How to use Spark, the Union County IT Chatbot.

When using the new Union County IT Helpdesk.  On every page you go to, you may notice a blue square with a chat bubble in the bottom right corner of your screen.

Clicking on this blue square will open up a new window with our AI assistant "Spark"

Spark is an AI assistant that can search through our Union County Knowledge base and provide you with the answers it may find.

I've forgotten my Union County password. Let's see if Spark can help us.

On the main page, we can see that I'm not signed into the helpdesk system, but if I can get access to helpdesk.unioncountync.gov I can ask Spark for help.

Opening the chat window, Spark will ask us if we have a question.

I'll go ahead and tell Spark what issue I'm having right now and then Spark will take a minute to think about how it can help us.

Spark comes back with it's own interpretation of what it thinks we need to do next, this is denoted by the footer "Generated by AI"

It will also give us the link to the article that it thinks will help resolve our issue.  It's also included a quick snapshot of what is contained within this article.

When interacting with Spark, please let us know when it asks, are its responses helpful.

Let's get an example of when Spark may not be able to assist us with our problem

I'm going to go to Spark right now, because I don't have access to the correct repository within Laserfiche.

Spark is unable to come up with any solutions for me, as there is no way for us to DIY laserfiche access.

Spark will tell us that it cannot answer our question and then give us the link to submit a helpdesk ticket.

Or we can select the option to "Talk to a human"

Upon doing so, it will try to gather a little information from us: name, email, phone number, department and problem description.  Please just give us a description of the issue that you are having so that we can work on it for you or get you over to the right people who can help you.

Once we've filled out all the information it is asking of us, Spark will go ahead and take all that and send it over to the Union County Helpdesk.

Inside the helpdesk, your chat information will immediately pop into the queue

Your chat ticket will be automatically assigned to an agent who should be able to update you that they are working on your ticket or handing you over to someone who can take care of this.

Your entire chat log as well as your description of your issue will be displayed to the agent, so they can see what steps you may have tried to take already.

Once an agent is working on your ticket, they can respond to you either via email or they may chat back to you.

If you're still on the Union County Helpdesk page and you receive a new chat, a sound will play and a notification bubble will pop up on that blue chat square in the bottom right corner.

Opening the chat window again, will let me see the message that the agent has sent me.