Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio

Extend Now Platform capabilities > Conversational Interfaces > Virtual Agent > <a class="link" href="../../../administer/virtual-agent/concept/integrate-virtual-agent.html" title="Integrate and extend the capabilities of Virtual Agent by connecting to your employees and customers where they already are. They are engaged in web portals, Now Mobile apps, and collaboration tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Facebook Messenger consumer app, Workplace enterprise messaging app, and any other popular chat or messaging app.">Integrating Virtual Agent with other channels > Virtual Agent integration with messaging apps >

Host Virtual Agent conversations on Twilio SMS to chat with virtual agent or live agents. Use the Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio app, available from the ServiceNow Store , to associate your instance with SMS Twilio .

Capturing information from a user in an SMS chat conversation Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio enables users to initiate conversations with Virtual Agent by messaging your Twilio phone number. Note: Do not use the same ServiceNowTwilioDirect or Twilio Notify phone number for Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio . Instead, use separate Twilio numbers for Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio and ServiceNowTwilioDirect.

Figure 1. Example SMS conversation with Virtual Agent

If a bot transfers the conversation to a live agent, the agent can respond to SMS messages in Agent Workspace .

After you set up the Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio , you can create SMS conversation topics in Virtual Agent Designer . For more information on using the tool, see Getting started with Virtual Agent Designer

Supported controls The Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio does not support all the available controls in Virtual Agent Designer .

The following user input controls are supported in Twilio SMS conversations: Table 1. Supported user input controls User input control Description Text User enters a plain text string in the conversation.

Static Choice User selects an item from a predefined list.

Dynamic Choice User selects an item from a list that is created dynamically. For example, the user can select from a list of cases that they opened.

Boolean User enters a Boolean response to the bot. For example, the user can reply "Yes" or "No" in the conversation.

File picker User sends a file to the bot. Note: Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio doesn't support all file types. Only images can be sent in an SMS conversation.

For more information on configuring user input controls, see Virtual Agent Designer user input controls .

The following bot responses are supported in Twilio SMS conversations: Table 2. Supported bot responses Bot response Description Text Bot sends a plain text string to the user.

Image Bot sends an image to the user.

Link Bot sends a web link to the user.

Card Bot sends selected information from a record on your instance.

For more information on configuring bot responses, see Virtual Agent Designer bot responses .

Live agents can use the Text, Card, and Image response controls to reply to users in SMS conversations.

User subscriptions for SMS update notifications Beginning with version 1.1.1, your users with ServiceNow accounts (sys_user profiles) can choose to start or stop receiving SMS updates in their conversations. Note: Notifications in messaging channels can be sent to users with ServiceNow accounts. Other recipients, such as consumer and customer contacts, are considered to be guests and cannot receive notifications on messaging channels.

To comply with privacy regulations, user notifications are turned off by default. Users can opt in or change their settings in the following ways: To check SMS notification settings for the account, send this text: Notification To receive SMS notifications, send this text: START To stop receiving SMS notifications, send this text: STOP

Figure 2. Changing SMS notification settings

To learn more about Virtual Agent notifications, see Configuring Virtual Agent notifications .

For details about creating content for a messaging notification, see Define Virtual Agent notification contents .

Install Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio You can install the Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio (sn_va_sms_twilio) application to host Virtual Agent conversations in the SMS Twilio application. Set up the Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio Integrate Twilio with Virtual Agent so that you can engage in SMS bot conversations. Using Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio Enable a requester to converse with an agent using the SMS conversations. Configure SMS authentication Authenticate all users using Conversational SMS Integration with Twilio with Soft PIN (SN) and Google authenticators as the 2-factor authentication mechanisms for account linking.

Parent Topic: Integrating Virtual Agent with consumer messaging apps