intent, Properties, Languages) and options to change the design state, save, test, and publish.
    • Palette: Contains Components and Variables tabs for adding user inputs, bot responses, and utilities to the canvas.
    • Canvas: A graphical area where conversation flows are visually constructed, incorporating nodes for each control and automatic layout adjustments.
    • Node Search: Quickly locates specific nodes by name within the conversation flow.
    • Property Sheet: Displays properties for selected nodes, allowing for detailed configuration including scripts and NLU fields.
    • Data Pill Picker: Facilitates the selection of data pills for use in property fields, enhancing dynamic responses.
    • Script Editor: Enables the addition of JavaScript for advanced functionalities within nodes.
    • Resources Tab: Provides access to helpful resources, including guided tours and product documentation.

    Key Outcomes

    By utilizing the Flow tab, ServiceNow customers can design interactive and responsive virtual agent conversations that enhance user engagement. The tools available support the creation of complex conversation flows, ensure all necessary properties are configured, and enable testing across multiple channels. The ability to publish topics makes them readily available to users, ultimately improving service delivery and user satisfaction.

    Use the topic Flow tab to build the conversation flow. Use the controls for user inputs, bot responses, and utilities to define the flow.

    Flow tab (default view)

    Figure 1. Example Flow tab in the default view
    Default view of theVirtual Agent Designer topic Flow tab with 10 callouts highlighted. For the text description, see the table that follows.
    Table 1. Legend (default view)
    Feature Description
    1. Navigation bar Breadcrumbs to navigate from your design back to the Topics page. When updating designs, a message in the corner indicates the status of the design. For example, a message might indicate that you have unpublished changes for your topic or Natural Language Understanding (NLU) language mappings.
    2. Topic header bar Tabs and design options for your topic:
    • Tabs: Each tab provides a different view for working on your conversation.
    • Table View: Option that displays a table view of the nodes in the conversation flow. You can use this option to switch between table view and diagram view as you design your conversation.
    • Active/Inactive: Option that changes the design state so that it's active (available to users) or inactive (in development and not available to users). Select it to see the following options:
      • Included in Topic Discovery: Option to make the topic discoverable via keywords, NLU, or Now LLM Service. If inactive, the topic is included when performing search fallback.
      • Included in List of Topics: Option to make the topic visible under the “show me everything” list of topics.
    • Save: Saves the current design.
    • Test: Opens the design in a chat test window so that you can preview and test the conversation. If the Now Assist panel or Microsoft Teams is configured for your environment, preview options for those channels display in the Test button list. Select Preview in Now Assist panel or Preview in Microsoft Teams in the list to test your topic in those environments.
    • Publish: Activates the design and makes it available to the chat clients. If you're using language-specific NLU models, select Review and publish from the Publish list to specify languages.
    • More actions on topics icon (More actions on topics icon.).
      • Duplicate: Copy the current design to create an unpublished version of the design.
      • Delete: Remove the current and published version of the design.
    3. Palette Collapsible sidebar with Components and Variables tabs.
    The Components tab shows a list of controls that you can drag onto the canvas to build a conversation. The following types of controls are available:
    • User Input: Controls used to prompt and capture information from the user in a conversation. When Now Assist is enabled and you're working with a large language model (LLM) topic, the LLM-enabled User Input section indicates which controls are LLM compatible.
    • Bot Response: Controls for showing Virtual Agent responses in a conversation.
    • Utilities: Controls for performing actions within a topic, such as running a script, adding different conversation paths (branches) in a topic, or adding topic blocks.
    The Variables tab includes inputs and scripts.
    Input section
    • Live agent variables specified on the topic Properties tab to provide contextual information from the Virtual Agent session to the live agent.
    • Input variables defined by User Input controls and Utilities that are added to the flow on the canvas.
    • "Nodeless" NLU entities added by the topic author that are used as slot-filled input variables for the topic.
    Script section
    The Script section includes the scripts found in nodes on the canvas. The topic author can add further script variables to store values outside of control variables. Scripting variables enable more complex scripting scenarios.
    4. Canvas Area that displays the conversation flow graphically. As you drag a control onto the canvas, that control becomes a node in the conversation flow. The canvas includes a related property sheet that opens in a pane when you select a node. Each flow has a Start and End node. When you add or remove controls, the layout of controls on the canvas is adjusted automatically.
    5. Node search Option for quickly finding specific nodes in the conversation flow. Select the node search icon (Node search icon.) to expand the search field and enter the name of the node that you want to find. When a matching node is found, the node is highlighted in the flow. Use the arrows next to the search bar to go to the previous or subsequent node that matches the search node name.
    Figure 2. Node search showing highlighted node
    Node search, showing the highlighted node in flow and highlighted search bar.
    6. Property sheet Properties specific to the selected node on the canvas. The list of properties changes based on the node you select. Each node has its own set of properties that you can define, which can include scripts that control the behavior or processing that is performed in the node. If NLU is enabled, the property sheets for Input controls contain additional NLU fields. For further information, see Virtual Agent Designer controls.
    7. Data pill picker A tool for selecting data pills from input variables or script variables to use in the property field. Select the data pill picker to select from the existing variables accessible in the topic. You can also drag data pills directly into property fields.
    8. Script editor A tool for adding or editing JavaScript scripts used in a property. Provides scripting assistance, including a list of valid elements at the insertion point. Elements include function names, object names, and variable names available for the topic. For more information, see the JavaScript syntax editor.
    9. Property sheet tab Opens the property sheet view for the currently selected node on the canvas.
    10. Resources tab Opens the Helpful resources view, containing resources including Guided tours on the canvas, and links to videos for LLM-enabled nodes and product documentation.

    Helpful resources tab showing the guided tour, video, and product documentation links.

    Flow tab with the Table View enabled

    Most of the functionality of the Flow tab is the same in the Table View. The following figure and table highlight the differences.

    Figure 3. Example Flow tab in the Table View
    Table view of the Virtual Agent Designer Flow tab with variables, search table, and Table toggle highlighted. For the text description, see the table that follows.
    Table 2. Legend (Table View)
    Feature Description
    Palette: Variables sidebar The Components tab is not shown. Only the Variables sidebar is visible.
    Table view A list of table rows, where each row corresponds to a node in the conversation flow. You can add nodes in this section. When you add or remove nodes, the table rows adjust automatically. A node can be any of the following controls, aside from the Start and End nodes:
    • User Input: Controls used to prompt and capture information from the user in a conversation.
    • Bot Response: Controls for displaying Virtual Agent responses in a conversation.
    • Utilities: Controls for performing actions within a topic, such as running a script, adding different conversation paths (branches) in a topic, or adding topic blocks.

    Select Add new node to add a node. You can specify the type of control in the dialog box.
    Search table Option for searching nodes in the conversation (table).

    LLM components guided tour

    When you create or open an LLM topic, a dialog box appears and displays an option to take a guided tour of the LLM-enabled components in Virtual Agent Designer. Select the close icon (Close icon.) to close the window or Start guided tour to be shown the various components. To stop seeing the dialog box open each time that you open an LLM topic, select Do not show this again before closing the dialog box or starting the tour. To restore the dialog box, navigate to All > sys_cb_user_preference_list.do and set the value for LLM_INTRO_MODAL_ENABLED to true. You can also take a tour by selecting Guided tour for LLM enabled nodes on the Helpful resources tab.

    Figure 4. LLM guided tour dialog box
    Introducing LLM-enabled components dialog box with the Do not show this again and Start guided tour options.

    Incomplete property warnings

    Controls on the canvas have required properties. If required properties are missing, Virtual Agent Designer displays the total number of missing required properties and the controls that are missing them. All incomplete warnings must be addressed to test or publish the topic.

    In the following example, the topic is missing two required properties. Two nodes are affected, and each is missing one property. The Text response node is missing the Message response.

    Figure 5. Flow tab with incomplete properties
    Virtual Agent Designer Flow tab view with incomplete properties. Number of incomplete nodes is shown in the canvas. The sidebar and each node show the number of incomplete entries.

    Point to the incomplete message to see a tooltip that describes what is missing.

    Figure 6. Select the message to get more information
    Virtual Agent Designer properties, with incomplete message selected to show missing items in the node.