Understanding Skills, Skill Discovery, and Skill Execution in NAVA - Support and Troubleshooting

Understanding Skills, Skill Discovery, and Skill Execution in NAVA Summary 📘 Understanding Skills, Skill Discovery, and Skill Execution in NAVA Overview Understanding how Skills work is essential when troubleshooting Now Assist Virtual Agent (NAVA).

When users report issues such as "The skill didn't trigger" or "The wrong skill was selected," the first step is to determine whether the problem occurred during Skill Discovery or Skill Execution.

This article explains:

What a Skill is Where Skills are stored The difference between Skill Discovery and Skill Execution Which tables and logs to investigate 📌 What is a Skill? A Skill is any functionality that Now Assist Virtual Agent (NAVA) can discover and execute in response to a user's request.

Although Skills can come from different platform features, NAVA treats them all as discoverable capabilities.

Types of Skills Skill Type Description 💬 LLM Topics Conversational topics created in Virtual Agent Designer 🛒 Catalog Items Service Catalog items that users can request 🔄 Subflows Flow Designer Subflows ⚙️ Flow Actions Individual Flow Designer Actions 🤖 AI Agents AI-powered agent capabilities 🛠 Custom Skills Custom capabilities ( sys_one_extend_capability ) ✨ Now Assist Built-in Skills Features such as Incident Summarization, Case Summarization, etc. 💡 Note

Regardless of the implementation type, every discoverable capability is treated as a Skill during the discovery process.

📂 Where are Skills Stored? All discoverable Skills are registered in the following table:

Table Purpose sys_gen_ai_skill Stores every discoverable Skill available to NAVA ✅ Best Practice

If a Skill is not present in sys_gen_ai_skill, it cannot be discovered or executed by NAVA.

🔍 Before You Start Troubleshooting If you receive reports like:

"My Skill didn't trigger." "Virtual Agent couldn't find my Topic." "The wrong Skill was selected." Always perform the following checks first.

✅ Step 1: Verify the Skill Exists Confirm that the expected Skill exists in:

Table: sys_gen_ai_skill

✅ Step 2: Verify the Skill is Available for Discovery Confirm that the Skill appears in:

Table: sys_cs_skill_discovery_tracking

🚨 Important

If the Skill is missing from either table, NAVA will not be able to discover or execute it.

🔄 NAVA Processing Flow Every user request goes through two phases.

User submits an utterance │ ▼ 🔍 Skill Discovery │ ▼ ✅ Skill Selected │ ▼ ⚙️ Skill Execution │ ▼ Response Returned 🔍 Skill Discovery What is Skill Discovery? Skill Discovery is the process of determining which Skill should respond to the user's request.

This phase starts when the user submits an utterance and ends once NAVA selects the most appropriate Skill.

During Skill Discovery, NAVA: ✔ Understands the user's request

✔ Searches available Skills

✔ Ranks matching Skills

✔ Selects the best Skill

Tables to Review Table Purpose sys_cs_skill_discovery_tracking Displays the Skills evaluated during discovery sys_cs_fdih_invocation Stores discovery invocation details 💡 Investigate Skill Discovery if:

The expected Skill was never selected. The wrong Skill was selected. No matching Skill was found. ⚙️ Skill Execution What is Skill Execution? Once a Skill has been selected, NAVA begins executing it.

Examples include:

Running an LLM Topic Executing a Flow Designer Subflow Ordering a Catalog Item Running an AI Agent Skill Execution ends when the user receives the final response.

Logs to Review Log/Table Purpose sys_generative_ai_log Execution logs for Generative AI Conversation Transcript Displays the runtime conversation Topic / Flow Logs Shows execution details and node-level activity 💡 Investigate Skill Execution if:

The correct Skill was selected. Execution started. The Skill failed, stopped unexpectedly, or returned an error. ⚖️ Skill Discovery vs. Skill Execution 🔍 Skill Discovery ⚙️ Skill Execution Purpose Finds the best Skill Runs the selected Skill Starts When the user submits an utterance After a Skill has been selected Ends When a Skill is selected When the response is returned Primary Tables sys_cs_skill_discovery_tracking sys_cs_fdih_invocation sys_generative_ai_log Conversation Transcript Topic/Flow Logs 🛠 Troubleshooting Checklist Use the following checklist whenever a Skill is reported as not working.

✔ Check ☐ Verify the Skill exists in sys_gen_ai_skill ☐ Verify the Skill appears in sys_cs_skill_discovery_tracking ☐ Review Skill Discovery logs if the Skill was not selected ☐ Review Skill Execution logs if the Skill was selected but failed 📚 Summary Key Takeaways A Skill is any discoverable capability that NAVA can execute. Every discoverable Skill is stored in sys_gen_ai_skill. Skill Discovery determines which Skill should run. Skill Execution runs the selected Skill and returns the response. Identifying the phase where the issue occurred helps you quickly choose the correct tables and logs for troubleshooting.