Guidance Required - Configure Different Outbound Email Address for Incident Notifications Generated

[Claudia Vasquez]

Hello Community Team,

We would like to request your guidance regarding an email configuration scenario in our ServiceNow instance.

Current Scenario

Our instance currently uses a single SMTP email account as the default outbound email account for all email notifications.

Recently, we implemented an Inbound Email Action that allows customers to create Incident records by sending emails to a dedicated mailbox:

incident-management@micompañia.com

The inbound email process is working as expected, and Incident records are created successfully.

Current SMTP Configuration

We have configured an additional SMTP account with the following settings:

• SMTP Server: smtp.office365.com
• Authentication: OAuth 2.0
• Username: incident-management@micompañia.com
• From Address: incident-management@micompañia.com
• Connection Security: STARTTLS
• Port: 587

However, since ServiceNow allows only one active SMTP account, our instance continues using the default outbound email account managed by ServiceNow for sending notifications.

The default outbound SMTP configuration is currently:

• SMTP Type: ServiceNow Managed SMTP (Relay)
• From Address: customer-report@micompañia.com

We have attached screenshots of both SMTP configurations for reference.

Challenge

After an Incident is created, the automatic email notifications (such as the Incident creation confirmation) are sent using our default outbound email account.

However, our business requirement is for all communications related to incidents created through the Inbound Email Action to be sent from:

incident-management@micompañia.com

Customers send their requests to incident-management@micompañia.com and naturally expect all subsequent communications regarding their incident to originate from the same email address. Receiving responses from a different mailbox creates confusion for our customers and may impact the continuity of the email conversation.

Request

We understand that ServiceNow supports only one active SMTP account for outbound email. However, we would like to understand the recommended and supported approach to meet this business requirement.

Specifically, we would appreciate your guidance on the following questions:

• Is it possible to configure notifications generated from a specific process (Incident creation via Inbound Email Action) to use a different From email address?
• Is there a supported configuration or best practice to achieve this behavior?
• If this scenario requires configuration outside of ServiceNow (for example, Microsoft Exchange Online or Microsoft 365 Send As permissions), could you please confirm the recommended architecture?
• Are there any product limitations or alternative approaches that ServiceNow recommends for this type of implementation?

If there is any documentation, Knowledge Base article, or implementation guide related to this scenario, we would greatly appreciate if you could share it with us.

We have also attached screenshots of our current SMTP configurations for reference.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Kind regards,

[pavani_paluri]

Hi @Claudia Vasquez ,

Based on your description, I would not focus on configuring multiple SMTP accounts, since ServiceNow can only use one active outbound SMTP configuration at a time.

Instead, I would first look at the Notification configuration itself. ServiceNow allows you to specify a From address on individual notifications (or dynamically through an email script). In many implementations, this is sufficient to have Incident-related communications appear as coming from incident-management@micompañia.com while other notifications continue using the default sender.

That said, whether recipients ultimately see the configured sender address can also depend on your email infrastructure. If you're using Microsoft 365 / Exchange Online, sender validation policies, SPF/DKIM/DMARC configuration, or Send As permissions may influence the final behavior.

My recommendation would be:

• Configure the Incident notifications to use incident-management@micompañia.com in the From field.
• Test with an external recipient and verify the actual sender displayed in the received email.
• If the sender is rewritten or blocked, work with your Microsoft 365 administrators to confirm whether additional Send As or mail flow configuration is required.

From a ServiceNow perspective, using a single outbound SMTP transport and controlling the sender address at the notification level is generally the preferred approach for this type of requirement.

Mark it helpful if this helps you to understand. Accept solution if this give you the answer you're looking for

Kind Regards,

Pavani P

[Its_Azar]

Hi there @Claudia Vasquez 

ServiceNow only supports one active outbound SMTP account, so you can't use different SMTP accounts for different notifications.

If the goal is just to have Incident emails appear from incident-management@micompañia.com, you can set the From address on the notification (or dynamically if needed), as long as your mail system allows it.

Just curious  are you looking to change only the From address, or do you need the emails to be sent through a different SMTP account as well?