Guidances in Recommended Actions for Customer Service

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Guidances in Recommended Actions for Customer Service

    TheRecommended Actions for Customer Serviceapplication in ServiceNow provides agents with actionable guidance cards within the contextual side panel of a workspace. These guidances assist agents in resolving customer service tasks such as cases by offering relevant actions and information drawn from multiple related tables.

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    This application supports guidances for these key tables: Knowledge, Case, Incident, Problem, and Change Request. Each guidance type presents targeted search results and dynamic actions tailored to the context of the current case the agent is handling.

    Key Features

    • Knowledge Guidance: Displays Knowledge articles as preview cards in the Recommended Actions tab, enabling agents to attach and share articles directly to a case for knowledge sharing.
    • Case Guidance: Provides search results from other cases with dynamic actions based on case states:
      • Link as parent case: Links the recommended case as a parent when applicable.
      • Link as child case: Links the recommended case as a child when applicable.
      • Copy resolution: Copies resolution code and notes from closed or resolved cases to the current case.

      Preview cards show case title, number, state, priority, description, and available actions.

    • Interaction (Incident) Guidance: Allows agents to link related incidents to the current case. The action updates the incident field, adds work notes, and provides success or failure messages. Preview cards display incident details including title, number, state, priority, and description.
    • Problem Guidance: Enables linking of related problems to the current case with similar update and notification actions. Preview cards include problem title, number, state, related incident count, and description.
    • Change Request Guidance: Facilitates linking change requests to the case, updating relevant fields, logging work notes, and informing agents about the success or failure. Preview cards show change request title, number, state, risk level, type of change, and description.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Streamlines agent workflow by consolidating relevant actions and information in one contextual panel.
    • Improves case resolution efficiency by recommending actionable links to related records and knowledge articles.
    • Ensures accurate and consistent documentation through automatic updates to work notes and case fields.
    • Enhances collaboration and case management by linking parent-child cases, incidents, problems, and change requests appropriately.
    • Provides clear feedback to agents through success/failure messages, reducing confusion during linking operations.

    A guidance is an action that an agent can take or information that an agent can share as they work to resolve tasks, such as customer service cases. Guidances appear as cards in the contextual side panel in a workspace.

    The Recommended Actions for Customer Service application includes custom guidances for the following tables:

    • Knowledge
    • Case
    • Incident
    • Problem
    • Change Request

    These guidances enable search results from the corresponding search source tables for the Case Context record. Customer service agents can see these results in the Recommended Actions tab in the contextual side panel.

    Knowledge guidance

    The Case Context record includes a search result mapping record for the Knowledge table that maps search results to the Attach and share article guidance. When an agent is viewing a case record, preview cards for Knowledge search results in the Recommended Actions tab include the Attach and share article action.

    Case guidance

    The Case Context record includes a search result mapping record for the Case table. This record maps search results from the Case table to the Case resolution guidance.

    The Case resolution guidance is configured with dynamic actions that are determined by the state of the case returned by the search. These actions include:
    • Link as parent case: This action links the recommended case as a parent to the current case. (The current case is a non-major case and the recommended case is major/non-major).
    • Link as child case: This action links the recommended case as a child to the current case. (The current case is a major case and the recommended case is a non-major case.)
    • Copy resolution: This action copies the resolution code and resolution notes from the recommended case to the current case. This action is available when the recommended case is in the Closed or Resolved state.
    Note:
    If the current case and the recommended case are both major cases, no action is included on the preview card.

    The preview card for the case resolution guidance includes the case title and number, the current state and priority, the case description, and the dynamic action.

    Interaction guidance

    The Case Context record includes a search result mapping record for the Incident table. This record maps search results from the Incident table to the Link incident to current case guidance.

    Agents can link the recommended incident by selecting the Link incident action on the preview card in the Recommended Actions tab. This action does the following:
    • Updates the Incident field on the case record with the incident number.
    • Adds an entry to the work notes.
    • Displays a message when the incident is successfully linked. A message is also displayed if the linking fails.

    The preview card for the Link incident to current case guidance includes the incident title and number, the current state and priority, and a brief description of the incident.

    Problem guidance

    The Case Context record includes a search result mapping record for the Problem table. This record maps search results from the Problem table to the Link problem to current case guidance.

    Agents can link the recommended problem by selecting the Link problem action on the preview card in the Recommended Actions tab. This action does the following:

    • Updates the Problem field on the case record with the problem number.
    • Adds an entry to the work notes.
    • Displays a message when the problem is successfully linked. A message is also displayed if the linking fails.

    The preview card for the Link problem to current case guidance includes the problem title and number, the current state, the number of related incidents, and a brief description of the problem.

    Change request guidance

    The Case Context record includes a search result mapping record for the Change Request table. This record maps search results from the Change Request table to the Link change request to current case action.

    Agents can link the recommended change request by selecting the Link change request action on the preview card in the Recommended Actions tab. This action does the following:

    • Updates the Change Request field on the case record with the change request number.
    • Adds an entry to the work notes.
    • Displays a message when the change request is successfully linked. A message is also displayed if the linking fails.

    The preview card for the Link change request to current case guidance includes the change request title and number, the current state, the risk level and type of change, and a brief description of the change request.