Enhanced search results in IAR with Virtual Agent

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Enhanced search results in IAR with Virtual Agent

    The Issue Auto Resolution (IAR) application for HR cases in ServiceNow now integrates Virtual Agent capabilities into its search results pipeline. This enhancement enables the system to recommend relevant Virtual Agent topics to employees for noncritical HR cases before falling back on general AI search results. This improvement aims to provide more precise and actionable recommendations, improving the employee experience when submitting HR cases via email or portal.

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    Key Features

    • Virtual Agent Topic Recommendation: When an employee submits a noncritical HR case, the IAR application first checks if a matching Virtual Agent topic exists. If found, it recommends this topic directly to the employee, offering targeted guidance.
    • Fallback to AI Search: If no relevant Virtual Agent topic is available, the system performs a general AI search and provides recommendations accordingly, maintaining comprehensive support coverage.
    • Configurable via Property: Administrators can enable this feature by setting the sniarhr.hrintentsolutionenable property to true. This allows control over whether Virtual Agent topic recommendations are included in the IAR flow.
    • Enhanced Email Recommendations Preview: Email notifications now include a new recommendations section displaying titles of knowledge articles and catalog items. Distinct icons identify whether a recommendation is a catalog item or a knowledge article, helping employees quickly identify relevant resources.

    How It Works

    When an HR case is submitted via email or portal:

    • The system checks the property sniarhr.hrintentsolutionenable. If set to true, it verifies whether the corresponding Virtual Agent intent is active.
    • If active and a matching topic exists, the employee receives a notification recommending the Virtual Agent topic.
    • The employee can then access the topic through the portal by selecting the Virtual Agent chat icon or via the email notification.
    • If no matching topic exists or the property is set to false, the system proceeds with the standard AI search and recommends relevant knowledge articles or catalog items.

    Practical Impact for ServiceNow Customers

    This enhancement allows HR teams to provide more precise self-service options to employees, reducing case resolution time and improving user satisfaction. By leveraging existing Virtual Agent content, organizations can direct employees to interactive guidance tailored to their specific cases before resorting to broader AI search results. Administrators have straightforward control over enabling this feature, ensuring smooth adoption within their HR support workflows.

    The Issue Auto Resolution application for HR has enhanced its search results with the introduction of Virtual Agent to the IAR pipeline flow. The employee can now receive a matching Virtual Agent topic as a recommendation for a noncritical case, when the topic is available in the database, before the application performs a general AI search.

    In the previous version of Issue Auto Resolution for HR, all the noncritical HR cases were sent recommendations that were based only on the AI search results. With this enhanced version, the IAR application first checks if a matching Virtual Agent topic is available for that particular HR case. If there’s a matching Virtual Agent topic, the IAR application recommends the identified Virtual Agent topic to the employee. If no matching Virtual Agent topic is found, the application performs an AI search, and the recommendations are sent to the employee based on the AI search results.
    Note:
    To enable the Virtual Agent topic recommendation in the Issue Auto Resolution for HR, the administrator must set the sn_iar_hr.hr_intent_solution_enable property to true. The ServiceNow® support team can update this feature to your Issue Auto Resolution flow.

    Virtual Agent topic flow

    When an employee submits a human resource (HR) case via an email or portal, the Issue Auto Resolution first checks whether the sn_iar_hr.hr_intent_solution_enable property value is set to True. If the property value is True, the Issue Auto Resolution checks if the corresponding intent for the topic map is active or not in the Auto-resolution configuration record. When the property value is False, then Issue Auto Resolution continues to perform the normal AI search.

    The following example shows how an employee receives a Virtual Agent topic recommendation when the employee submits an HR case via email.

    Figure 1. VA topic in Issue Auto Resolution flow
    New Virtual Agent topic introduced in IAR flow.
    The process is as follows:
    1. An HR case is submitted by the employee through an email.
    2. The employee receives an email with the Virtual Agent topic recommendation in it.
    3. The employee selects Go to portal to access the details of the case on the portal.
    4. The employee accesses the Virtual Agent topic, by selecting the Virtual Agent chat icon VA chat icon. on the portal and selecting the case recommendation notification.

    Enhanced recommendations preview on email for AI search flow

    The new recommendations section displays the titles of the knowledge articles and catalog items in the email. The IAR knowledge article icon. icon indicates that the recommendation title is a catalog item. The IAR catalog item icon. icon indicates that the recommendation title is a knowledge article.

    The following example shows how the new recommendations preview section looks in the email you receive when the HR case gets AI search results as recommendations.

    Figure 2. New recommendations preview on email