Playbook contextual side panel component

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Playbook Contextual Side Panel Component

    The Playbook contextual side panel component, available in the Yokohama release, equips agents with streamlined access to essential tools and information directly related to case management. This component enhances agent productivity by consolidating multiple functionalities—such as activity tracking, AI-assisted search, templates, and attachments—within a single, easy-to-navigate panel.

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    Key Features

    • Activity Stream: Displays a chronological list of activities for the case record, enabling agents to track case progress and interactions efficiently.
    • Agent Assist: Offers a curated list of potential solutions based on the case's short description, helping agents resolve issues faster.
    • Search: Incorporates AI-powered search to find relevant knowledge articles and resources. Agents can filter, sort, and view results in detail, attach articles to cases, and track their actions via an actions history log. Note that this feature requires the Recommended Actions application included with the CSM Configurable Workspace.
    • Related Items: Provides access to case-related lists in an accordion layout, making it easy to view and manage associated records.
    • Attachments: Allows agents to view and download attachments related to the case, ensuring quick access to important documents.
    • Response Templates: Contains reusable message templates for consistent and efficient customer communication.
    • Email Templates: Offers pre-configured email templates with default fields such as recipients, sender, subject, and body text, streamlining email communication.
    • Templates: Enables agents to apply form templates that automatically populate fields when creating new records like incidents or changes.
    • Record Information: Presents comprehensive case details through several cards:
      • Overview: Key case information including account, contact, priority, and state.
      • Contact: Customer details such as name, title, phone numbers, and email address.
      • Timeline: A chronological summary of case activities and interactions.
      • Active SLA: Shows active service level agreements with time remaining, SLA status, and breach information.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    This component enables agents to resolve cases more efficiently by providing immediate access to relevant knowledge, templates, and case details without navigating away from the case record. The integration of AI search and agent assist helps in delivering faster, more accurate resolutions. By consolidating related items and attachments, agents maintain better context and reduce time spent searching for information. Overall, the playbook contextual side panel enhances agent productivity and customer service quality within ServiceNow’s Customer Service Management environment.

    The playbook contextual side panel component provides agents with access to tools and information such as the activity stream, templates, and attachments.

    The contextual side panel component provides agents with the following functionality.

    Table 1. Tabs in the contextual side panel
    Tab Description
    Activity Stream The activity stream displays a list of activities occurring on a case record. For more information, see Playbook activity stream component.
    Agent Assist Agent assist provides agents with a list of resources that show possible solutions for the current record. This list is based on the record short description.
    Search The Search tab includes AI search functionality. Agents can use AI search to find relevant resources or resolutions for customer issues.

    The search feature displays an initial set of search results based on the text in the case short description. This initial set of results includes knowledge articles. Agents can also enter different search keywords and repeat the search.

    From the list of search results, agents can do the following:
    • Select a source to see search results of that type.
    • Filter the list of search results.
    • Sort the list of search results.
    • Open the search results in full view in a record sub-tab.
    • Take the following actions:
      • View and attach article
      • Perform other actions such as reading articles in full view, flagging articles, or marking articles as helpful or unhelpful.
    • View successful actions by selecting the Actions history icon.
    For more information, see Use AI search in Recommended Actions to resolve cases.
    Note:
    Using Recommended Actions in the contextual side panel requires the Recommended Actions application (sn_cs_nb_action) which is included with the CSM Configurable Workspace application.
    Related Items The Related Items tab provides access to the case-related lists.

    The Case playbook: horizontal stages page incorporates related list functionality into the contextual side panel. These lists appear in an accordion format that agents can expand and collapse as needed.

    An indicator displays the number of records available in a related list. When expanded, the records in a related list are displayed in card format.

    For more information, see Playbook related items component.
    Attachments The Attachments tab provides access to case-related attachments. From this tab, agents can view and download attachments.
    Response Templates The Response Templates tab provides access to available response templates. These templates contain reusable messages that agents can copy to provide quick and consistent messages to customers.
    Email Templates The Email Templates tab provides access to available email templates. These templates contain default values for fields that agents can add to email messages. These default values can include recipients (email addresses in To, Cc, and Bcc), sender, subject, and text for the message body.

    For more information, see Email Templates.
    Templates The Templates tab provides access to available form templates which enable agents to automatically populate fields on new records. Agents can manually apply a template when creating a new record such as an incident or change.
    Record Information The Record Information tab includes the following cards:
    • Overview: Displays relevant information about the case including the account and contact, the case priority, and the state.
    • Contact: Displays customer information including the name, title, phone numbers, and email address.
    • Timeline: Displays a chronological summary of case activities, including case state changes and interactions between the agent and the requester.
    • Active SLA: Displays active SLAs for the case, including time remaining, the SLA state, and any breaches.