Now Mobile notification of unread chat and Virtual Agent messages
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Summary of Now Mobile notification of unread chat and Virtual Agent messages
The Now® Mobile app enhances user engagement by sending push notifications for unread chat and Virtual Agent messages when users navigate away from an active conversation. This feature ensures users stay informed about ongoing conversations with live or virtual agents, even when multitasking or involved in long-running asynchronous chats, helping prevent premature conversation timeouts.
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Enabling Virtual Agent message push notifications
To receive these notifications, users must enable push notifications for the Now Mobile app on their iOS or Android devices. In standard system instances, the Virtual Agent Message Push notification is enabled by default for all users. Users can adjust their notification preferences via All > Self-Service > My Notification Preferences.
How Virtual Agent mobile push notifications work
- Push notifications display unread chat messages from agents and Virtual Agent messages on the device's notification center or lock screen.
- Tapping a notification opens the Now Mobile app directly to the related conversation.
- Notifications do not appear in the app's notifications tab nor generate badge counts on the app icon, but badge numbers show on the Virtual Agent quick launch icon within the app.
Notification processing
The system regularly (every 60 seconds) runs a scheduled job called Generate Virtual Agent Push Notification that:
- Identifies user accounts registered for push notifications.
- Detects inactive mobile devices.
- Batches new unread messages and adds them to the Push Notifications [syscsmessagenotification] table.
- Delivers push notifications accordingly.
Note that notifications may not always arrive in exact order and could be delayed slightly beyond one minute due to processing.
Notification message content
- Push notifications reflect the actual text from live or virtual agent messages.
- If the message includes rich controls that cannot be textually represented, the notification shows "New Message".
- System action messages during conversations are generally excluded, except for the critical live agent timeout message ("The conversation is timing out, are you still there?") which is sent as a push notification to alert users about potential conversation closure.
This functionality helps ServiceNow customers maintain continuous communication and timely responses in mobile chat scenarios, improving user experience and reducing inadvertent conversation drops.
When Now® Mobile app users navigate away from the app after starting an active conversation, they can automatically receive Virtual Agent mobile push notifications informing them of new, unread chat messages and Virtual Agent notifications that have arrived.
Now Mobile users might need to leave an active conversation for various reasons. They could be waiting for an available agent and decide to handle other tasks instead. Or, they could be engaged in a long-running (asynchronous) conversation and do not need to be online concurrently with an agent. Now Mobile users can check Virtual Agent push notifications to get timely information about their current conversations when they’re away from the app. These push notifications enable them to stay engaged with live and virtual agents and avoid unnecessary conversation closures (timeouts).
Enabling Virtual Agent message push notifications
To receive Virtual Agent mobile push notifications, your users must enable push notifications for the Now Mobile app on their iOS or Android devices.
In base system instances, the Virtual Agent Message Push notification is automatically enabled for all Now Mobile users. Users can modify their notification preferences by navigating to .
How Virtual Agent mobile push notifications work
- Checks which user accounts are registered to receive push notifications.
- Determines the mobile clients (devices) that are not in use.
- Runs the Generate Virtual Agent Push Notification scheduled job every
60 seconds to:
- Identify and batch new unread messages.
- Add unread messages records to the Push Notifications [sys_cs_message_notification] table, which generates the Virtual Agent push notifications.
- Delivers Virtual Agent push notifications to Now Mobile users away from the app.
Depending on when the Generate Virtual Agent Push Notification scheduled job processes new unread messages, push notifications might not arrive in the order that they were generated, and it might take slightly longer than one minute for push notifications to arrive.