Source: https://www.servicenow.com/products/itsm.html 

This tutorial will explain how to integrate an organization's ServiceNow instance to a Cognigy.AI virtual agent.

"Deliver resilient services that increase productivity and create amazing experiences wherever your employees work, with the most innovative ITSM solution (Service Now, 2021)."

Table of Contents

1. Install the Service Now Extension
2. Create a Service Now Connection
3. Support
   1. Create a new Incident
   2. Retrieve Incident Information / Status Updates
4. Service Catalog
   1. Retrieve Task Information / Status Updates
   2. Retrieve Request Information / Status Updates
   3. Order an Item directly within the chat
5. Knowledge
   1. Search for Knowledge Articles

Install the Service Now Extension

The first step is to install the required integration. In this case, a so-called Extension is uploaded to Cognigy.AI. Thus, navigate to the Extensions Marketplace inside of the Virtual Agent and add the Service Now Extension by clicking on the Install button. Now follow this installation guide and upload the Extension to Cognigy, where it will be displayed as the following:

Congrats! The installation of the Extension is finished!

Create a Service Now Connection

In this step, a so-called Connection will be created. If one, in Cognigy.AI, clicks on the previously uploaded Extension, the following details can be observed:

The red-marked part in the above figure shows, that there is a Connection required. Therefore, it needs to be created and filled with Service Now user credentials. In order to do so, one initial SNOW Flow Node needs to be added to a Flow:

1. Create a new Flow in Cognigy.AI
2. Inside of the Flow Chart, click on + and navigate to the Service Now Extension:
   
   
   
   
3. For example, add the Create Incident Flow Node by clicking on it:
   
   
   
   
4. In order to edit the Flow Node and create the Connection, please click on it. An Edit Node menu will be opened on the right side of the screen:
   
   
5. Right next to the Connection field (the first one at the top), one needs to click on the + button. The Connection menu will be opened at the center of the screen:
   
   
6. Insert the related Service Now credentials/information of the organization to the fields.
   
   1. username
      1. The username of the Service Now account, which should be used in Cognigy.AI.
   2. password
      1. The password of this Service Now user.
   3. instance
      1. This is the URL of the Service Now installation, the organization uses. For example, https://dev12345.service-now.com or https://mycompany.service-now.com
         
         The username and password can be found in the login screen of the SNOW instance.
         
7. Click on the Create button

Support

As one of the most common use-cases of Service Now is the management of support requests, this Extension provides creating and retrieving so-called incidents by using the Table API.

Create a new Incident

In order to create a new incident/support ticket, the Create Incident Flow Node can be used:

From default, the result will be stored in the Input Object. It consists of detailed information about the successfully created incident:

{
  "snow": {
    "createdIncident": {
      "sys_updated_on": "2021-04-16 09:22:30",
      "number": "INC0010086",
      "state": "1",
      "impact": "3",
      "priority": "5",
      "short_description": "Forgot my password",

      "description": "I can not login to my Salesforce account anymore. ",
      "category": "inquiry"
    },
    "...": "..."
  }
}

This information can be used dynamically in the further Flow, such as in a confirmation Say Node:

Retrieve Incident Information / Status Updates

If the virtual agent should provide the same detailed information about an older incident, the Get Incident Node could be used. It takes the Incident Number and stores the result in Cognigy.AI:

In this case, the result looks similar to the one mentioned above:

{
  "snow": {
    "createdIncident": {
      "sys_updated_on": "2020-12-24 11:00:20",
      "number": "INC0010084",
      "state": "1",
      "impact": "1",
      "priority": "5",
      "short_description": "Computer Monitor is broken",

      "description": "I am not able to use the monitor of my computer anymore. It keeps showing screen",
      "category": "hardware"
    },
    "...": "..."
  }
}

This information can be used dynamically in the further Flow, such as in a confirmation Say Node:

Service Catalog

"With the ServiceNow® Service Catalog application, create service catalogs that provide your customers with self-service opportunities. Customize portals where your customers can request catalog items such as service and product offerings. You can also standardize request fulfillment to ensure the accuracy and availability of the items in the catalogs. (Service Now, 2021)".

In order to provide this feature in Cognigy.AI as well, the following Flow Nodes can be used.

Retrieve Task Information / Status Updates

If the user wants to get an update about a previously created Task, the Get Catalog Task Node can be used:

This information can be used dynamically in the further Flow, such as in a confirmation Say Node:

Retrieve Request Information / Status Updates

Next to the Task, one could ask for a Request, which can be retrieved from Service Now by using the Get Catalog Request Node:

This information can be used dynamically in the further Flow, such as in a confirmation Say Node:

Order an Item directly within the chat

Showcase video: Automating IT services with Cognigy.AI & ServiceNow

Such as shown in the video above, the Service Catalog could be used for internal orders as well. With this functionality, the employee does not need to add a new item to the Cart in the Service Portal. One can directly order a new monitor, or something else, in the chat. In this case, two Flow Nodes are required:

1. Get Items (Service Catalog)
2. Order Item Now (Service Catalog)

First, the user should be able to select the wished item from a List or Gallery in the chat. Within the Get Items Node, the following configuration can be made:

If all items from all available Service Catalogs should be retrieved from the system, the Advanced section can be ignored. Otherwise, one could provide a specific Service Catalog ID, a limited number of results, and a potential search text that could be provided by the user in the previous chat history.

In the next step, a Say Node could, for example, display the returned items:

Such as shown in the above figure, it uses Cognigy Script in order to extract the information from the Context:

{{context.snow.catalog.items[0].name}}

This will return the name of the first item that could be ordered, such as "LP Monitor 22 Inch"

or

{{context.snow.catatlog.items[0].localized_price}}

This will return the price, for example in Dollars, for the first item that could be ordered.

As soon as the user selected one of the displayed items, a new order can be placed in Service Now by using the Order Item Now Flow Node:

In the example, shown in the above figure, the first item will be ordered with a quantity of one. Last but not least, the newly created Order Number can be shared with the user and therefore send within a confirmation message:

Knowledge

Finally, any kind of knowledge articles can be retrieved from the Service Now instance and used within a conversation. Therefore, a user could ask for a specific topic while the Search for Knowledge Article Flow Node uses this as a query.

Search for Knowledge Articles

Next to the query, which could simply be the user's input text message, a list of more advanced options can be configured.

Important:

If the Service Now instance was updated, for example to the version "Rome", one must reinstall the "Knowledge API" Plugin in order to make the "Search Articles" Flow Node work. Therefore, please do the following:

1. Login to the Service Now instance and search for "plugin"
   
2. Navigate to "Plugins" and search for "Knowledge API". There should only be one result.
   
3. Install this plugin.