Using product catalogs
Summarize
Summary of Using product catalogs
The product catalog in ServiceNow provides a visual interface for agents and customers to browse and add products to Sales Customer Relationship Management (CSM) transactions such as opportunities, quotes, or orders. It supports both simple products that can be directly added and complex configurable products that require customization.
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Agents access the catalog through the Catalog tab in the CSM Configurable Workspace, while customers use the Business Portal for self-service transactions. Note that simple products without customization requirements are shown when starting a lead.
Key Features
- Catalog navigation tree: Organizes product offerings into catalogs and categories for easy browsing and filtering.
- Search bar: Allows searching by product name, code, or description to quickly locate products.
- Product tiles: Visual cards displaying product details, images, and options to add or customize products. Configurable products open the product configurator for selecting options.
- AI Search integration: Starting with Product Catalog Management Core v17.0.0, semantic search powered by AI Search enhances finding relevant products by understanding query context, not just keywords.
AI Search Capabilities
- Supports semantic queries to find products by characteristics, related parent/child products, or semantically similar items.
- Advanced query language with Boolean operators, wildcards, multi-term and quoted phrases to refine searches.
- Auto-complete suggestions based on recent searches and relevant product matches.
- Automatic correction of misspelled or incomplete queries to improve search accuracy.
- Sort filter options to organize search results by relevancy or product attributes in ascending or descending order.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Enables efficient product selection and customization within Sales CRM transactions, improving sales process speed and accuracy.
- Enhances customer self-service experience by simplifying product discovery and ordering via the Business Portal.
- Leverages AI Search to deliver more accurate and contextually relevant product search results, reducing time spent finding appropriate offerings.
- Supports complex product configurations directly within the catalog interface, streamlining sales workflows.
The product catalog provides a visual display of the available product offerings that can be added to a Sales Customer Relationship Management transaction, such as an opportunity, quote, or order. Use the catalog interface to add simple products and complex products that can be further customized.
Starting with the Product Catalog Management Core v17.0.0 release, the product catalog interface supports semantic search queries powered by AI Search, in addition to keyword searches.
Product catalog interface with simple search
- Catalog navigation tree: Catalog and a list of its categories used to organize product offerings. Selecting a category filters the display and shows only the product tiles for that category.
- Search bar: Option for finding product offerings using simple searches by product name, code, or description. The search feature displays the product tiles that match the product name, code, or search string (description).
- Product tiles: Cards that depict each product, which has a brief description, optional image, and an option to add or customize the product offer. The Add option displays when the
product is a simple (fixed) product offering. The Customize option displays for configurable product offerings that have different options and attributes that can be selected. Selecting
Customize opens the product configurator for configuring the product offering.
When a product offering is a derived product, the product tile displays a message indicating that the product is derived.
Product catalog interface with AI Search
AI Search in the product catalog interface helps agents and customers find relevant product offerings by using semantic search queries, in addition to keyword searches.
Entering a query term or phrase in the search bar, for example sedan, finds all catalog items that contain that term as a characteristic, any parent products containing child products with this characteristic, and related products that have semantic similarity. In AI Search, semantic similarity means that the context of the query, such as the user, the catalog selected, and the terms entered, are evaluated to return the most useful catalog items first.
- Search query language options: Use Boolean operators, wildcards, and multi-term and quoted phrases in queries to broaden or narrow search results.
- Auto-complete suggestions: When you start entering text in the search bar, AI Search displays auto-complete suggestions to help you get directly to the results you need. Suggestions may include recent search queries, recently viewed search results, or search queries or results that match the terms that you're typing into the search bar.
- Auto-corrections of misspelled or incomplete words: If your queries contain misspelled words or are incomplete, AI Search automatically replaces those search query terms with correct spellings, based on the search sources (product offerings and service specifications). Typo corrections are shown before search results.
- Sort by filter: Organize how search results are returned, for example, by relevancy or product description. Control the order, descending or ascending, in which the results are displayed.