How to Draft an Email and send to Recipients in a List of Records?

[G24]

Gurus, my users want to be able to do all of the following:

1.  Filter records on a Custom table down to only those they want to send an email to (one of the fields contains an email address).  So they might choose 10 records out of 100.

2.  Draft an Email, using an Email Template as their starting point; but with the ability to edit the message before sending, and also the ability to add one-off attachments.

3.  Send the email drafted in step 2 to all the recipients listed in step 1.

What ServiceNow technology or technologies should I be using to achieve this?

A.  System Notification - Email - Notifications (are these designed to be editable by casual users?)

B.  Email Client - Email Client Configuration  (Email Menu Option on Forms (email_client = true))

C.  Email Client - Quick Messages / Canned Messages

D.  Email Client - Email Drafts

E.  ???

(Email drafts looks promising, but I don't see how to actually SEND an email after you draft it; at least not if you're using the table directly, and NOT from Workspace.)  Thanks.

[SanjivMeher]

I dont think you can do that from a list view.

If they want to be able to draft the email, they need to use Email Client. Below link will be helpful for you about how to use it.

https://www.servicenow.com/community/in-other-news/email-client-client-templates/ba-p/2286626

Now If this is a functionality they need to use often, then I would suggest creating a table for them, where they can link multiple records. And from that record they should generate the email using Email Client. You can write email script to call in the Client templates to get those 10 records in the email and post it in the body of the email.

[G24]

Thanks for that reply, @SanjivMeher .  That link was very useful...

I don't understand what you mean by this:  "You can write email script to call in the Client templates to get those 10 records in the email and post it in the body of the email."

I need for my users to be able to compose ONE email, but have it sent out 10 separate times to 10 (or so) records that they have selected (filtered) in a List View.  (So they will be spawning 10 separate email conversations to 10 separate customers).  Are you saying there is a way to do that??  If so, can you please explain how a little bit more?  I'm not following you.  Thanks.

[SanjivMeher]

@G24 You can create a table for them, and a reference field in task table referencing that table.

- Now when your users want to send email for multiple records, they go to this table and select the records for which they want to trigger the email.

- Or create a List UI action on the task table, where user can select multiple records and click create Email Record, which will create a record in the new table and link all the tasks.

Now you need a UI action on the new table which says Email, which when clicked will open the Email client for the user.

You also need a Client template to pre-populate the Email client for you. Now since you want the details of the tasks to be populated in the Email body, you need a email script which will query all the associated task and auto-populate the info in the email body. So you need to create an email script and use it in the client template.

Now it is a lot of work, but the only way i guess to achieve what the users want. If they are planning to use this often, it's worth building it. Otherwise they should do it manually.

[HugoFirst]

Hello Geoffrey3,

I have an idea that takes a different tact than the other answers.   The idea is to provide a way for the users to send the emails in one interaction using a simple form.

Are you ready?  Here's goes:

You can setup a catalog item for this.  The form would consist of 2 fields:

1. A list collector pointing to your custom table.

2. A text field where the your user would enter the text for the email.

The form would be linked to a workflow that would have steps to:

- examine the list collector to get the selected records and extract the email addresses. 

 - send an email to those addresses.

The use of the app would be;

1. The user would fill out the form by selecting the records in the list collector and input the text for the email, then submit the form.

2. Once submitted, the work flow takes over. As I mentioned above, it would examine the records in the list collector to get the email addresses.   Once it has a list of the addresses, it can use the workflow email widget to send the email.