Buttons within Email Notifications

[Sabrina10]

Hi all

During Knowledge13, my boss saw an implmentation (can't remember which company) where approval emails had actual buttons in them for approving or rejecting an email. The user would click the button and the Change or Item would be approved.

I know that OOB the approval notification template that has links that will create an email response back with approve or reject in the subject line, but the approver still has to click send on the email. The solution my boss saw was one where the approver just clicked a button within the email and the approval happened.

Has anyone done this and is willing to share how?

Thanks
Sabrina

[Mark Stanger]

I've never seen anything that processes approvals without actually sending an email back. I have built a solution before that includes image links or buttons in the email. This might help.

http://www.servicenowguru.com/system-definition/email-notifications-system-definition/approval-email-mailto-image-links/

[Sabrina10]

Thanks. I think this is definitely what we need to do.

I was thinking that the button would actually trigger the email message automatically, rather than the 2 step process that is in the OOB functionality where you click the link, it creates an email in your client and then you have to click send. I wasn't sure if actually putting an image/button in a email was possible, so I appreciate the info.

Sabrina

[geoffcox]

The button in your email could contain a link to ServiceNow instead of creating another email.

The link could take the user to a UI Page that can perform some action such as approving or rejecting a task.

So for example, on demo007 I have just created a simple UI page called "task_approver".

Copy this url to your browser:

https://demo007.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=task_approver.do?some_number=52

and a tiny little script will alert with the value of "some_number".

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Geoff.

[Sabrina10]

Thanks, I like this idea, however, I'm not sure I can sell it to my manager. With this solution, the user would have to wait for the page to load, right? My manager doesn't want the user to have to wait for anything (and if they weren't already logged into servicenow, then it would require extra steps to login).

I'm not sure what I'm asking can be done, but if it can, our internal email configuration might now allow it. We are currently still using Lotus Notes for email, but are in the process of moving to Exchange, so I'm trying to find a solution that is also independent of the email client, since the rollout from Notes to Exchange will be a several month project and we don't have to have to find a way to send different emails based on what email client someone is using (not a headache I want to even imagine).

Thanks
Sabrina