AI-assisted questionnaire pre-fill using the Document Management System
Summarize
Summary of AI-assisted questionnaire pre-fill using the Document Management System
ServiceNow’s AI-assisted questionnaire pre-fill feature integrates the Document Management System (DMS) with the Smart Assessment Engine (SAE) to automatically generate draft responses for third-party risk assessment questionnaires. This capability accelerates assessment completion by leveraging vendor documents stored in DMS and responses from previously completed assessments. Assessors retain full control—they review, edit, and apply AI-generated suggestions before submission, ensuring accuracy and compliance.
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The skill supports both internal and external assessments without any difference in user experience. When vendor documents are uploaded or updated in DMS, they become available for AI analysis during assessments. Additionally, responses from past smart and classic assessments with matching scopes are semantically compared and used to suggest relevant answers, provided there are at least 50 completed assessments available as a knowledge base.
Key Features
- Document-based drafting: Extracts and analyzes vendor documents such as SOC 2 reports, security policies, and Data Processing Agreements to generate relevant questionnaire responses.
- Previous assessment reuse: Searches and surfaces past assessment answers that semantically match current questions, reducing redundant data entry across recurring questionnaires.
- Source transparency: Each AI suggestion clearly identifies its origin—whether from prior smart or classic assessments or from DMS documents—and allows assessors to verify sources without leaving the assessment interface.
- Configurable document retrieval: Organizations can tailor how documents are retrieved for an assessment via template category settings or by using the Smart Assessment Response Extension Point for advanced customization.
- Controlled and private suggestion generation: Each assessor can generate AI suggestions once per assessment, selecting either previous assessments, documents, or both as sources. Suggestions are private and do not overwrite manually entered responses.
- Interactive suggestion management: Up to three ranked suggestions per question are presented. Assessors can apply, discard, or edit suggestions before finalizing responses.
- AI summary feature: Provides assessors a summary view of the number of generated and applied responses, dynamically updating as manual edits occur.
How it Works
During an active assessment, assessors click “Draft responses with AI” and select their preferred data sources (documents, previous assessments, or both). They can choose up to five relevant documents linked to the assessment. The system then generates suggestion cards tagged with “AI Assistance” for matching questions. Assessors review these suggestions, apply or discard them, and can modify applied responses before submission.
The skill searches previous assessments based on the assessment level: vendor-level assessments search vendor-level past assessments, while engagement or element-level assessments prioritize the same engagement’s history before falling back to vendor-level data.
What This Enables for ServiceNow Customers
- Significantly reduces manual effort and time in completing third-party risk assessments by providing relevant draft responses automatically.
- Improves response consistency and accuracy by reusing verified data from vendor documents and prior assessments.
- Empowers assessors with transparent AI suggestions they can trust and verify without disrupting their workflow.
- Allows organizations to customize document retrieval to best fit their assessment templates and risk management processes.
- Maintains data privacy and control by limiting suggestion generation to authorized assessors and ensuring manual inputs are never overwritten.
Next Steps
To implement this feature, configure AI-assisted questionnaire pre-fill for your Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) assessments following ServiceNow guidelines. Begin using AI-assisted draft responses in active assessments after configuration. Manage vendor documents effectively within DMS to maximize the quality of AI suggestions.
Use the Document Management System (DMS) with the Smart Assessment Engine (SAE) to automatically generate draft responses for third‑party risk assessment questionnaires using vendor documents and previously answered assessments.
AI-assisted questionnaire pre-fill overview
The Smart Assessment Response Assist skill generates draft responses for assessment questionnaires from two sources: documents stored in the Document Management System (DMS) and previously completed assessments. Assessors review, edit, and apply suggestions before submitting — responses are never submitted automatically. The skill is available for both internal and external assessments, with no difference in experience between the two.
When a vendor document is uploaded or updated in DMS, the file and its metadata become available to the skill during active assessments. For previously answered questions, the skill searches completed smart and classic assessments with matching scope, compares questions semantically, and surfaces the most relevant past responses. When both sources are enabled, the skill runs both checks and combines the results.
- For assessments conducted at the vendor level, the skill searches only past assessments completed at the vendor level.
- For assessments conducted at the engagement or element level, the skill searches past assessments for the same engagement first. If no completed assessments are found at the engagement level, the skill falls back to vendor-level assessments.
How it works
When an assessor selects Draft responses with AI in an active assessment, they choose which sources to analyze — previous assessments, documents, or both. For the documents source, assessors can select up to 5 documents from a list that includes attachments on the assessment instance and documents retrieved based on the template category configuration.
Each question with an AI suggestion is marked with an AI Assistance tag. Up to three suggestion cards may appear per question, each ranked by relevance and showing its source. Assessors select Apply to insert a suggestion or Discard to remove it. Applied suggestions can be edited before submission.
- Each assessor can generate AI suggestions once per assessment. The sources selected at generation time are final and cannot be changed.
- Suggestions are private to the assessor who generated them. Collaborators must each generate their own suggestions independently.
- AI suggestions do not override responses already entered manually.
- Only documents the assessor has permission to access in DMS are available for AI-assisted drafting.
Key capabilities
- Document-based drafting: Retrieves and analyzes vendor documents from DMS, including SOC 2 reports, security policies, and Data Processing Agreements, to generate responses to matching questionnaire items.
- Previous assessment reuse: Searches completed smart and classic assessments for semantically similar questions and surfaces the top matching responses, reducing repetition across recurring questionnaires.
- Source transparency: Each suggestion card identifies its source — a past smart assessment, a classic assessment, or a document. Assessors can select the source to open and verify it without leaving the assessment page.
- AI summary: After generation, assessors can select View AI summary to see a consolidated count of generated and applied responses. The count updates as responses are manually edited.
- Configurable document retrieval: Organizations can customize document retrieval behavior for a given assessment by configuring the template category. To further customize retrieval, use the Smart Assessment Response Extension Point (SmartAsmtResponseAssistExtensionPoint). For more information, see Configure AI-assisted questionnaire pre-fill for TPRM.
What to do next
To configure this feature for your TPRM assessments, see Configure AI-assisted questionnaire pre-fill for TPRM.
To use AI-assisted draft responses in an active assessment, see Generate AI-assisted draft responses in a TPRM assessment.
For information about uploading and managing vendor documents in DMS, see Document Management system in Third-party Risk Management.