Agent Chat is the chat service within ServiceNow. Agent Chat allows you to communicate with your customers (staff or students), send knowledge base articles or attachments, transfer a chat to another agent and create incidents. 

Within Agent Chat, there will be a team of agents and a chat group manager. As the chat group manager, you have additional options available to assist your team of agents, as detailed in this article.

Requests for manager assistance

An agent can privately request assistance from the chat group manager (within Quick Actions). You may also choose to use Microsoft Teams for communications within the team regarding Agent Chat queries, and for agents to alert you for manager assistance.

To view requests for assistance made via Agent Chat:

1. From the Service Operation Workspace, select the List menu from the left hand side bar

2. Select Lists, then select Active (within Interactions)

3. Select the settings button (the cog) at the top right of the screen

4. Select Edit columns

5. From the Available columns list, select Help Requested

6. Use the chevron to move the selection to the Selected columns list

Reorder the items in the column if required.

7. Select OK

The Help Requested column will now be visible on the Active Interactions list. If help has been requested for a chat, the Help Requested column will display true.

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Response Templates

The chat group manager can create standard replies, or Response Templates, for the team of agents to use. Response Templates avoid manually entering replies that are sent on a regular basis.

The Response Templates created within your group will only be available to your Group.

The following role is required to create Response Templates: sn_templated_snip.template_snippet_writer. This is automatically assigned to the chat group manager. If you would like additional members of your team to create Response Templates, raise a ServiceLine ticket to request this.

Create a Response Template

1. Log into ServiceNow 

2. Select the All menu

3. Enter response template configuration in the Filter field

4. Select Response Template Configuration (within the System Definition section)

5. Select New at the top right of the screen

The Response Template New Record fields will display.

6. Complete the following fields:

• Name:
  
  • Enter a name for the Response Template
  • Appears when viewing the list of Response Templates within Agent Chat
• Short Name:
  
  • Enter a short name/code that can be used with the Response Templates Quick Action to directly locate the template 
  • Agents can enter /r followed by the short name
  • A space must be entered between /r and the short name
• Table:
  
  • Search for and select Interaction
• Condition
  
  • Select the drop down menu alongside --choose field-- and select Type from the list
  • Select the drop down menu alongside --None-- and select Chat
• Group Visibility:
  
  • Select the padlock button to Unlock Group visibility
  • Search for and select the required group, for example Library Chat
• Template body:
  
  • Content for the quick response
  • Formatting toolbar available

Example:

7. Select Submit

8. From the list of Response Templates that have been created, select the template you have just set up

9. At the bottom of the screen in the Channels section, select Edit

10. Select Chat from the column on the left

11. Select the Add chevron to add Chat to Channels List column (on the right)

12. Select Save

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Adding staff to Agent Chat

The chat group manager is able to add new agents (staff) to the chat group in the same way you can add staff to other ServiceNow groups you manage.

1. Log in to ServiceNow

2. Using the All menu, enter manage my groups in the filter field

3. Select Manage My Groups

4. Select the chat group 

5. Within the Group Members section, select Edit

6. In the Collection search field, enter the name of the person you wish to add

7. Select their name and select the Add chevron (>) to add them to the Group Members List on the right

8. Select Save

Giving a staff member a custom chat capacity limit

This will allow a chat group manager to give a staff member a customised limit to the number of active chats they can have at the same time. The default limit for all staff is 2.

This can only be done by a chat group manager.

1. Go to ServiceNow - Service Channel

2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and go to Agent Capacity Override section

3. Select New

4. In the Service Channel field, select Chat

5. In the Override Capacity field, enter the custom value (the default value is 2)

6. Select the staff member you want to give this custom limit to

7. Select Submit

 

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Amend an agent's presence state 

To amend an agent's presence state on their behalf (that is, available or offline):

1. Go to the following link:

https://sotonproduction.service-now.com/awa_agent_presence_list

A list of all agents will display, not only those within your team. 

2. You can sort the list alphabetically by selecting the 3 dots menu on the Agent column, then select Sort (a to z) or Sort (z to a)

3. Locate the person to update

4. Double click the space to the right of the person's current presence state 

The current presence state field will become editable.

5. Select the magnifying glass

6. Select the required option (Available or Offline) from the dialogue box

7. Close the dialogue box

8. Select the tick on the current presence state field 

 

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Related content

Agent Chat (ServiceNow)