Upgrading from the Conversational Integration with Teams to the ITSM Integration

[Victor Chen]

The Conversational integration with Microsoft Teams has been available since the Madrid release and many customers are using it today. Today, the ITSM/HRSD integration provides an even richer feature set, including not only the chatbot but also a "Your Hub" embedded portal and live agent collaboration tools. 

Pre-requisites:

• A ServiceNow instance on Quebec Patch 2 or higher
• ITSM/HRSD Pro/Enterprise subscription
• 'admin' role for your instance
• 'admin' access to your organization's Microsoft Azure Active Directory
• Conversational integration with Teams already installed and operating. To learn how to install the Conversational Integration with Teams, see this article. 

Process (focuses on ITSM integration):

Steps 1-6 are well documented in other Community articles. They are repeated here mainly for review. The important part to note starts at Step 7 and beyond. This process only covers the ITSM integration and does not cover the other integration features for Teams. 

1. Install the following plugin: IT Service Management integration with Microsoft Teams – 2.1.0​ (be sure to get the latest version, 2.1.0+, with a much simpler installation.)

2. Download the fix script from the store site. Upload and commit the xml update set to your instance. 

 

3. Check to see that your 'admin' user in your ServiceNow instance shares the same email address with an Active Directory profile in Azure. That profile should also have a 'Global Administrator' role in Azure. If not, login as admin for your Microsoft Azure account, portal.azure.com, and add it to the user. 

 

4. Navigate to "ServiceNow for Microsoft Teams > Install Azure Apps" (added with the installed plug-in in Step 1.) Click "Install". It will then request permission from your Microsoft tenant. Click "Accept". 

5. Once your tenant is successfully connected, you will be returned to the "Install Azure Apps" page with more apps. Click "Install" for all of them. They should at least include "Request based Chat" and "Tab SSO". 

6. Navigate to Microsoft Teams > Application Manifest > ServiceNow for Teams, to create and download a manifest file. This will be used to install and brand a custom chat app in Teams. You can change the bot's name, description, and image icons. Otherwise, leave everything to its defaults. Click "Update", then "Move to Ready".

  

***THE REALLY IMPORTANT PART***

7. As admin for your Microsoft tenant, login to admin.teams.microsoft.com. Navigate to Teams apps > Manage apps. Search for "Now Virtual Agent". If you've already installed the Conversational Integration, this is the bot you installed as part of that process. Click to open that app. 

8. Click the "Status" toggle to "Blocked" to block the app (you may need to notify other users before you do this in any shared environment.)

 

9. On the left-hand tool bar, navigate to "Permission policies" and then click on “Global(Org-wide default)”. Under Third-party apps, select “Allow specific apps and block others”, click +Add apps, find "Now Virtual Agent" and add it. Click "Save".​

10. Login to the Microsoft Teams app, using your Microsoft account (.onmicrosoft.com).​ On the left-hand toolbar, go to apps, click “Upload a custom app”, and upload the manifest downloaded in Step 6. It is ok to upload the compressed file.  ​

 

11. Once uploaded, you can see your app appear. Click on it and hit add. ​

 

12. Return to admin.teams.microsoft.com. Navigate to Teams apps > Permission Policies, again. Under Custom apps, select “Allow specific apps and block others”, click +Add apps, find your ServiceNow for Teams app (search for your branded name) and add it. Click "Save".

The Now Virtual Agent should also appear as "Allowed", but with a status of "Blocked". This allows the core functionality of the Virtual Agent chat app for the ITSM integration, but blocks users from searching for and installing the app.​

You're done! Let's do a recap and status check:

Recap: The important order of steps is to first block the Now Virtual Agent app if already installed before uploading the manifest and adding the custom app. If you add the custom app before blocking the Now Virtual Agent app, your Virtual Agent chat may not work for ~24 hours while the Microsoft server resolves the conflict. 

Status check: Restart your Teams app. On the left-hand toolbar you should see your custom app (it may be behind the 3-dot menu.) Your custom app should contain a "Chat" tab and a "Your Hub" tab. These tabs may take a while to load the first time. In the "Chat" tab, type "hi" to start and test the Virtual Agent. 

[Paul Curwen]

Useful article, thanks for taking the time.