Exploring Now Assist for Playbooks

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Exploring Now Assist for Playbooks

    Now Assist for Playbooks, part of the Now Assist for Creator application, empowers ServiceNow customers to generate playbooks from text directions or images using generative AI. This tool helps playbook authors create detailed, structured workflows efficiently, enhancing business process automation and standardization within Workflow Studio.

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    Activation and Access

    To use playbook generation, install the Now Assist for Creator (snnowcreator) application from the ServiceNow Store. The playbook generation skill activates automatically upon installation and is accessible when creating playbooks within Workflow Studio.

    Creating and Refining Playbooks

    • Prompt Writing: Provide clear, descriptive names and precise, detailed instructions for each stage and activity, including execution order and concurrency. Experiment with and save various prompt versions to optimize results.
    • Reviewing Outlines: Examine generated playbook stages and activities for accuracy, efficiency, and alignment with business processes.
    • Configuring Placeholders: Set up placeholder activities before activating the playbook, leveraging playbook recommendations to select appropriate activity definitions.

    Technical Features

    Playbook generation uses Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to incorporate active actions, subflows, flows, and activity definitions from your ServiceNow instance. Workflow Studio refreshes these lists hourly, ensuring up-to-date references are available when generating playbooks.

    Practical Use Cases and Examples

    Now Assist supports diverse business scenarios by generating tailored playbooks. Example prompts include:

    • Employee onboarding, detailing HR-driven processes from hiring to feedback.
    • Customer support workflows, managing ticket categorization, resolution, escalation, and customer follow-up.
    • Travel expense reimbursement, streamlining report submission, validation, approval, and payment.
    • Control document management, supporting collaborative document generation and approval.
    • Supplier evaluation, facilitating qualification requests, reviews, and final assessment.
    • Hardware inventory management, tracking stock levels with real-time updates and integration with sales and procurement.

    Usage Considerations

    Generating or regenerating a playbook preview consumes 10 assist credits. ServiceNow customers can monitor Now Assist usage through Subscription Management to manage consumption effectively.

    Use Now Assist to generate playbooks from text directions or images. For example, you can enter directions to generate a playbook outline for managing customer support cases. Playbook Assist is part of the Now Assist for Creator application.

    Now Assist for Creator activates the playbook generation skill. Playbook generation gives generative AI capabilities to playbook authors.

    Activation

    Playbook generation is a skill that is installed with the Now Assist for Creator (sn_now_creator) application. You can install this application from the ServiceNow Store website.

    Supported user interfaces

    Access the playbook generation skill when you’re creating a playbook in Workflow Studio.

    Build a new playbook with Now Assist.

    Writing prompts and reviewing playbook outlines

    Follow these guidelines when creating playbooks with playbook generation skills.

    Write prompts:

    Provide a meaningful name for the playbook
    The more descriptive the playbook name is, the better the playbook that Now Assist can create.
    Be precise and descriptive in the directions
    • Describe each stage and activity in as much detail as you can.

    • Specify the order that stages and activities run in.

    • Specify if any stages or activities run at the same time.

    Experiment with prompts
    Save your prompts somewhere, including any modified versions. Saving your prompts enables easy comparison of results.
    Note:
    Prompts used only to generate a preview aren't saved, but prompts used for a saved playbook outline are in the playbook's Properties setting.

    Review playbook outlines:

    Check for accuracy
    Review each stage and activity in a generated playbook to determine accuracy, efficiency, and how well it outlines your business process.
    Configure placeholder activities
    Configure placeholder activities before you activate your playbook. Use playbook recommendations to help choose activity definitions.
    Figure 1. Configure the activity definition in the activity side panel

    Choose an activity definition for the placeholder activity.

    Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) support

    Playbook generation uses Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to include the names of active actions, subflows, flows, and activity definitions available on your instance. Workflow Studio updates the list of active actions, subflows, flows, and activity definitions every hour to make them available to playbook generation. You can refer to active actions, subflows, flows, and activity definitions by name in your playbook generation inputs.

    Example prompts

    The following examples can help you to generate playbook outlines:

    Example playbook prompt 1: Employee onboarding
    You can use this prompt to create a playbook for the onboarding process of new hires.
    Create an employee onboarding playbook that integrates new hires into the organization. 
    HR initiates it upon job offer acceptance, gathering documents, assigning mentors, providing orientation, 
    setting up IT access, ensuring compliance, and job-specific training. The playbook ends with feedback from the employee and HR, 
    resulting in an onboarding checklist.
    Example playbook prompt 2: Customer support
    You can use this prompt to create a playbook with the steps that an agent takes for customer support cases.
    Create a customer support playbook which is the primary point of contact for handling customer inquiries, 
    problems, and requests. It starts by receiving and categorizing customer inquiries based on urgency and complexity. 
    Support tickets are then assigned to agents who troubleshoot and resolve them, with the option to escalate to higher 
    support tiers if needed. After resolution, follow-up with the customer is crucial. A satisfaction survey gathers feedback for 
    improvement, and all interactions are documented, updating the knowledge base for future reference.
    Example playbook prompt 3: Travel reimbursement
    You can use this prompt to create a playbook to manage employee travel expenses.
    Create a travel expense reimbursement playbook for managing employee travel expenses efficiently. 
    Employees submit expense reports with valid receipts. Finance verifies expenses against policies, ensuring budget compliance. 
    Managers approve expenses, initiating payment processing.
    Example playbook prompt 4: Control document
    You can use this prompt to create a playbook to manage a control document.
    Create a playbook for generating, reviewing, and approving a control document. Suppliers and Quality managers collaborate 
    to upload documents and conduct appropriate refinement before a final document is approved.
    Example playbook prompt 5: Supplier evaluation
    You can use this prompt to create a playbook to evaluate whether potential suppliers meet qualification standards.
    Create a playbook for qualifying a new supplier. Suppliers request qualification. Quality managers review and approve 
    qualification requests, plan qualification deliverables, execute qualification activities, and summarize qualification findings in a report. 
    The playbook concludes by determining if the supplier has achieved the requested qualification.
    Example playbook prompt 6: Hardware inventory
    You can use this prompt to create a playbook to manage hardware inventory.
    Create a playbook that manages hardware inventory. This playbook should efficiently track stock levels, update in real-time, 
    and generate alerts for low inventory. It must support categorization, bar codes, and seamless integration with sales and procurement systems.
    Note:
    Generating or regenerating a playbook preview counts as 10 assists. To track your Now Assist usage, see Monitoring Now Assist usage in Subscription Management.