Get started with Jira Service Management for admins
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About step types in the virtual agent flow builder
The virtual agent is now available for all Jira Service Management customers on Premium and Enterprise plans. Read more about plans and pricing.
Conversation flows are made up of a series of steps. A step can be something simple, like the virtual agent sending a message to the customer — or technical and hidden from the customer, like the virtual agent changing the request type, or sending a web request. Find out how to create or edit a conversation flow.
Offer choices
Use this step type when you want to offer the customer a pre-set list of options to choose from.
The offer choices step type:
sends a message from the virtual agent to the customer (messages can include some formatting, and hyperlinks)
offers 1–10 choices
creates a new branch of the conversation flow for each choice
shows choices as buttons if there are 1–5 choices
shows choices in a dropdown selector if there are 6–10 choices
Example
Let’s say you want to provide different information to employees about working from their nearest office, but the information changes depending on which country they’re in. You could add an offer choices step, and have the virtual agent ask, “So that I can give you the right information, can you tell me which region you’re in?” and offer each available country as a choice: Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and United States.
When the customer selects their country, they begin moving along the conversation flow branch for that country, where the virtual agent provides the most accurate information for them.
Send message
Use this step when you want the virtual agent to send a message to the customer.
The send message step type:
sends a message from the virtual agent to the customer (messages can include some formatting, and hyperlinks)
can be used in a series — just add multiple send message steps in a row
is great for providing short, friendly responses, critical information, and/or links to critical information
Example
In the example above for offer choices, let’s say your customer chooses Australia as their country, and the information you need to send them is accessible via your help center documentation (and is too complex to put in a message).
In the conversation flow, after the Australia choice, you could add a send message step that says, “Got it! Check out this link for information about working from our Australian offices: www.example.com.”
Ask for information
Use this step when you’d like to collect information from customers if an issue is created later in the conversation, or to use as a placeholder in a send web request step.
The ask for information step type:
sends a message from the virtual agent to the customer (messages can include some formatting, and hyperlinks)
waits for a response from the customer before continuing with the conversation flow
uses the customer’s response to use as a placeholder in a send web request step
Supported field types
You can only use custom fields in the ask for information step. Supported custom field types include:
Date
Paragraph
Short text
Single-select
Example
In the examples above, let’s say your customer chooses Australia as their region, and the virtual agent sends them a link to some relevant information about visiting their local office. After this, the virtual agent may ask (using another offer choices step): “Do you want to book a desk in one of our Australian offices?” with Yes and No choices.
If the customer selects No, the conversation could continue, or they could go straight to the resolve or escalate standard flow and finish the conversation. Read more about standard flows.
If the customer selects Yes, you may want to insert an ask for information step: “So that I can help you, can you tell me which office you’d like to visit?”
When they respond with the name of the nearest office, this could be used in a send web request step later in the conversation flow branch, allowing them to instantly book a desk at their local office.
Send web request
Use this step when you want to send an HTTP request to a URL, and choose a conversation branch based on the response. You can use information collected in an ask for information step in a send web request step.
The send web request step type:
uses the HTTP method you select to send the request
directs the conversation flow down the appropriate branch, depending on the first condition that matches from the response
always includes an ELSE branch, which is used when no other condition matches or if the request fails to send
Formatting and variables
Fields and values can be referenced in the URL, headers, and body fields using curly braces, for example, {{field}}. A list of fields and values available for each send web request step can be found inside the step’s detail panel.
Enter headers as <header-name>:<header-value>, with each new header on a new line.
The variables available for conditions are status (for example, 200, 403, or 500), body (the content returned in the response), and headers (the headers returned in the response).
Example
Continuing with the ask for information example, let’s say the customer responded to the question “So that I can help you, can you tell me which office you’d like to visit?” with “Sydney”.
You could set up a send web request step later in the branch that sends a web request to a URL created for booking a desk at your company’s offices around the world, and reference it using the syntax provided on the ask for information step for the “Sydney” response:
{
"office": "{{customfield_10081.id}}",
"reporter": "{{reporter.emailAddress}}"
}
If the response from the web request matched one of your success conditions (status ~ 2??) , you could then have the virtual agent tell the customer (using the send message step type) that their desk has been booked.
Change request type and fields
Use this step type when you want to override the virtual agent default request type for any issues created after a specific point in a conversation flow. Read more about the virtual agent default request type.
The change request type and fields step type:
is invisible to your customers — they won’t see anything happen
allows you to choose a specific request type (and set field values, if desired) for any issues created in the conversation beyond that step, overriding the virtual agent default request type
Example
Continuing with the examples above, let’s say you need to make sure that all issues created for customers based in Australia use a different request type to the other countries (which just use the virtual agent default request type).
To do this, you could add a change request type and fields step right after the Australia choice. When adding this step, you choose which request type you want to use for all issues raised after someone selects Australia (and if desired, specify one or more field values).
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