Now Assist for Creator release notes

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of Now Assist for Creator Release Notes - Xanadu

    Now Assist for Creator is a ServiceNow application that leverages generative AI to enhance and streamline development on the ServiceNow AI Platform. The Xanadu release introduces new capabilities and improvements to help creators build applications, flows, playbooks, and data visualizations more efficiently using natural language and AI-driven assistance.

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    Key Features

    • Generative Flow Enhancements: Automatically generate appropriate data pill values for supported flow triggers and action inputs, improving flow accuracy and reducing manual configuration.
    • Playbook Generation: Create playbooks from text, images, or a combination, with AI suggesting activities and enabling preview and refinement of playbook outlines before generation.
    • UI Experience Generation: Build user interfaces using natural language descriptions, simplifying UI design without coding.
    • Code Editing with AI: Refactor code, add comments, validation, error handling, and rename variables by describing desired improvements to Now Assist.
    • Custom Spoke Creation: Build spokes for third-party applications by pasting API documentation snippets, supporting integrations without OpenAPI specs or Postman collections.
    • Data Visualization: Generate and iteratively modify various chart types—including dial, gauge, bar, area, scatter, and more—directly via conversational AI, and add visualizations to any editable dashboard.
    • Application Lifecycle Support: Preview applications visually before generation, update existing applications by adding objects like tables and ACLs, and extend tables when creating new ones. Non-admin users with delegated developer roles can edit applications.
    • Integration with Microsoft Active Directory: Use conversational actions such as Disable User, Enable User, and Look up User through Now Assist by installing the Conversational Spokes plugin.
    • Enhanced Flow Generation Usability: Reference tables easily using hash tags with autocomplete during flow creation, and view annotations linking text directions to generated flow components for better transparency.
    • Now Assist Integration Enhancements: Now Assist for app generation is accessible from within ServiceNow Studio, and apps created with AI are clearly labeled and flagged for review in App Engine Studio.

    Activation and Related Products

    Now Assist for Creator is available through the ServiceNow Store. Customers should request installation via the store to activate features. This application complements other ServiceNow tools such as App Engine Studio for app development, Integration Hub for integration automation, MID Server for secure data communication, Process Automation Designer for workflow orchestration, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Hub for automating repetitive tasks.

    Value for ServiceNow Customers

    With Now Assist for Creator, customers can accelerate application development, improve accuracy in flow and playbook creation, simplify UI and code editing, and integrate third-party services more easily. The AI-driven capabilities reduce manual effort, enhance developer productivity, and support collaborative and governed app lifecycle management. These enhancements help organizations deliver faster, more reliable solutions tailored to their operational needs.

    The ServiceNow® Now Assist for Creator application includes generative AI skills that can make developing on the ServiceNow AI Platform more efficient. Now Assist for Creator was enhanced and updated in the Xanadu release.

    Now Assist for Creator highlights for the Xanadu release

    Xanadu Patch 3
    • Generate appropriate data pill values for supported flow triggers and action inputs.
    • Generate a playbook with out-of-the-box activities from text, an image or both.
    • Generate a UI experience with natural language description.
    Xanadu Patch 1
    • Preview and modify your text directions before generating your playbook outline with Now Assist.
    • Show annotations of what text directions were used to generate actions, flow logic, and subflows during flow generation.

    See Now Assist for Creator for more information.

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

    New in the Xanadu release

    Xanadu Patch 3
    Add visualization to any dashboard
    You can add a generated data visualization to any dashboard you can edit. Previously, you could add a visualization only to a dashboard that was open when you opened the Now Assist panel.
    Generate a playbook from an image
    Generate a playbook with out-of-the-box activities from text, an image, or both.
    Generate a UI experience
    Generate a UI experience using natural language description.
    Edit code with Now Assist
    Edit code by telling Now Assist how to improve the code. You can refactor code, add comments, validation rules, error handling, and rename variables.
    Generate data pill values during flow generation
    Generate appropriate data pill values for supported flow triggers and action inputs.
    Use Now Assist to create spokes and actions
    Build custom spokes for the required third-party application by using its API documentation. Kickstart spoke creation by copying and pasting the required API documentation snippet in Workflow Studio. This feature is useful when the required third-party application doesn't have an OpenAPI specification or Postman collection. To use the feature, activate the spoke generation skill in the Now Assist for Creator feature.
    Modify generated data visualizations
    After you generate a data visualization, you can go on through an iterative conversation to modify the visualization.
    Reference specific tables with hash tags during flow generation
    Enter a hash tag character in the flow directions to refer to a specific table by name. Use auto-complete to select a table name from the options that match your partial entry.
    Support more chart types for generating data visualizations
    The Analytics Generation data visualization generation skill now supports dial, gauge, horizontal bar, area, column, scatter, spline, and step charts, in addition to the original chart types.
    Edit in ServiceNow Studio after generating an application
    Use Now Assist for App Generation in ServiceNow Studio, which offers an advanced application development environment.
    Preview an application before generating
    Visually preview an application in a new tab before generating to review for accuracy and reduce the amount of corrective work.
    Update applications that have already been generated
    Augment existing applications with new application objects, such as tables, roles, ACLs, and record producers.
    Create new tables by extending existing tables
    Create new tables for an application created with app generation by extending existing tables, such as the task table.
    Edit existing applications without having the admin role
    Non-admin users with the delegated developer role can edit applications.
    Use Now Assist to call Microsoft Active Directory v2 actions
    Install Now Assist for Conversational Spokes plugin and start utilizing the conversational ability of Disable User, Enable User, and Look up User actions. You can call these actions from a conversational interface like Now Assist.
    Xanadu Patch 1
    Get Playbook recommendations
    Get suggestions on which activities to replace placeholder activities with.
    Re-prompt and preview while generating a playbook
    Preview and modify your prompt before generating your playbook outline.
    Show annotations of the text directions used by flow generation
    Show annotations of the text directions used for each item added by flow generation. Receive feedback about how your directions map to specific actions, flow logic, and subflows.
    Data visualization generation
    Generate Platform Analytics charts through conversations.

    UI changes

    Xanadu Patch 3
    Now Assist for app generation opens from ServiceNow Studio

    Now Assist for app generation can only be used when launching the Now Assist panel from within ServiceNow Studio.

    Xanadu Patch 1
    Enhanced visibility of apps created by Now Assist
    The App Engine Studio App Inventory page now clearly distinguishes apps created with Now Assist in the following ways:
    • A transition animation from the Now Assist Panel into AES eases navigation after the application has been generated.
    • A banner prompts users to review the generated items on landing in AES.
    • Metadata records are tagged with labels and other UI highlights to indicate that they were generated by AI.
    • Metadata records have a Review button to identify records that must be reviewed.
    • App submission changes help inform users that they should be reviewing prior to deployment.

    Activation information

    Install Now Assist for Creator 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.

    Related ServiceNow applications and features

    App Engine Studio
    ServiceNow® App Engine Studio (AES) is a development tool for creators of varying skill levels to build applications that meet the immediate needs of your organization.
    Integration Hub
    Automate integration tasks using ServiceNow components for ServiceNow® Workflow Studio, or develop custom integrations. A separate subscription is required.
    Integration Hub available spokes
    Activate spokes to enhance your Workflow Studio experience with integration-specific content. Use prebuilt flows and actions to automate your integrations or create your own integration automation.
    MID Server
    The Management, Instrumentation, and Discovery (MID) Server is a Java application that runs as a Windows service or UNIX daemon on a server in your local network. The ServiceNow® MID Server enables communication and the movement of data between a ServiceNow instance and external applications, data sources, and services.
    Now Assist
    Use AI recommendations to select the next component in your flow. The system generates recommendations based on the current position in the flow and the flow component names listed before.
    Process Automation Designer
    ServiceNow® Playbooks enables process owners to author cross-enterprise workflows and create a single, unified process. You can also use Playbooks to provide end users with a simplified, task-oriented view of your process.
    Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Hub
    Use the ServiceNow® Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Hub to enable end-to-end automation for your organization. With a combination of UI interactions, element-based automations, and APIs that interact between the various business applications, you can emulate user actions and eliminate mundane and repetitive human activities.