Smart Assessment Engine release notes

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 3 minutes to read
    • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Smart Assessment Engine release notes

    The ServiceNow® Smart Assessment Engine (SAE) introduced in the Xanadu release automates and streamlines assessment processes to reduce manual effort and costs. It enables you to create, manage, and complete assessments efficiently by leveraging a new template designer, a unified assessment experience, and migration tools for legacy assessments. SAE is available via the ServiceNow Store.

    Show full answer Show less

    Key Features

    • Template Designer: Build highly customizable assessment templates with instructions, multiple question types (e.g., radio buttons, check boxes, drop-down lists), and reference information. Organize questions into sections and subsections, configure conditional question display, add guidance text, response justifications, and require supporting document attachments.
    • Reference Information: Incorporate live data from the Assessment Scope directly into templates, reducing the need for external references during assessments.
    • Template Categories: Group related templates into categories to control access and editing permissions, ensuring only authorized personnel manage templates.
    • Assessment Experience: Assessors benefit from progress indicators, paginated questions, automatic saving, reassignment of in-progress assessments, and cancellation options for unnecessary assessments.
    • Trigger Assessments: Initiate assessments via the Trigger Smart Assessment flow action, assigning assessors with specific scopes and deadlines.
    • Combined Submissions: Manage multiple assigned assessments in a unified view with bulk actions like submit and reassign, streamlining processing.
    • Domain Separation Support: Organize data and processes into distinct domains, with templates separated by process and assessments by data, enhancing controlled access and visibility.
    • Legacy Migration: Easily migrate existing designs from the ServiceNow Assessments and Surveys application with one click. Migrated metric types convert to question types, except for unsupported types (Custom, Duration, Image scale, Percentage, Rankings, Ratings).

    Activation and Availability

    SAE must be requested and installed from the ServiceNow Store. Customers can find the application along with cumulative release notes and version history on the ServiceNow Store website.

    The ServiceNow® Smart Assessment Engine (SAE) application helps you to reduce the manual burden and costs of your assessment processes through automation. Smart assessments can help you with evaluating various situations, aspects, or records. SAE is a new application in the Xanadu release.

    Smart Assessment Engine highlights for the Xanadu release

    • Create your assessments by using the new template designer.
    • Improve your assessment processes with the new SAE Assessment experience.
    • Combine the multiple assessments into a single, unified submission.
    • Migrate the legacy assessment metric types to SAE templates.

    See Smart Assessment Engine for more information.

    Important:
    SAE is available in the ServiceNow Store. For details, see the "Activation information" section of these release notes.

    Smart Assessment Engine features

    Using the template designer

    By using the template designer in Smart Assessment Engine, you can easily create assessment templates and add instructions, questions, and reference information to an assessment template.

    • Add instructions and questions to an assessment template: SAE supports the most commonly used question types such as radio buttons, check boxes, drop-down lists, and more. Smart assessments are highly customizable so that you can do the following tasks:
      • Organize questions into sections and subsections for clarity.
      • Add instructions to help the assessors understand the context and requirements of each question to improve the accuracy and relevance of the responses.
      • Configure the question guidance texts to help the assessors answer questions.
      • Configure the questions to appear or hide depending on the assessor's previous answers.
      • Integrate the response justification prompts that provide the assessors with the explanations that are based on their selected responses.
      • Require the assessors to attach the supporting documents like contracts, permits, or invoices that are based on the responses.
    • Add reference information to an assessment template: Incorporate the live data from the Assessment Scope as reference information to help ensure that the assessors have immediate access to the necessary information while they’re responding to the assessments. This live data minimizes the need for external references.
    • Create an assessment template category: Create a template category as a container of related assessment templates. By creating an assessment template category, you can help to ensure that only authorized personnel can access and change the template.
    Respond to assessments
    Navigate through the assessments more efficiently by using a progress indicator that shows how much of the assessment is completed. The questions are paginated to help you more easily navigate the assessment. Your work is automatically saved, which eliminates the need for manual saving and helps to prevent data loss. You also have the option to reassign in-progress assessments to another user or cancel assessments that are no longer needed.
    Trigger assessments
    Initiate an assessment by using the Trigger Smart Assessment flow action that is based on a published assessment template. You can assign an assessment to a designated assessor with a defined scope and deadline.
    Combine multiple assessments into a single, unified submission
    Combine multiple assigned assessments into a single, streamlined view. You can efficiently manage, submit, or reassign these combined assessments at one time. You can use features, like Bulk Submit or Bulk Reassign, to handle all assessments in one action.
    Domain-separated Deployment
    Domain separation in the Smart Assessment Engine is supported starting with the Xanadu release, enabling data, processes, and administrative tasks to be organized into distinct domains. Within this framework, templates are separated by a process, while assessments are separated by data, helping to ensure controlled access and visibility according to the domain.
    Migrate legacy assessment metric types to Smart assessment templates
    Migrate existing assessment designs from the ServiceNow® Assessments and Surveys application. Your templates are automatically transferred as drafts with just one click. After you migrate the designs, you must review and publish these drafts, and confirm the results. The sets of questions in the Assessments and Surveys application are saved as metric types. When migrated, these metric types are saved as question types. Custom, Duration, Image scale, Percentage, Rankings, and Ratings question types aren’t supported for migration.

    Activation information

    Install SAE by requesting it from the ServiceNow Store. Visit the ServiceNow Store website to view all the available apps and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes.