Connect to Live Agent directly in Virtual Agent web client

Articles, Blogs, Videos, Podcasts, Share projects - Experiences from the field

Hi there,

When working with the Virtual Agent web client, there are several parameters that you can add to Service Portal Agent Chat Configuration and a (legacy) Service Portal widget. Parameters like loading a specific topic, disabling sound notifications, activating Live Agent only, etcetera. In a few short articles I'll share a bit of background information on some of these parameters. This time: connect to Live Agent directly.

Live Agent only

When Glide Virtual Agent is active, the first handshake is made to the Virtual Agent assistant. What if you have a requirement to connect to Live Agent directly? You could change the Greeting Setup Topic for this, or... you could just add the "live_agent_only" parameter! Depending on how you implemented the Virtual Agent web client on your instance, you would need to add a parameter to the applicable Service Portal Agent Chat Configuration record, or add it to the URL parameters of the (legacy) Service Portal widget. Both methods do work slightly differently.

Service Portal Agent Chat Configuration

If you are using Service Portal Agent Chat Configuration, open the applicable Service Portal Agent Chat Configuration record. Within the Server Script you would need to add "live_agent_only: true" to connect to Live Agent directly.

For example:

(function($sp) {

    return = {
        live_agent_only: true
    };

})($sp);

(legacy) Service Portal widget

If you are using a (legacy) Service Portal widget, verify if it concerns an embedded widget (for example to the header or footer of the portal) or that it concerns a widget instance that has been added to a specific page.

Widget instance

When having a Widget instance in place, ctrl + right click on the Virtual Agent icon, and select "Instance Options".

Within the modal, add to the "Virtual Agent Client URL Parameters" field:

sysparm_live_agent_only=true

Embedded widget

A common seen method when working with the Virtual Agent web client, is embedding the Service Portal widget to the header or footer of the portal. Adding URL parameters is also possible in this case, I've explained such in a previous article (Adding instance options to directly embedded Service Portal Widgets [https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=ef3c3fe7dba6d01066f1d9d968961...]).

For example, your code for embedding the Service Portal widget might look like:

<widget id="sn-va-sp-widget"></widget>

To connect to Live Agent directly you would need to expand this to:

<widget id="sn-va-sp-widget" options='{"va_url_params":"&sysparm_live_agent_only=true"}'></widget>

---

And that's it! A short explanation on how you can connect to Live Agent directly in the Virtual Agent web client, for both Service Portal Agent Chat Configuration and a Service Portal widget. If any questions, let me know!

Kind regards,

Mark Roethof

ServiceNow Technical Platform Architect @ Eraneous

3x ServiceNow Developer MVP

3x ServiceNow Community MVP

---

LinkedIn