Combined Virtual Agent release notes for upgrades from Vancouver to Washington DC

Consolidated page of all release notes for Virtual Agent from Vancouver to Washington DC.

How to use this page

To help you prepare for your upgrade, we have combined the cross-family Virtual Agent release notes onto one page. Read this summary of the new features, changes, and updated information for your product from Vancouver to Washington DC.

Tip:

If there were no updates for a release notes section in a certain family release, we included a short note for your reference. For example, if a product did not have any updates in Tokyo, the row says "No updates for this release."

Important information for upgrading Virtual Agent to Washington DC

Before you upgrade to Washington DC, review these pre- and post-upgrade tasks and complete the tasks as needed.

Release	Release notes
Vancouver	Some features that were delivered in Vancouver Patch 7 are not available in the initial Washington DC early access release. These features will be available in future Patch releases of Washington DC: Input Collector control changes Drag and drop to reorder inputs within the node. Specify the type of input that the node will accept: Text, Email, IP Address, Phone Number, URL, or custom. Maximum number of inputs per node is 5. Enforced user prompt option in the Text user input control Toggle switch in the Advanced properties area that allows topic authors to specify the message shown to the user instead of the response generated by the LLM.
Washington DC	No updates for this release.

New features

Between your current release family and Washington DC, new features were introduced for Virtual Agent.

Release	Release notes
Vancouver	Now Assist in Virtual Agent Implement Now Assist in Virtual Agent conversations in Microsoft Teams and mobile channels. Test and preview topics in either the mweb or nowassistpanel channel. The generative AI experience in Virtual Agent combines information search and service catalog requests. For details, see Using Now Assist in Virtual Agent. Configuring Now Assist in Virtual Agent from either the Now Assist Admin console or Conversational Interfaces admin console. Monitor the performance of Now Assist in Virtual Agent as a self-service deflection tool. See Analyzing Now Assist in Virtual Agent for more information. LLM topic discovery in Virtual Agent Create topics that use LLM instead of Natural Language Understanding (NLU). Associate LLM topics with the Now Assist in Virtual Agent LLM assistant. Analyze Now LLM responses to utterances while testing LLM topics. Get in-depth testing details for LLM topics using the new Topic discovery and Edit variables tabs. Virtual Agent Designer LLM input controls Input Collector user input control: Use the new Input Collector control in LLM topics to gather data from users and create instructions with generative AI. Secure Text user input control: Use the Secure Text control in LLM topics to gather and encrypt sensitive text, email, and other types of input from users. Multiple active conversations for Virtual Agent Get more out of Virtual Agent with multiple concurrent conversations. Separate or share topics and other data across multiple portals, with each user engaging in a different conversation for each portal. Virtual Agent Designer controls Record Action utility: Attach files to records. Multi-response bot response control: Upload images in the card template field. Topic Block utility: Unlock extra functions in a Topic Block by activating the Use dynamic topic block toggle switch. Use this option to define a custom topic block with script or condition builder options, title, and manual input mapping. Virtual Agent scripts Reset all entities in a conversation with one API script call using the function vaSystem.resetAllEntities(). Virtual Agent Designer All pre-built topics page Use the Explore additional topics related link to read a list of topics that are available in the main topic list view after certain dependencies are installed. Dialog Acts for Virtual Agent Create a more dynamic Virtual Agent experience by activating Dialog Acts. Use this new feature to engage in more natural-language conversations, resulting in faster addressing of issues in Virtual Agent. Alter requests on the fly, and confirm or negate those changes, all with less looping through topics. Dynamic Inputs in User Testing Control inputs in user testing to prevent avoidable failures when running test cases. Toggle individual test steps to bypass dynamic inputs that would otherwise register as fail points. Conversational Integration with Microsoft Teams Embed the Virtual Agent application in Microsoft Teams extension to fetch ServiceNow® AI Search results. Explore Additional Topics Select Explore Additional Topics in the Topics page header bar to view the All pre-built topics page. These topics become available in the Topics page when you install dependent plugins or spokes. Integrating Virtual Agent with Microsoft Teams for GCC-H or DoD Enable the sn_va_teams.send_image_as_data system property to upload images to your conversation on Microsoft Teams integration with GCC-H. Apply this system property to image and card controls. If you're using a URL, ensure that its source is the ServiceNow instance. Create an Amazon CloudFormation Stack Create Connect Instance and Contact Flows as part of CloudFormation stack with Amazon Connect details, along with updating the old templates to the new templates and creating the stack without any errors. Virtual Agent conversations with Now Assist Enhance Virtual Agent conversations with generative AI. Information search and service request options are combined under Now Assist, providing intent switching and feedback refinement based on the entire conversation history. Multi-turn Q&A provides detailed answers to queries made in natural language, instead of plain links to knowledge base articles. Multi-turn Catalog Ordering fulfills service requests that are refined the same as Q&A. Vancouver patch 8 Beginning with Vancouver patch 8, the following features are available: Carousel user input control: Use the Carousel user input control in a LLM-enabled Virtual Agent topic to present a prompt and a horizontal series of labeled images. Dynamic choice user input control property sheet: Use the Allow the user to select more than one choice field to allow users to choose multiple choices from the list display. Latency feedback system property: The com.glide.cs.message.processing.enabled system property notifies requesters with a temporary latency message whenever the LLM is processing their request in the Virtual Agent web client and Now Assist panel. This system property is off by default and the latency message varies depending on the LLM call. Use Virtual Agent API to support Now Assist experience across multiple provider channels. See Enable Now Assist experience in Virtual Agent API for more information. Use Bot Interconnect to support Now Assist enabled primary and secondary bot use cases.
Washington DC	Now Assist in Virtual Agent Implement Now Assist in Virtual Agent conversations in Microsoft Teams and mobile channels. Test and preview topics in either the mweb or nowassistpanel channel. Added enhancements to Now Assist in Virtual Agent. Create or manage LLM virtual agents using a new option on the Conversational Interfaces admin console or the new Assistants tab. Filter analytics indicators in Now Assist in Virtual Agent Analytics using the new Assistant multi-select filter. Enable Genius Results generated by Now Assist in portal search from a link within the Review section of [Placeholder link text to key configure-now-assist-va]. When a user types an irrelevant utterance in the middle of a topic, unified search sees whether there are any results found. LLM topic discovery in Virtual Agent Create topics that use LLM instead of Natural Language Understanding (NLU). Analyze Now LLM responses to utterances while testing LLM topics. Get in-depth testing details for LLM topics using the new Topic discovery and Edit variables tabs. LLM support in Virtual Agent Designer controls Input Collector user input control: Use the new Input Collector control in LLM topics to gather data from users and create instructions with generative AI. Drag nodes in and out of the Input Collector instead of deleting and adding new ones. Drag nodes from one Input Collector to another if you have multiple Input Collectors on your canvas. Use the From and To drop-down lists to reorder inputs from the node on the table view. Activate the Confirmation message option in the Input Collector to summarize your inputs. Submit the inputs or restart the input collection process, by selecting Yes or No options, or entering a reply in plain language. Secure Text user input control: Use the Secure Text control in LLM topics to gather and encrypt sensitive text, email, and other types of input from users. Date Time user input control: Input DD-MM-YYYY format to the Date Time user input for regions using that format. Dynamically pick Virtual Agent notification actions When authoring a Virtual Agent topic, you can pass one or more notification actions as parameters instead of a single, static action. All actions must be predefined for the notification. Hide or reveal the Show me everything button Set the glide.cs.disable_show_me_everything system property for NLU/Keyword topic discovery. Alternatively, update values found in the default Script Action Utility control in Virtual Agent greeting topics that use LLM topic discovery. System properties The following new system properties affect AI Search results in mid-topic discovery: com.glide.cs.gen_ai.enable_mid_topic_ai_search sn_nowassist_va.enable_mid_topic_ai_search_catalog_result Washington DC patch 1 Beginning with Washington DC patch 1, the following features are available: Carousel user input control: Use the Carousel user input control in a LLM-enabled Virtual Agent topic to present a prompt and a horizontal series of labeled images. Dynamic choice user input control property sheet: Use the Allow the user to select more than one choice field to allow users to choose multiple choices from the list display. Latency feedback system property: The com.glide.cs.message.processing.enabled system property notifies requesters with a temporary latency message whenever the LLM is processing their request in the Virtual Agent web client and Now Assist panel. This system property is off by default and the latency message varies depending on the LLM call. Use Virtual Agent API to support Now Assist experience across multiple provider channels. See Enable Now Assist experience in Virtual Agent API for more information. Use Bot Interconnect to support Now Assist enabled primary and secondary bot use cases. Washington DC patch 3 Beginning with Washington DC patch 3, the following features are available: LLM topic migration: The topic migration workflow in Virtual Agent Designer allows you to convert your existing NLU/Keyword topics into new large language-model (LLM) topics. The topic migration workflow is available to admin and topic_migration_admin roles. Dynamic Choice user input control: Using a script, requesters can view their previously selected choice values and also view and search through secondary field data. LLM assistant associations: Any topic type can be associated with an LLM assistant. LLM topic blocks and custom controls that are not associated with an assistant, but are used within a topic that is associated with an LLM assistant, now display in the Topics page when filtering by the LLM assistant. Now Assist in Virtual Agent guided setup entry point from Virtual Agent Designer: Selecting either Settings or Manage on the Virtual Agent Designer Topics page opens the Conversational Interfaces Guided Setup workflow. Assistant drop-down list: The Assistant drop-down list appears in the chat test window when testing from a single topic when the Include topic discovery option is selected or when testing active LLM assistant topics from the Virtual Agent Topics page. When a topic is associated with just one LLM assistant, the Assistant drop-down list defaults to that assistant name. If you have multiple assistants, select which assistant you want to work with using the Assistant drop-down list. New Virtual Agent translation table: The Text Translations for Dynamic Translation [sys_cs_dynamic_translation_text] table stores copies of the translations found in the Message [sys_ui_message] table and previously dynamically translated messages. Promote or demote Virtual Agent LLM topics: Organize promoted LLM topics by assigning relative order values in the Promoted Skills [sys_cs_context_profile_promoted_skill] table. Topic Properties tab: Setup Topics will remain associated with an Assistant in the topic Properties tab. Topic creation form: Configure channels in LLM topics under Who can access this topic in the Advanced section of the Properties tab. New system property The com.glide.cs.field.boolean.show.choice_picker system property determines whether a Boolean node or a Dynamic Choice node with a single value displays to users whenever the Dynamic Choice node only has one single value associated. Conversational Analytics dashboard in Platform Analytics experience The Conversational Analytics dashboard in Platform Analytics experience now meets the compliance requirements of data regulated market environments, for example, Government Community Cloud (GCC). Platform Analytics provides a unified interface for visualizing multiple data sources. The dashboard contains indicators and breakdowns for rich visualizations and detailed analysis. Washington DC patch 4 Beginning with Washington DC patch 4, the following features are available: Create a topic form: Associate LLM-enabled Topics, Setup topics, Topic blocks, Small talk topics, and Custom controls with the Now Assist in Virtual Agent LLM assistant. LLM topic testing: Provide feedback to the Now LLM using thumbs-up and thumbs-down controls when testing Text, Static choice list, Dynamic choice list, Boolean, Date time, and Carousel user inputs. Insert a header card in a Static Choice or Dynamic Choice control: Toggle the Header card switch in the Advanced properties section of the LLM-enabled Static choice list and Dynamic choice list user inputs, to add photos or YouTube videos. Genius Results in chat preview window: Genius Results for LLM topics show skill (topic) discovery, knowledge base (KB) articles, and catalog items in the Analyze test phrases tab of the chat preview window. Topic migration updates: On the topic migration workflow's Publish (optional) page, select the LLM topic link to be redirected to that topic in Virtual Agent Designer through a new browser tab or window. Any edits that you make in Virtual Agent Designer are reflected in the topic migration's Publish (optional) page after refreshing. Topic migration error log updates: New error messages were added to the topic migration workflow in Virtual Agent Designer and existing error messages were updated. NDS cards in Virtual Agent: Next Experience Design System (NDS) cards carousel now appears to requesters in the Virtual Agent whenever multiple results are found from a Genius Result. Feedback with thumbs up or thumbs down is possible on each NDS card. Proactive Triggers work with LLM topics: Proactive Triggers can be used with LLM topics if Now Assist in Virtual Agent is set up.

Changes

Between your current release family and Washington DC, some changes were made to existing Virtual Agent features.

Release	Release notes
Vancouver	Now Assist in Virtual Agent changes Improved flow for the Now Assist in Virtual Agent guided setup. Script update for the portable Virtual Agent web client An updated script that you import and to enable the ServiceNow Virtual Agent web client on a third-party website is now available. Virtual Agent is certified for Standard-level domain separation Associate a Virtual Agent bot with its own domain. Users within a domain can only access the Virtual Agent bot associated with their domain. This means that users in one domain cannot access data or functionality belonging to another domain, including Virtual Agent conversations. System property changes The following changes were made to improve the conversational catalog experience: glide.cs.runtime.max_silent_fields: The default value was changed from 150 to 600. glide.cs.runtime.user_input_max_length: The default value was changed from 10240 to 409600. Localization and attachment enhancements in Microsoft Teams Improve localization quality to account for a users preferred language setting in Microsoft Teams. Support multi-attachments covering various scenarios including text, files, emojis, and so on. Provider Channel Identity improvements in IVR Create multiple provider channel identities and map to each inbound phone number with separate configurations for each channel. Virtual Agent server changes When domain separation is used, guest users are restricted to the domain used in the chat session. For custom chat channels, the domain of the provider application is used. For the web client, you can associate a domain ID with the chat portal. In Utah, the system property com.glide.cs.multiple_conversations_per_consumer_channels was added to indicate the channels that support multiple conversations. In Vancouver, this property is replaced by a new [supports_multiple_conversations] column in the Messaging Channels [sys_cs_channel] table that enables multiple active conversations on the MWeb channel. Data is migrated accordingly. The Requester Session Language column was added to the Open NLU Predict Intent Feedbacks [open_nlu_predict_intent_feedback] table. When Dynamic Translation is enabled, the value is the language code of the requester session language. New values were added to the NLU Topic Discovery Outcome column in the Open NLU Predict Intent Feedbacks [open_nlu_predict_intent_feedback] table: AI Search Fallback: No prediction is made. AI Search is used as the fallback. Exited with no confirmation: The user exits with no confirmation. Setup Topic Prediction: Setup topic-related prediction was made without using AI Search. Skipped with New Utterance: When the Topic menu is displayed, the user typed a new utterance. When creating a new record using the Form Content Popup topic block, the sys_id for the created record is sent to the server so that the Virtual Agent topic has that information. Date Time user input control The DateTime control reflects the current time zone for any new Virtual Agent customers. Preferred date formats are displayed for users at the instance or user level, instead of the basic system format. (This property is controlled by the com.glide.cs.publisher.enable_text_prompt_display_values setting.) Create Record action Time/Date stamps are now properly recorded to reflect the user's time zone when the Create Record action is used.
Washington DC	Now Assist in Virtual Agent changes Improved flow and enhancements for the Now Assist in Virtual Agent guided setup: Assistants tab contains a list of each Virtual Agent and the ability to create new ones. Skills for each Virtual Agent can be activated or deactivated. A skill can be deactivated across the entire instance. Each Virtual Agent can be associated with a search profile other than the default Virtual Agent search profile. The chat experience has advanced configurations that can replace the default setting. Promoted topics can be defined in Virtual Agent Designer (VAD) and reordered within the setup. Fallback options are used to route the user to a live agent, restart a conversation, or create an incident. AI search is triggered for knowledge base articles or catalog items when skills are not configured for the user. Web client public page default change Changed the public page defaults for new customers from Active is True to Active is False for the following pages: $sn-va-web-client-app sn_va_web_client_app_embed If desired, enable Public access in Conversational Interfaces > Settings > General for web client on portals only. System property changes The following changes were made to improve the conversational catalog experience: glide.cs.runtime.max_silent_fields: The default value was changed from 150 to 600. glide.cs.runtime.user_input_max_length: The default value was changed from 10240 to 409600. Virtual Agent Designer user input controls The Additional instructions for LLM field was removed from all LLM-enabled user input controls in Virtual Agent Designer in Washington DC patch 1 and added back in Washington DC patch 3.

Removed

Between your current release family and Washington DC, some Virtual Agent features or functionality were removed.

Release	Release notes
Vancouver	The Message previews card has been removed from All > Conversational Interfaces > Settings > General. The What is the reason AI is collecting inputs from the user? field was removed from the Input Collector control in Virtual Agent Designer. The Additional instructions for LLM field was removed from all LLM-enabled user input controls in Virtual Agent Designer.
Washington DC	The What is the reason AI is collecting inputs from the user? field was removed from the Input Collector control in Virtual Agent Designer. The Topics category with the topic description was removed from the Prompt discovery tab in the Virtual Agent Designer chat preview window.

Deprecations

Between your current release family and Washington DC, some Virtual Agent features or functionality were deprecated.

Release	Release notes
Vancouver	The com.glide.cs.html.sanitizer.enabled Glide property has been deprecated. In this release, the value is set to true and can't be changed. If the value in your instance is set to false, this setting is retained for now. The Save as Image button has been deprecated. In this release, the button and its function have been removed. Screen shots of a topic diagram can still be taken by all other available means.
Washington DC	No updates for this release.

Activation information

Review information on how to activate Virtual Agent.

Release	Release notes
Vancouver	Virtual Agent is a ServiceNow AI Platform feature that is available with activation of the Glide Virtual Agent plugin (com.glide.cs.chatbot), which requires a separate subscription. For details, see Activate Virtual Agent. Note: The Glide Virtual Agent plugin initially installs the Topic Recommendations and Conversational Analytics apps. Subsequent updates to these apps must be installed from the ServiceNow Store. ServiceNow® Virtual Agent Lite is a subset of the Virtual Agent platform that is available to ServiceNow® IT Service Management (ITSM) customers. It doesn't require activation and works with ServiceNow® ITSM Virtual Agent Lite conversations, which are also available to ITSM customers. Now Assist in Virtual Agent requires a license for at least one Now Assist product: Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM) Now Assist for HR Service Delivery (HRSD) Now Assist for IT Service Management (ITSM)
Washington DC	Virtual Agent is a ServiceNow AI Platform feature that is available with activation of the Glide Virtual Agent plugin (com.glide.cs.chatbot), which requires a separate subscription. For details, see Activate Virtual Agent. Note: The Glide Virtual Agent plugin initially installs the Topic Recommendations and Conversational Analytics apps. Subsequent updates to these apps must be installed from the ServiceNow Store. ServiceNow® Virtual Agent Lite is a subset of the Virtual Agent platform that is available to ServiceNow® IT Service Management (ITSM) customers. It doesn't require activation and works with ITSM Virtual Agent Lite conversations, which are also available to ITSM customers.

Additional requirements

If any additional requirements were introduced or changed for Virtual Agent we have noted them here.

Release	Release notes
Vancouver	No updates for this release.
Washington DC	Now Assist in Virtual Agent requires a license for at least one Now Assist product: Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM) Now Assist for HR Service Delivery (HRSD) Now Assist for IT Service Management (ITSM)

Browser requirements

If any specific browser requirements were introduced or changed for Virtual Agent we have noted them here.

Release	Release notes
Vancouver	Virtual Agent supports various browsers, including Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge.
Washington DC	Virtual Agent supports various browsers, including Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. For more information, see Browser support.

Accessibility information

Review details on accessibility information for Virtual Agent, such as specific requirements or compliance levels.

Release	Release notes
Vancouver	No updates for this release.
Washington DC	No updates for this release.

Localization information

If there are specific localization considerations for Virtual Agent we have noted them here.

Release	Release notes
Vancouver	The ServiceNow® Localization Framework is integrated in Virtual Agent Designer.
Washington DC	The ServiceNow® Localization Framework is integrated in Virtual Agent.

Highlight information

If there are specific highlight considerations for Virtual Agent we have noted them here.

Release	Release notes
Vancouver	Update the script for the portable Virtual Agent web client, otherwise, the portable Virtual Agent web client won’t work as expected. Implement generative AI capabilities with Now Assist in Virtual Agent. Accommodate multiple points of contact with different phone numbers from an AWS instance for IVR. Support message extension in Conversational Integration with Microsoft Teams. Support Dialog Acts for more natural conversations within ServiceNow® Virtual Agent Designer. Enjoy a new admin console experience for Issue Auto Resolution (IAR) covering configuration and simulation. Install Contact Flows in Conversational IVR using the Contact CloudFormation templates. See Virtual Agent for more information. Note: Performance and the user experience are improved by tracking aggregate in-app activity, including interaction with the app. This tracking is focused on aggregated technical information rather than personal information.
Washington DC	Create and test Virtual Agent topics that use large language models (LLMs) instead of Natural Language Understanding (NLU). Test LLM-enabled topics using the additional Prompt discovery and Edit variables tabs. Implement Now Assist in Virtual Agent conversations in Microsoft Teams and mobile. For LLM topics, use the Input Collector input control in Virtual Agent Designer to gather data using generative AI prompts. For LLM topics, use the Secure Text input control in Virtual Agent Designer to gather and encrypt sensitive text, email, and other types of input from users. See Virtual Agent for more information. Note: Performance and the user experience are improved by tracking aggregate in-app activity, including interaction with the app. This tracking is focused on aggregated technical information rather than personal information.