Auto-create Customer Contact from Inbound Email – Inbound Action Not Triggering

[swethavelu]

Hi Community,

I’m trying to auto-create a Customer Contact record when an inbound email is received. Here’s what I did:

• Created an Inbound Email Action in Global scope.
• Action Type: Record Action, Target Table: customer_contact.
• Execution Order: 10, Weight: 100.
• No conditions (to allow all emails).
• Script checks if contact exists, then creates a new record with email, name, company (from subject), and phone (from body).
• Tested the script in Script Background – it works and creates the contact.
• Email account is configured and emails appear under System Logs → Emails → Received.
• But the inbound action never fires. I noticed the received emails have Type = received, while my inbound action was set to Type = None.

Question:

• Is the Type field causing this issue?
• Are there any other settings required for inbound actions to trigger?
• If inbound actions are unreliable, what’s the best alternative to achieve auto-contact creation?

Fyi, below is the script action.

(function runAction(current, event, email, logger, classifier) {

    gs.log('Inbound Email Action triggered for: ' + email.from);

    // Check if contact already exists

    var existing = new GlideRecord('customer_contact');

    existing.addQuery('email', email.from);

    existing.query();

    if (!existing.next()) {

        var contact = new GlideRecord('customer_contact');

        contact.initialize();

        // Extract name from display name or email prefix

        var nameParts = [];

        if (email.origFromName) {

            nameParts = email.origFromName.split(' ');

        } else {

            var emailPrefix = email.from.split('@')[0];

            nameParts = [emailPrefix];

        }

        contact.first_name = nameParts[0];

        contact.last_name = nameParts.length > 1 ? nameParts[1] : '';

        contact.email = email.from;

        // Parse company from subject

        var companyMatch = email.subject.match(/Company:\s*([A-Za-z0-9\s]+)/);

        if (companyMatch) {

            contact.company = companyMatch[1].trim();

        }

        // Parse phone from body

        var phoneMatch = email.body_text.match(/Phone:\s*([\+\d\-]+)/);

        if (phoneMatch) {

            contact.phone = phoneMatch[1].trim();

        }

        contact.insert();

        gs.log('New Customer Contact created for ' + email.from);

    } else {

        gs.log('Contact already exists for ' + email.from);

    }

})(current, event, email, logger, classifier);

Any guidance or best practices would be appreciated!

Thanks & regards,

swetha.

[Anil Nemmikanti]

Yes, I believe. Please select "Type" as New and try. Thanks.

[swethavelu]

Hi @Anil Nemmikanti 

Thanks for your response, when i changed the type to "New" seeing below message in log.
Skipping script 'Create Customer Contact from Email', email is a reply, and the record it matches is not in the Inbound Email Action's table

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Looks like the customer is replying on the provided email.
If this is the case, then the Type = Reply.

https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0535515

[swethavelu]

Hi @Dr Atul G- LNG 

No, whenever servicenow receives inbound emails from any customer and if the customer contact does not exist wants to create new contact record for them.