Attach and share article guidance

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated October 24, 2024
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of Attach and share article guidance

    The Attach and share article guidance in ServiceNow recommends relevant knowledge articles to customer service agents based on the case short description. Agents can quickly view, attach, and share these articles via comments, work notes, or emails directly within the case record. This guidance enhances agent efficiency by streamlining access to pertinent knowledge and facilitating communication with customers.

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    Key Features

    • Article Recommendations: Articles are suggested in a card format in a contextual side panel, allowing quick scanning or expanded detailed reading.
    • Primary and Secondary Actions: Agents can attach articles and add links in comments (primary action by default), work notes, or emails through a More actions menu. These actions can be configured by system administrators.
    • Modal and Modeless Dialog Experiences: Depending on the record page used in the CSM Configurable Workspace, actions open in either modeless dialogs (movable overlays allowing simultaneous interaction) or modals (must be completed before continuing). This behavior is configurable by administrators.
    • Attachment and Sharing Behavior: Attaching articles updates the activity stream and attaches the article to the case record. Comments and work notes can be posted as internal or external posts. Email sharing supports auto-filled templates if available.
    • More Actions Menu: Besides sharing options, agents can read the full article, copy the article link, mark articles as helpful, or flag articles for further attention.

    Practical Application for ServiceNow Customers

    This guidance enables agents to efficiently incorporate knowledge articles into case handling, improving resolution speed and knowledge sharing consistency. By leveraging modal or modeless dialogs, agents can maintain workflow continuity while sharing information. Administrators have flexibility to tailor action defaults and dialog experiences to best fit organizational workflows.

    Overall, this feature supports enhanced collaboration between agents and customers by providing timely, relevant knowledge content and multiple convenient sharing methods, directly integrated into the case management process.

    The Attach and share article guidance recommends relevant knowledge articles to customer service agents and enables them to share the selected articles in comments, work notes, or email.

    The Attach and share article guidance recommends relevant knowledge articles based on the text in the case short description. Agents can view the recommended articles and share a selected article with the customer.

    The agent can view the knowledge articles in a card format in the contextual side panel or expand a selected card to see an article in a detail view. The card view provides a condensed view of articles for quick scanning. The detail view provides the full content of the selected article for further reading.

    Each card contains a primary action. The default primary action is Attach and add link in comment. Secondary actions are available in the More actions menu in the upper right corner of the card:The same primary and secondary actions are available in the expanded detail view. The system administrator can configure the primary and secondary actions in the Recommended action specific configuration property. For more information, see Configuring guidances in UI Builder.

    Modal and modeless dialog experiences

    The agent can share the article in a comment, a work note, or an email using the primary and secondary actions. Two different experiences are available for this guidance depending on the record page you are using in the CSM Configurable Workspace:
    • Modeless dialogs: This experience is available for record pages that support modeless dialogs (for example, the Front-line case page). Modeless dialogs are windows that overlay the main window content. Agents can move modeless dialogs around the window so they can interact with the window content and overlay content at the same time.
    • Modals: This experience is available for record pages that support modals (for example, the CSM default record page). With modals, agents must complete the action within a modal before continuing to interact with the window content. This is the default experience.

    The system administrator can configure the modal and modeless dialog experiences in the Recommended Action Specific Configuration property. For more information, see Configuring guidances in UI Builder.

    If a record page supports the modeless dialog experience, selecting an action on a guidance card opens the corresponding modeless dialog. If a record page does not support the modeless dialog experience, the guidance uses the modal experience.
    Note:
    The result of guidance actions is the same in the modeless dialog and modal experiences, but when the actions are completed differs.

    Attach and add links in comments

    Use this action to attach a knowledge article to a case record and share the link in the activity stream. The behavior of the action depends on the modal or modeless dialog experience.

    Experience Description
    Modal This action does the following:
    • Opens the Compose a comment modal.
    • Inserts the article link in the Comments field.
    The agent can add information to the Comments field and select Post Comments.
    • The knowledge article is attached to the case record.
    • The activity stream is updated with the article attachment (as an internal post).
    • The comment and the link are posted to the activity stream (as an external post).
    • The guidance is marked as complete and moved to the Recommended Actions History tab.
    This action is available as the primary action on the knowledge article card.
    Note:
    This guidance is available by default.
    Modeless dialog This action does the following:
    • Attaches the article to the case record. The article is available in the Attached Knowledge related list.
    • Updates the activity stream with the article attachment as an internal post.
    • Marks the guidance as complete and moves it to the History tab.
    • Opens the Compose a comment modeless dialog.
    • Inserts the article link in the Comments field.
    The agent can add information to the Comments field and select Post Comments. The comment is posted to the activity stream as an external post.

    Add link in work note

    Use this action to attach a knowledge article to a case record in the work notes. The behavior of the action depends on the modal or modeless dialog experience.

    Experience Description
    Modal This action does the following:
    • Opens the Compose a work note modal.
    • Inserts the article link in the Work notes field.
    The agent can add information to the Work notes field and select Post work notes (private) to post the work note and the link to the activity stream as an internal post.
    • The activity stream is updated with the article attachment as an internal post.
    • The guidance is marked as complete and moved to the Recommended Actions History tab.
    This action is available as a secondary action in the More actions menu.
    Note:
    This guidance is available by default.
    Modeless dialog This action does the following:
    • Opens the Compose a work note modeless dialog.
    • Inserts the article link in the Work notes field.

    The agent can add information to the Work notes field and select Post work notes (private) to post the work note and the link to the activity stream as an internal post. The guidance is marked as complete and moved to the History tab.

    Attach and add links in emails

    Use this action to attach a knowledge article to a case record and share the link in an email. The behavior of the action depends on the modal or modeless dialog experience.

    Experience Description
    Modal This action does the following:
    • Opens the Email compose modal.
    • Inserts the article link in the body of the email.
    • If available, an email template auto-fills modal fields.
    The agent can add information to the email and select Send email.
    • The email is sent.
    • The knowledge article is attached to the case and is available in the Attached Knowledge related list.
    • The activity stream is updated with the article attachment (as an internal post).
    • The guidance is marked as complete and moved to the Recommended Actions History tab.
    This action is available as a secondary action in the More actions menu.
    Note:
    This guidance is available by default with the modeless dialog experience. For the modal experience, it must be configured by the system administrator.
    Modeless dialog This action does the following:
    • Attaches the article to the case record. The article is available in the Attached Knowledge related list.
    • Updates the activity stream with the article attachment as an internal post.
    • Marks the guidance as complete and moves it to the History tab.
    • Opens the Email compose modeless dialog.
    • Inserts the article link in the body of the email.
    • If available, an email template auto-fills email fields.

    The agent can add information to the email and select Send email.

    More actions menu

    The More actions menu on a guidance card includes several actions in addition to Add link in work notes and Attach and add link in email.

    In the card view, these actions include:
    • Read article
    • Copy link
    In the detail view, these actions include:
    • Read article in full view
    • Copy link
    • Mark article as helpful
    • Flag article