Request the generative AI capabilities by using the Now Assist for SPO Virtual Agent
Summarize
Summary of Request the generative AI capabilities by using the Now Assist for SPO Virtual Agent
Now Assist for SPO Virtual Agent offers ServiceNow customers a conversational interface powered by generative AI to streamline sourcing and procurement operations. It enables requesters to perform self-service tasks such as purchasing products, tracking procurement requests, and submitting off-catalog or procurement case inquiries through natural language interactions without needing direct contact with fulfillment teams.
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Key Features
- Predefined Topics for Common Tasks: Requesters can select topics like "Buy a product" or "Track my procurement purchases/requests" to initiate guided conversations that assist in submitting or tracking purchase requisitions, sourcing requests, procurement cases, or purchase orders.
- Conversational Product Search: The Virtual Agent searches the product catalog, presents available items, and assists in filling intake questions for purchase requests. If items are not found, it routes requesters to off-catalog forms or allows submitting questions to the procurement team.
- Status Tracking: Users can inquire about the status of procurement records by specifying identifiers or time periods (e.g., purchases made last month), receiving real-time updates directly in the chat.
- Utterance Detection and Genius Results: Typing requests triggers intelligent matching of relevant Virtual Agent topics, catalog items, and Q&A resources, enhancing user experience with quick, relevant results.
- Role-Based Access: Only users assigned the
snspendpsd.requestorrole can create procurement cases or ask questions to the procurement team via the Virtual Agent. - Automated Interaction Management: The Virtual Agent prompts for rephrasing if requests are unclear or unmatched, and automatically ends inactive chats after 15 minutes.
Practical Application for ServiceNow Customers
By leveraging Now Assist for SPO Virtual Agent, ServiceNow customers can reduce manual procurement workload and improve user experience through conversational AI. Requesters gain autonomy to place orders, track statuses, and handle procurement queries efficiently. Administrators can monitor self-service effectiveness and conversation deflection rates via the Now Assist Analytics dashboard, enabling optimization of virtual agent performance.
Next Steps
- Access the Virtual Agent via All > Self-Service > Employee Center and start conversations using the chat icon.
- Ensure requesters have the
snspendpsd.requestorrole assigned to enable procurement case creation and inquiry submissions. - Use the Now Assist Analytics dashboard to track usage and deflection rates to improve virtual agent outcomes.
- Refer to documentation on configuring and exploring Now Assist for SPO to tailor the Virtual Agent to your organizational needs.
Request the contextual generative AI capabilities by using the conversational interface in Now Assist for SPO Virtual Agent.
As a requester, you can use the predefined topics (chatbot conversations) designed to help you complete common self-service tasks, such as buying a product or knowing the current status of a purchase requisition, sourcing request, or procurement case.
As a requester, you can use the Now Assist for SPO Virtual Agent to search against the existing products in the product catalog and displays the available products. You can also use it to inquire about the status of the procurement records, such as sourcing requests, purchase requisitions, procurement cases, and purchase orders.
Navigate to and select the Virtual Agent chat icon (
) to start a conversation.
Using predefined topic to buy a product
As a requester, you can start by selecting View all topics.
You could also directly start typing what you need, in which case the utterance detection mechanism uses Genius Results to retrieve Virtual Agent topics, catalog items, and Q&A results, and displays them to the requester within a card carousel. For details, see Using Now Assist in Virtual Agent.
The Virtual Agent engages you in a guided conversation, asking you relevant questions along the way to help you submit your purchase, sourcing, and off-catalog requests, as well as procurement cases, independently, without the need to reach out to fulfillers. You can then review and track these request records from Shopping Hub, Employee Center, or Platform.
If a product is found with or without a price in the catalog, the requester can then fill out the intake questions through a simple conversation, and then submit the purchase request after reviewing the summary of responses. They can also edit a response before submitting.
If a product or service isn’t found in the catalog, the chatbot gathers more information, such as checking for availability of quotes, and routes the requester to the corresponding off-catalog intake form.
To learn more about quick checkout and sourcing checkout processes, see Order a product with quick checkout and Complete sourcing checkout respectively. For more information on off-catalog intake forms, see Requesting for products or services that you don't see on ShoppingHub.
Using predefined topic to track requests
As a requester, you can engage with the Now Assist for SPO Virtual Agent and inquire about the status of your recent purchase or request by selecting the Track my procurement purchases/requests topic.
- Purchase requisition (PR)
- Sourcing request (SR)
- Purchase order (PO)
- Procurement Case (PC)
For example, You can ask whether the purchase requisition PR0001002 has already been approved.
The chatbot provides you the current status of the PR that you inquired about.
You can choose either to close the conversation or check the status of another record.
Searching for requests by specifying a time period
The Now Assist for SPO Virtual Agent also enables you to search for requests by specifying the time period when the request was opened. Here are a few examples:
- What's the status of the purchase I made last month
- Just send me the status of my purchases made 3 weeks ago
- Can I get an update on the purchase I requested in August 2024
NOW Assist for SPO can't find any result
- The Now Assist for SPO Virtual Agent prompts you, as follows, to provide more context if the results don't meet your needs.
I'm sorry, I couldn't find what you needed. Could you rephrase your request or provide more context?
- The Now Assist for SPO Virtual Agent prompt users up to two times to rephrase their request before displaying the following message:
- If there’s no chat activity for 900 seconds, the Now Assist for SPO Virtual Agent ends the chat.
Additional Information
Now Assist in Virtual Agent provides your users with an interactive generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) experience. A friendly, natural language conversation is easier to understand and makes requesters more comfortable with talking to a bot. To learn how a conversation powered by generative AI might look in Virtual Agent, see Using Now Assist in Virtual Agent.
As an administrator, you can use the Now Assist in Virtual Agent Analytics dashboard to monitor the performance of Now Assist in Virtual Agent as a self-service deflection tool. To learn more, see Analyzing Now Assist in Virtual Agent. Now Assist in Virtual Agent Analytics calculates the conversation deflection rate based on the resolution status associated with Now Assist query responses. For more information, see Understanding conversation deflection rate.
For detailed information on Now Assist in Virtual Agent in general, and Now Assist for SPO in particular, see Exploring Now Assist for Sourcing and Procurement Operations (SPO).
For information on configuring Now Assist for SPO, see Configuring Now Assist for Sourcing and Procurement Operations (SPO)