As of Washington GA:
With the Virtual Agent, users can order catalog items within a conversation without opening a separate catalog window. This enables users to get the items they need faster whether they're on Portal or an integrated messaging app like Microsoft Teams. With Now Assist in Virtual Agent, the ordering process is enhanced so that users can mention their answers and choices in their initial query and have the ability to change answers on the fly! Discover more about Now Assist in Now Virtual Agent here:
Now Assist in Virtual Agent - What's New, what's different, and what's coming!
Conversational catalog ordering (using Service Catalog topic block)
Now Assist in Virtual Agent (using LLM)
With that said, there are some limitations on the kinds of catalog items that are supported conversationally. See the below list of variables and configurations that allow for conversational catalog ordering. If not conversational, catalog items will still appear as a search result and users clicking on the result will receive a link to a separate window or pop-up to finish the item ordering process.
Only the following catalog variables are supported:
- Attachment
- Date
- Date/Time
- Duration
- HTML
- IP Address
- Label
- Lookup Multiple Choice (without pricing implications)
- Lookup Select Box (without pricing implications)
- Masked
- Multiple Choice (without pricing implications)
- Multi Line Text
- Numeric Scale (without pricing implications)
- Reference (without pricing implications)
Note: Reference type variable that corresponds to a table that has more than 7000 records are not supported. The upper limit for the number of records can be specified in the glide.sc.va.reference_question_choices.limit property. By default, it is set to 7000.
- Requested For (without pricing implications)
- Rich Text Label
- Select Box (without pricing implications)
- Single Line Text
- URL
- Wide Single Line Text
- Yes / No
- Container variables
- Break (ignored)
- Advanced reference qualifiers
The following catalog configurations are not supported for conversational catalog ordering:
- Some scripted UI policies on a question that affect a previous question
- Some client scripts
- Multi-row variable sets
- Custom variable types
- Pricing implications, e.g., price lookup or recurring price
The full list of supported UI policies/client scripts as well as variable types are documented here: Service Catalog topic blocks in Virtual Agent
How to tell whether a catalog item is "conversational"
Navigate to the catalog item, sc_cat_item. Scroll down to the Related Links and click on "Show VA render type". You can then see whether the item is "conversation" or not. There is also a table that shows all render types: catalog_item_analytics.
In the Washington release, the Conversational coverage page provides a rich dashboard that displays catalog items' conversational status and reasoning. Navigate to Service Catalog > Catalog Administration > Conversational Catalog Overview.
Tips and tricks
You can increase the upper limit for number of questions in a conversational request via this system property (default is 15): glide.sc.conversational.request.question.limit.
Have detailed product names, descriptions, and questions. The more data, the better the conversational experience.
To increase your Service Catalog coverage, limit configurations that are not supported conversationally.
- Instead of custom variable types, use out-of-box variable types.
- Instead of using advanced client or UI policies scripts, use no-code features such as auto-populate or default value.
- Instead of using UI policies that affect a previous question, determine the most logical order of questions to appear ahead of time.
If you don't want an item to appear as conversational, navigate to the catalog item record and check the box for: "Turn off Now Assist conversation for this item".
For more best practices on creating a world-class service catalog, see our playbook here: Design a world-class service catalog
For full documentation, see the following:
- Service Catalog topic blocks in Virtual Agent
- Configure Now Assist in a conversational catalog request
