Conversational intake for sourcing and procurement agentic workflow
The Conversational intake for sourcing and procurement agentic workflow addresses your procurement needs by providing product recommendations, guided checkout, off-catalog processes, and detailed product information. It also answers questions and tracks related records.
Conversational intake for sourcing and procurement agentic workflow overview
The Conversational intake for sourcing and procurement agentic workflow handles and resolves procurement inquiries, including product information, purchase requests, new item sourcing, and purchase tracking.
Accessing the Conversational intake for sourcing and procurement agentic workflow
To access the agentic workflow:
- Navigate to All > AI Agent Studio > Create and manage.
- Select Conversational intake for sourcing and procurement.
Available AI agents in the Conversational intake for sourcing and procurement agentic workflow
The following table lists the agents that are used in the Conversational intake for sourcing and procurement agentic workflow.
Important: In the Define availability screen for the AI agent, make sure that the Status toggle is enabled to activate the AI agent.
| AI agent | Description |
|---|---|
| Procurement request tracking AI agent | Handles tracking-related queries throughout the procurement life cycle. Identifies and responds to requests for tracking, status checks, updates, or follow-ups on procurement records, such as sourcing requests, purchase requisitions, purchase orders, and procurement cases.Understands the query context to retrieve the relevant record, even when a record number isn’t provided, and displays a direct link to the record. |
| Procurement request path recommendation | Handles procurement-related intents by identifying explicit or implicit requests to buy or source products or services. It displays up to three product or service options based on minimal user input. It then guides users through the appropriate procurement flow. You can request for multiple items in one request.After presenting recommendations, it checks user interest and triggers either a sourcing or purchasing plan based on internal rules. On your confirmation, it creates the relevant record and displays the plan. You can add multiple attachments in PDF, PNG, JPEG, Word, XLSX, or ZIP format when submitting your request to include any additional information. |
| Procurement inquiry analysis AI agent | Retrieves and displays relevant knowledge articles to address sourcing and procurement queries. If no relevant articles are found, or if intent is unclear, redirects you to a live agent. |
The AI agent decision log displays the AI agents that are working on a request. You can watch their interactions, decisions, and thought processes as they happen in real time.
Tools mapped to the Procurement request tracking AI agent
| Tool type | Execution mode | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scripts | Autonomous | Get records data | Searches the Knowledge Graph for procurement records that match a generated query, returning relevant links and details. |
| Scripts | Autonomous | Record summary | Summarizes the information provided, confirming that the summary captures the key details and intent of an inquiry. |
Tools mapped to the Procurement request path recommendation
| Tool type | Execution mode | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scripts | Autonomous | Check DocIntel task | Checks the status of the Document Intelligence task created by createDocumentTask. |
| Scripts | Autonomous | Create purchasing record | Creates purchasing records from the finalized plan (with optional attachments) and returns a submission summary. |
| Scripts | Autonomous | Show more results | Displays additional product recommendations for a selected item. |
| Scripts | Autonomous | Created record from document | Creates records once the document task is submitted. |
| Scripts | Autonomous | Create sourcing record | Creates sourcing requests from the finalized plan (with optional attachments) and returns a submission summary. |
| Scripts | Autonomous | Build Purchase Plan | Builds the purchase checkout plan after the Document Intelligence task has completed. Resolves and validates delivery period, delivery address, purchase reason, and cost center from user inputs. Saves the final plan to the conversation cache and returns a formatted purchase plan summary. |
| Scripts | Autonomous | Recommendation | Generates a list of products based on the product name, additional details, and supplier preferences. |
| Scripts | Autonomous | Channel decision and plan creation | Determines the optimal checkout channel and create a plan based on the selected product or the rejection of recommended options, returning the recommended checkout channel for each selection. |
| Scripts | Autonomous | Document type extractor | Determines type of document uploaded. |
| Scripts | Autonomous | Create a document task | Creates a document task that gathers delivery period and purchase reason information. |
| Conversational topics | Autonomous | Quote or Sow attachment | Supports adding a quote or SOW document by passing the uniquely generated document conversation ID (documentConversationId) as input to the tool. |
| Conversational topics | Autonomous | add or update attachment | Adds or updates attachments and supporting documents using a unique system-generated ID for caching and efficient document management. |
Tools mapped to the Procurement inquiry analysis AI agent
| Tool type | Execution mode | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scripts | Autonomous | Get relevant knowledge article | Retrieves and displays relevant knowledge articles for sourcing and procurement queries. |
| Scripts | Autonomous | Connect to live agent | Escalates to a live SPO agent on user request. |
| Scripts | Autonomous | Redirect to Employee Center | Politely deflects unsupported requests and directs users to Employee Center resources. |
Parent Topic:Use agentic workflows in Now Assist for Sourcing and Procurement Operations
Related topics
Submit a purchase request using the Now Assist AI agent
Update the product category or spend category in the Now Assist panel