Tikit has always been available globally. But today, our signup experience now includes the ability to provision closest to where you work to offer the best possible performance.

When signing up, just tell us where your team is located and we'll handle all of the work of getting things setup closest to you.

But to all of our current customers who might want to shift where their Tikit instance and data are stored. Migrations have already taken place for Germany, Asia, and Australian regions. No work necessary on your part!

We'll go over this at Technically Speaking later this week. See you there!

Tikit Virtual Agent has grown up quite a bit since it first launched. In that time you've been able to customize it's branding, iconography, train up its artificial intelligence to deflect tickets or provide Templates, return multiple responses, and today - customize the very first experience available to users across the organization with support for customizing the Help card.

Updates to Bot Configuration

Here you can customize and style the text as you see fit, but more importantly introduce buttons directly into the Help card.

If we were to restyle a few things, we could build out a help card that offers access to common requests without knowing how to ask for them. Best of all, we can introduce a mix of different kinds of buttons.

With the Add Button menu, you can add in:

• Knowledge Articles: No need to ask, just push the button to get the answer as configured for the chosen KB article

• New Ticket: Need a quick way to get a ticket opened for a specific Team?

• My Requests: Need to check in on your open requests?

• Template: Need to jump right into a specific request?

• Open URL: Need to go somewhere else like an internal company website? Perhaps a Microsoft Form?

Regardless of your choice, you have the ability to customize the text that appears in the button. Edit the button afterwards by clicking on it, or deleting it by hovering and clicking the red trash can. You'll also notice all buttons are given iconography to provide the context of what they do.

With our card built out, lets test it out inside in Teams with Tikit Virtual Agent. We'll use the "help" command, send the message, and we'll see our new updated card. Then we'll choose "Wifi password"

What's worth pointing out here is just like Multi-KB response, when you select a Knowledge Article. You will always see the first question that you've configured for a specific Knowledge Article. That way employees have a quick way to find what they are after next time should they choose to converse.

New Ticket

But there is one more item available with this update and that is the ability to move directly into ticket creation by either using the "New Ticket" button, or just saying "New Ticket" to Tikit Virtual Agent.

With all of that said, let's combine everything above into a brand new help card that enables employees across the organization quick access to common Templates and Knowledge Articles.

Now you can customize, style, and provide a host of service offerings from different Teams using Tikit!

Wrapping up

We're excited to get this feature out and look forward to seeing what you build with it. If you have something you want to share, make sure to bring it to Technically Speaking at the end of the month!

As your Knowledge Base grows, dialing in confidence levels and figuring out how to phrase what your fellow employees could be asking could become increasingly challenging. With the latest updates to Tikit, we're making Tikit Virtual Agent even more flexible and configurable than before.

Updates to Bot Configuration

Apart from the minimum confidence to return an answer, you can now additionally configure:

• The number of responses to return

• Whether or not to return a single response IF the most confident response is greater than the configured threshold

• The message delivered on the Multiple Responses Card
• The Create Ticket Message when a response couldn't be determined

With our settings configured, let's see what this new experience is like as there are several things happening:

1. When interacting with Tikit Virtual Agent, you'll receive several responses from your Knowledge Base that are a mix of Articles and Templates you've configured
2. Knowledge Articles will always show a brief summary of their content. Whereas Templates will show their Title and Description
3. If none of the responses look like what you're after, you can move straight into ticket creation which respects Multi-Department picker if you've toggled it on by selecting "No, create a ticket"

But what about interacting with the results? Clicking into any result will show the first response that you've configured for a specific Knowledge Article. That way employees have a quick way to find what they are after next time.

But if you're looking closely, there is also updated functionality around the Templates returned. As you can now back out of a specific Template and go straight into ticket creation that once again continues to respect Multi-Department picker functionality.

That's all for now

This has been a long standing request we're excited to finally be able to deliver. We'll be back soon with even more updates to Tikit Virtual Agent!

Since the launch of Tikit, we've done everything we can to ensure agents and requesters always stay in the loop of communication. But with that has come a host of genuine needs from all of our customers to customize those experiences.

Whether you want to turn off notifications when the Status changes, customize your own notifications from TVA, have even more fields to use within Automations, or have the opportunity to Apply a Template from Automations. Today those items and more are now available! So...

Some light re-arranging of Settings

The first thing ITSM customers will notice with Notification Center is that Email Connector settings continue to move into Teams centric configurations. Here's a quick before and after:

5.20.2024 and before:

5.21.2024 and after:

As you can see, Notification Center takes over by providing some of that Email Connector customization that you had before + offering the ability to disable several out of box notifications to Requesters whether it it be via Teams or Email.

While cutting down on some notifications is great, it's also possible you're here disabling the out of box notifications because you're looking to build your own and further customize Tikit to your organization's needs. So let's head over to Automations next to check out the new items that have arrived there.

Updates to Automations - Entities

Tikit offers an automation engine to drive everything from simple to complex workflows. With updates to Notification Center we're giving you more entities and more actions.

Previously you've had access to Tickets, Approvals and SLAs. We're now extending this list further to include Tasks and Lifecycles.

Tasks

With support for Tasks, you can not only perform automations centered around them. But key off of their respective properties such as the Assignee, Status, Title, or even the Phase of Work they might be included in.

Lifecycles

With support for Lifecycles, you can now build automations that key off of a Lifecycle's properties such its Title, Phase Name (so you could capture Phases across different Lifecycles), Active Phase (is a specific Phase the Active one), and finally the Status of the Lifecycle.

Tickets

And you can also now filter on the Template of a Ticket.

Updates to Automations - Action Types

We're also introducing even more flexibility to Actions with the introduction of Apply Template and Notification Center.

Apply Template

When a Ticket meets a certain criteria, a specific comment is left, or anything else you wire up within Automations occurs - Apply Template. With this action, even applying a Template can become an automated process within your organization for agents or requesters.

Notification Center

And now we can come full circle with Notification Center. The ability not just to send email in response to an Automation. But the ability to send a Teams notification as Tikit or Tikit Virtual Agent based on the role of the user within a ticket.

The first thing you'll notice after enabling a Teams notification, is the choice to pick who the message should go to. Based on your selection either Tikit, Tikit Virtual Agent, or both will become enabled offering you the ability to edit and style the message to your liking.

Messages to:

• Assignee
• Group
• Team
• Task Assignee
• Collaborators

will always come from Tikit.

Whereas messages to:

• Requester
• Approvers
• Affected Users
• Selected Users

will always come from Tikit Virtual Agent.

Best of all, customizing either experience is the same and offers support for variables within the message.

What's more, we're letting you choose the styling of the cards that go out. Just click on "Selected Card:" to see your options AND preview your changes.

Simple Card

Generic Ticket Card

Edit Ticket Card

Finally, you'll notice one last checkbox after you've made your selection - "Update Message/Card." Checking this off results in notifications about a single ticket to remain a single notification that always appears as the most recent conversation from Tikit/Tikit Virtual Agent. You'll still receive notifications in Teams about the update, except with this checkbox you can ensure there will only ever be a single notification about a given ticket.

Wrapping Up

There is no doubt, a LOT happening in this update. We're excited to get this shipped and can't wait to see the kinds of notifications you'll build with it. We'll go over Notification Center and what else is coming down the pipe at our next Technically Speaking happening next week on May 31st.

As we're preparing for several releases soon heading your way. Today we're publishing an update that introduces more resiliency to the email connector, fixes several bugs, improves performance when editing tickets, and helps requesters stay within the flow of creating tickets even when they aren't in Teams. Let's check it out.

Email Connector

General improvements have been made to how we process emails.

Side note. If you didn't make Technically Speaking last month we shared some updates to our knowledge base on how you can prevent specific email addresses or entire domains from creating tickets. You can read more about it here.

Request Portal - "Ask Something Else"

When your fellow employees navigate to web.tikit.ai/requests and create tickets, they'll experience ticket deflection just like inside of Teams. But now just like Teams, they can try their interactions again and keep talking to Tikit Virtual Agent.

That's all for now!

Over the last few weeks, prospects, customers, and even us here at Tikit have been patiently waiting for the next update to Tikit's Power Automate connector to become live. In that timeframe, week by week, region by region, that update has been rolling out and today - Microsoft has marked the rollout as complete.

Available immediately to those on the ITSM Plan, are updates to Tikit's Power Automate connector and new functionality around Lifecycles. Lets dive in!

Lifecycles: Power Automate Tasks

With Tikit Lifecycles, you've had a way to intelligently gate the Phases of work to ensure Approvals and Tasks are delivered at the right time, every time. Now, you can go one step further by adding Power Automate Tasks to Phases and kicking off automation at the right time, every time.

Power Automate Tasks in Lifecycles

While Power Automate Tasks are defined in a Tikit Lifecycle, their Status is controlled exclusively via Power Automate. Take for example the following Flow that onboards new employees into Entra only when a specific Power Automate Task has become Active.

Trigger: When a Lifecycle Power Automate Task Becomes Active

With the Update PA Task, you can set the Status of that Power Automate Task in Tikit and then use it in Transition Logic so you can continue to build Lifecycles that follow your business processes.

Even More Triggers and Actions

Whereas When a Lifecycle PA Task Becomes Active is a Trigger that exists within the context of a Lifecycle. What if you're looking to do something at the Phase or Transition level?

Trigger: When a Lifecycle Transitions to a Phase

Trigger: When a Lifecycle Transition Engages

With these two additional Triggers, Power Automate flow can initiate based on a specific Phase of Work starting or a specific Transition occurring.

Actions

We also heard from you that dynamically updating Approvals with the Requester's Manager, or Task Assignee's dynamically based on Custom Form answers was needed. Not only can you now use Update Approval or Update Task to accomplish that, we're also introducing Actions for Add Task and Add Approval.

Best of all, these Actions support Tickets that have and do not have Lifecycles!

There is a LOT in this Power Automate connector update. We're excited to see what you will build and will be covering this further on Technically Speaking, happening a whole day earlier. See you Thursday!

Our latest release brings with it a host of fixes reported by you, performance improvements across portals and bots, new language options, and updates to how files are managed with tickets. Let's get started!

Language Options

Tikit now supports Spanish and Finnish. Just like before, as long as your browser is configured to see these languages. You'll now see them as an options under Preferences.

File Attachments

We know that when it comes to working with files, there are several areas we've heard from you that you'd like to see improvements on:

• The overall upload experience
• Sending messages with an attachment, like a screenshot
• Viewing attachments inline with comments as opposed to them being separate
• Instead of waiting for a bot to respond in Teams when you click "Add Attachment", just adding the attachments

And all of those, are now live!

Tikit Virtual Agent

Adding attachments is now a fundamentally different experience for requesters offering file uploads you can start and navigate away from, and even leave formatted comments with

Tikit

And this experience is almost the same for Agents. Because Agents can now upload private attachments in addition to leaving a private comment. This means agents now have a means to pass files, in addition to their comments, back and forth with one another from Teams or the Agent Portal

Just like before, you can drag and drop attachments into the agent portal to initiate an upload. But now, leverage the new attachment experience with support for comments.

We're excited to cover this and more at Technically Speaking, happening one day earlier this month. We'll see you Thursday the 28th!

While we're preparing for some updates around the end of the month, we've got a new release live for everyone that handles performance improvements, bugs, and enhancements to the email connector.

Email Connector, Conversation Management

Whether you're using one or 20 different mailboxes, when it comes to ticket creation things couldn't be simpler:

1. Email arrives
2. Ticket is created
3. Employees featured in the To or CC lines of the email become Affected Users
4. The inbox notifies you of the new ticket that was created
5. Since the ticket Id is in the subject, replies always append to the correct ticket

But what if one of those employees decides to start the Reply Allmagedon before everyone is made aware of the new Ticket Id? And in doing so, includes your monitored inbox? Up until now, they have caused the creation of new ticket for everyone involved and new outbound emails with their own unique Ticket Id. Granted, there are workarounds. You could:

• Delete the "duplicate" tickets
• Merge the "duplicate" tickets
• Tell your fellow employees to wait for the ticket to be created before replying

But these workarounds create either more work for Agents or a less than stellar experience for your fellow employees. Wouldn't it be great if Tikit's Email Connector just knew how to find the correct ticket and append the conversation to the correct ticket?

Starting today with no configuration required on your part. Tikit's Email Connector will now process email threads/conversations about an existing ticket even if that email does not have the Ticket ID in the Subject. So go ahead, converse just you would expect to in email and we'll handle the rest. 😁

That's it for now! We'll discuss this and more at Technically Speaking next Friday the 23rd.

One thing that always helps when receiving notifications from others in Teams is providing as much context as possible in those notifications.

With updates to Tikit and Tikit Virtual Agent, notifications sent now show even more information than before without requiring any additional configuration on your part. "Sent Card" begone!

Tikit Virtual Agent

Requesters can quickly see on their device of choice, what's happening with their tickets as changes occur from Tikit Virtual Agent.

Leaving comments?

Changing Status?

Tikit

And the same goes for Agents receiving notifications from Tikit

Mobile

And with Teams installed on a mobile device, that same experience carries over!

The year is only just starting, and we've got plenty of updates coming your way soon!

We've got the end of the year in sight. But we've also got performance updates, handling session timeouts, improving the Custom Forms experience, and Export to CSV available for all. Right now!

General

We're always looking for ways to improve overall Tikit performance. Now creating tickets from messages in Teams is faster than before.

Never Be Logged Out AGAIN!

Depending how often you're interacting with Tikit's Agent Portal, you might find yourself having to re-authenticate with Microsoft 365. Effective immediately and without requiring any configuration on your part, that is no more.

Just like Teams, once you're authenticated - you are authenticated until you logout.

Custom Forms

We're also making a very slight change to the Custom Forms designer in that by default, the Card Payload Editor will be minimized. Which means by default, more real estate to design, experiment, and test things out.

The Card Payload Editor can still be accessed/brought into focus by clicking the "+" icon associated with it in the event you need to manually edit things or copy the contents out to replicate your card layout in a different Template.

Export to CSV

If you're the currently signed in Agent looking for a one time export of tickets with no access tokens required. Then look no further...than the top right of your screen!

Now with a single click, you can quickly perform a one time export of the current ticket list as it spans any number of pages to a CSV file.

That's all for now, until next time!