Configure the Case Deflection panel

This is for:

Developer System Administrator

A Coveo case deflection panel is a search interface that’s meant to be embedded in a Service Portal record creation form. As the end user fills the form fields, the Coveo Case Deflection panel automatically updates to display the most contextually relevant items from a Coveo unified index. The goal is to provide users with potential solutions prior to creating a case. When a user clicks a suggested item, they’re redirected to the item page.

Note

The Coveo Case Deflection panel, as its name indicates, is typically used to proactively suggest content to end users intending to create a support case. However, this feature can be used with any record producer. The procedure in this article explains how to add a Case Deflection panel to a case creation page, but you can follow and adapt it for any record creation page.
coveo for servicenow case deflection panel

To add a Coveo Case Deflection panel to your ServiceNow record creation form

  1. Create and customize a Coveo hosted search page for use in your Coveo Case Deflection panel.

  2. Add the Coveo Case Deflection panel to a ServiceNow record creation form.

Create and customize a Coveo hosted search page for Coveo Case Deflection

Create a Coveo hosted search page that will be used to power the Coveo Case Deflection panel in your ServiceNow instance.

How you create and customize a Coveo hosted search page for Case Deflection depends on your version of Coveo for ServiceNow.

Add the Coveo Case Deflection Panel

The following procedure explains how a ServiceNow instance administrator or developer can add a Coveo Case Deflection panel to a Service Portal case creation form.

  1. In the Now Platform UI of your ServiceNow instance:

    1. Navigate to Service Portal > Pages.

    2. Create a copy of your Service Portal display catalog item record (typically, this is the record whose ID is sc_cat_item) by clicking Clone Page in the upper-right corner of the record form. Then:

      • If you want Coveo widgets to display in all catalog items, open the original catalog item record. The page copy will be your backup page.

      • If you want Coveo widgets to display only in certain catalog items, open your copy of sc_cat_item. When using this method, you must ensure that the desired catalog items use this item record.

    3. In the Related Links section, click Open in Designer.

  2. In the Service Portal Designer:

    1. Delete all widgets and all containers in the page, or reorganize them to make room for the widgets mentioned below.

    2. Add a two-column container.

    3. In the left column, drag and drop a SC Catalog Item widget.

    4. Click the SC Catalog Item widget you just added, and then click Edit.

    5. In the Instance dialog, deselect Order Item Section On Top, and then click Save.

  3. In the right column, drag one of the following Coveo widgets inside the container. The widget to use depends on whether you created the Coveo search page using the Simple builder or Legacy Interface Editor.

    • Coveo Atomic Search Page (Coveo for ServiceNow 25.1.5+): Use this widget if you created your Coveo search page using the Simple builder.

    • Coveo Case Deflection: Use this widget if you created your Coveo search page using the Legacy Interface Editor.

  4. At the upper-right corner of the Coveo widget, click Edit widget icon | Coveo for ServiceNow.

  5. Specify the widget options:

  6. Optionally, specify other widget options as required.

    Examples

    • Use the Scope and Component options to name the widget according to your naming convention.

    • You can use the CSS classes option to define page-specific CSS rules to modify how the Coveo search page renders on the page, such as to adjust the widget’s vertical alignment.

  7. Click Save to save your widget options.

  8. For navigation and search purposes, you can also add a two-column container with a breadcrumbs and a Coveo Searchbox widget above the SC Catalog Item widget and Coveo Case Deflection panel.

  9. The Coveo Case Deflection panel can provide on-the-fly contextual suggestions in the search results as text is typed in your case form. Perform the following steps to leverage this capability:

    1. In the UI of your ServiceNow instance, navigate to Service Catalog > Catalog Definitions > Record Producers.

    2. Find and open your case creation record producer. If the ServiceNow Customer Service Management application is installed, the record Name is typically Create Case.

    3. At the bottom of the record form, select the Variables tab.

    4. In the table:

      1. Find and delete the Contextual Search Results variable.

        Note

        Assuming you have a ServiceNow source, you no longer require this variable.

      2. Click New.

      3. In the new record form that opens:

        1. In the Type dropdown menu:

          For ServiceNow version Select

          Paris or earlier

          Macro

          Quebec or later

          Custom

        2. Select the Question tab and set the Question and Name fields to the name you want to give to the new variable (for example, Coveo_case_deflection_panel).

        3. Select the Type Specifications tab and set the Widget field to Coveo Field Change. This invisible widget provides the Coveo Case Deflection panel with any changes in the form fields as the user is typing. This information is used to contextualize the queries of the Coveo Case Deflection panel.

        4. Click Submit.

    5. Navigate to one of your Customer Service Portal service catalog items. If everything is set up properly, the Coveo Case Deflection panel should be visible in the case creation form and should automatically refresh as you type in the form fields.

Configure your query pipeline

Once you have implemented the widget in your ServiceNow instance, you must link it to a query pipeline in your Coveo organization.

  1. On the Query Pipelines (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page of the Coveo Administration Console, do one of the following:

    • Click an existing pipeline, and then click Edit components in the Action bar.

    • Create a new pipeline for your Coveo for ServiceNow widget to use.

  2. In the query pipeline panel, create a condition enforcing a specific search hub (Search hub is) for the pipeline. The filter value to enter depends on your widget configuration:

    • If you didn’t provide Scope and Component values in the widget options, enter ServiceNow.

    • If you provided a scope and a component, enter them in the following format: Scope_Component.

      Example

      For a widget with a Portal scope and a MyWidget component, your condition value should be Portal_MyWidget. Your complete pipeline condition is therefore Search Hub is Portal_MyWidget.

      With such a condition, your pipeline will be used for all queries originating from the widget.

      Note

      If your pipeline already has a condition, ensure to include this previous condition in your new one with an OR operator.

      For example, your pipeline has the following condition: Search Hub is Portal_MyWidget. You want to link a new portal widget to this pipeline, so your new condition is Search Hub is Portal_MyWidget OR Search Hub is Portal_MySecondWidget. With this condition, your pipeline will be used for all queries originating from one of these widgets.

  3. In the query pipeline panel, select the Advanced tab, and then on the left side of the panel, click Query parameters.

  4. Add a rule to override the large query expression (lq) parameter value so that it uses the textual data a user enters in the issue description field of the case creation form:

    1. Click Add a query parameter rule.

    2. In the Add a query parameter rule subpage, select lq (large query expression), and then click Next.

    3. Under lq (large query expression), enter the following rule to set the large query expression (lq) to the name attribute of the issue description field in the case creation form, which is comments:

      <@+ $context.comments +@>

    4. Under Condition, select or create a Query is empty condition.

    5. Click Add rule.

What’s next?

Embed a Coveo insight panel in your case forms to empower your support agents with a dynamic and proactive search panel.