ServiceNow Smart Operations is an application that provides one command center which connects real-time data from IoT devices across physical spaces and analyzes it to help the organization optimize and streamline operations.
ServiceNow Smart Operations leverages the power of AI, integrating seamlessly with existing organization infrastructure such as cameras, sensors, and other IoT devices which contributes to operational excellence, enriched customer experiences, and increased sales. It also plays a crucial role in securing the site, helping ensure a safe and smooth operational environment for both customers and employees.
ServiceNow Smart Operations provides great business value with instant visibility into customer behavior, site safety, and customer insights.
ServiceNow Smart Operations provides significant business value with instant visibility and insights into customer behavior, site safety, and overall customer experience through the following detection capabilities:
- Unexpected dwell time: This feature allows users to automatically identify instances where a visitor spends an unusually long time in a specific area of the site. By leveraging advanced AI algorithms and utilizing real-time data from in-site cameras, it enables timely and effective responses to such scenarios.
- People count: This feature alerts users when the number of visitors in the site exceeds a set threshold. Utilizing camera streams and AI analytics, it provides a vital solution for managing site occupancy effectively and ensuring compliance with safety standards.
- Line crossing: This feature enables users to promptly identify when visitors move in incorrect or restricted directions, such as site entries, exits, or designated areas. Leveraging AI to analyze and flag unusual movement patterns offers a crucial solution for maintaining site safety.
- Queue management: This feature enables users to optimize cashier operations by offering real-time integration with checkouts operational status. It triggers the appropriate workflow by opening/closing checkout stations based on the detected situation in individual lanes or throughout the checkout area with an intelligent pre-check mechanism for neighboring checkout stations. Before opening or closing a checkout stations, the system now assesses the “busyness” of adjacent lanes. If a nearby lane is underutilized, the system prioritizes relocating customers.
- Area analytics: This feature offers detailed analytics on aspects such as visitors average dwell duration, visit density, and product conversion rate. This capability provides users with invaluable insights, enabling them to optimize product placement and in-site marketing strategies. It addresses the need for data-driven decision-making in retail environments, delivering value by enhancing site performance and customer engagement.
- Sites management: This feature provides operation managers with the tools to efficiently oversee and control multiple site locations from a centralized platform. It allows users to manage camera setups, update configurations across sites, and set site working hours for ordinary days and special days such as events, festivals, anniversaries, etc.
- Edge server management: This feature provides comprehensive tools to manage and maintain edge servers across multiple sites. It allows disabling (blackout), enabling (remove blackout), and deleting edge servers, together with reinstalling retired edge servers within one year before it is permanently deleted. Critical actions such as blacking out or deleting edge servers require higher-level managerial approval to ensure proper oversight. This feature also includes certificate management, enabling administrators to renew edge server certificates which are expired or about to expire, as needed. It further provides the ability to upgrade the software of the edge server to benefit from new features and fixes.
- Devices management: This feature streamlines the process of defining and managing devices, particularly cameras, by minimizing manual input and enhancing automation. This feature also enables the bulk creation of camera records for a site through direct API integration with the edge server, which retrieves essential device information automatically. Additionally, users can upload camera snapshots from the edge server and view all defined monitoring zones on these snapshots. To further enhance usability, this feature allows the users to have a panoramic view of the site map, including all its areas and floors and showing all cameras and monitoring zones at the site location.
- Monitoring zones: This feature allows operation managers to define specific areas within the camera’s field of view that are critical for monitoring. Users can allocate and visually draw these monitoring zones directly on the site map layout, providing a clear and accurate representation of the areas being surveilled. Additionally, users can create specific sets of monitoring zones, particularly for targeted use cases such as queue management.
- Clone configurations: This feature streamlines the process of duplicating existing setup parameters across various sites, devices, or detection capabilities. It enables the users to easily replicate current configurations, creating new records with either identical or modified settings, simplifying the setup of similar environments.
- Third-parties and internal integrations: It enables seamless connectivity between Smart Operations and various third-party and internal systems. The Point of Sale integration allows the system to pull sales transaction data from the POS system, providing insights into product performance. The Cashier Station integration monitors the status of each cashier station, improving operational oversight. Additionally, the Headset integration connects with site workers' headsets to make real-time announcements regarding emergencies or suggested actions. Internally, the feature includes integration with Task Management, mapping Smart Operations events to task assignments and alerts, ensuring prompt action on critical events.
- Personalized landing page: A role-specific home page tailored for each user persona (central operations manager, regional operations manager, site manager, central IT admin, regional IT admin, and site IT admin) to provide the necessary information for streamlining operations.
- Retail Operations integration: It connects with Retail Operations to extend Smart Operations AI-generated events by automatically triggering predefined out-of-the-box workflows.
- CSM/FSM integration: A feature that links with CSM and FSM for case creation and implementing an already designed sub-flow. When an event is generated, a scheduled job processes each event and converts it into a case or work order as specified in the detection capability rule configurations.
- Camera field of view change detection: AI-Driven detection for changes that occur in the camera's field of view, which requires a configuration update.
- Shopping time calculation: Calculates individual and overall shopping time in the store based on entry and exit transactions, excluding waiting time.
- Rule builder: A feature that enables customers to build on top of events by defining rules that trigger predefined workflows, such as creating a CSM case, generating an FSM work order, or sending a headset announcement to open checkout stations. Rules can also be assigned and applied based on geographical location.
- Dynamic configuration and logic for detection capabilities: Provides different rules based on the number of opened cash registers and date/time.
- Proactive queue management: Analyzes based on future calculated situations (shopping time, entry & exit counts) with dynamic thresholds and actions to be executed based on predefined rules.
- QM analytics dashboard: Tracks IT and store performance KPIs, including edge and cameras connectivity, offline time, and notification trigger speed, as well as operational metrics such as average customer and checkout wait times, the Average shopping time, daily time spent at checkouts, response rate to alerts, and top regions/stores with the highest wait times or downtime, with single-store and multi-store views.
Queue Management Enhancements:
Smart Operations significantly enhanced the Queue Management feature with an intelligent prior cross-check mechanism for neighboring checkout stations. Before opening or closing a checkout stations, the system now assesses the “busyness” of adjacent lanes. If a nearby lane is underutilized, the system prioritizes relocating customers.
Queue Management Insights dashboard Enhancements:
- New chart was added in the Queue Management Insights dashboard, which is the Average shopping time.
- You can now select to view the connectivity statues of one of the options: edges or cameras.
- New time zone labels were added to the Connectivity status pop up in the dashboard to view each edge server with its relevant time zone.
- Two dashboard KPIs were improved in this release, with enhanced calculations which are:
- The response rate to alerts
- Trigger time for notifications
System enhancement and bug fixing:
- Base estimation improvement:Smart Operations' AI DeepStream has been upgraded for pose detection, enabling more accurate body pose prediction and improved tracking, even when parts of a person are not fully visible due to blocked views.
- Global and local IDs unifying: The ID tracking logic has been enhanced to unify local and global identifiers at entry points, ensuring more accurate shopper counts throughout the journey, especially at checkout.
- Hopping (lane switching) calculation enhancement:Queue calculations have been improved to precisely reflect individual waiting times, even when shoppers switch lanes, providing more reliable insights into customer flow.
- Log storage improvement:The log storage efficiency has been enhanced by preventing identical logs from being repeatedly stored within a short period. After this cool down period ends, new logs are stored again, ensuring accurate reporting while reducing unnecessary storage.
Required Plugins:
- sn_smartops_comp
- sn_cmdb_ci_class
Dependencies:
- com.glide.kaa
- com.glide.hub.etl_consumer.kafka
- com.glide.hermes