ServiceNow has an automated system for reminding users that they have been asked for further information regarding tickets that they have raised.
It is best practice to set the Prompt After field to the date on which the update is being made, unless you are aware that the user may be away from the business (on annual leave, or with known non-working days that may delay a response).
When responding to an Incident or Request with a question for the user, it is correct to put the State to “Awaiting User Info” (directly within an Incident) or “On Hold > Awaiting User Info” (for a Request). A Prompt After date is then mandatory. This article explains what will happen once this has been done, and when subsequent events will occur.
Once the Prompt After date has been set, there should be no need to return to that ticket unless the user responds or you have a further update to add yourself. ServiceNow will monitor the ticket for email from the Caller, reminding them that a response is required – if there is no response within a given time, the ticket will be closed, stating to the user that the action has been taken owing to non-response from them. Each ServiceNow Tenancy (IT, HR, Finance, Student Services, etc…) can use the Auto Prompt – the timing of reminders for HR, for example, may differ to those of iSolutions.
When Are Prompting Messages Sent?
ServiceNow runs a scheduled job at 10:30 every working day, calculating which tickets need to move into the Auto Prompt queue, and which message to send when a ticket is being managed by the Auto Prompt Engine.
If you put the ticket on hold prior to 10:30 on any given day, the system will check the Prompt After date at 10:30 on the same day. If the time in the Prompt After field has passed (for example, 08:00), then that ticket goes into the Auto Prompt queue. At this point, NO message is sent reminding the user that a response is required. If the Auto Prompt time has not passed, no action will be taken at all, and the ticket will not join the Prompt Queue.
If you know that a user is away for a week, set the Auto Prompt for when they are due to return – only once the Prompt After date has passed will ServiceNow send further messages to the user.
If, at any time, the caller responds via email to the ticket, it is removed from the Prompt queue and goes back to In Progress.
Auto Prompting Reminder Timings:
- Reminder 1 – 2 working days after the Prompt date has passed
- Reminder 2 – 5 working days later (7 working days in total)
- Auto-Close – 5 working days later (12 working days in total)
By way of example:
- A ticket is updated and set to Awaiting User Info, with the Prompt After date set at 09:00 on Monday 1st
- At 10:30 on Monday 1st, the Auto Prompt Engine sees that the date has passed and the ticket is moved, in the background, to the Prompt Queue – no message is sent
- At 10:30 on Wednesday 3rd, when no response has been received, Reminder 1 is sent to the user, prompting a response from them
- A week later, at 10:30 on Wednesday 10th, again after there has been nothing received from the customer, Reminder 2 is sent
- Finally, with still no response, on Wednesday 17th at 10:30, the Auto Close email is sent, and the ticket is resolved stating that there was no response.
A Bank Holiday or University Closure Day will delay the running of the Prompt checks, so that delay does not need to be considered when selecting the Prompt After date.
When managing your tickets, there should be no reason to revisit a ticket that has been set to Awaiting User Info unless the user has an update, or further relevant information comes to light. Such tickets will be resolved with no further action from you as fulfiller.