Inbound Email Action: Action Type Vs Type

[NehaSNOW]

Hi Members,

What is the difference between the Action type = "Reply Email" and Type = "Reply" in Inbound Email Action?

Please advise.

Thanks,

Neha Pateria

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @NehaSNOW 

• Email reply: sending an email back to the source that triggered the action. [ means the same record]
• Type : The system classifies an email as a reply when it fails to match it to the forward receive type and it meets any one of these criteria:
• https://www.servicenow.com/docs/bundle/yokohama-platform-administration/page/administer/notification...

[Zack Hilacan1]

Hello @NehaSNOW ,

Here's the key difference:

1. Action Type = "Reply Email":
   This is an action that the system will take when processing an incoming email. When set to "Reply Email", the inbound action will automatically send a reply email back to the sender based on the configured script. This is used when you want ServiceNow to automatically respond to incoming emails.

2. Type = "Reply":
   This refers to the classification of the incoming email itself. When an inbound action has Type = "Reply", it means this action will only be triggered when the incoming email is detected as a reply to a previous email sent by the ServiceNow instance. This is used to process follow-up communications on existing records.

To illustrate:

• An inbound action with Action Type = "Reply Email" will send an automatic response regardless of whether the incoming email is new or a reply.

• An inbound action with Type = "Reply" will only process emails that are replies to previous ServiceNow communications, typically to update existing records.

You can find more about this in this Documentation : Inbound Email Actions 

[Rushi Savarkar]

Hello @NehaSNOW 

Please the video below:

https://youtu.be/dhjLiwtT97E

[Viraj Hudlikar]

Hello @NehaSNOW 

Go through this documentation link which will help you to understand the details.
https://youtu.be/dhjLiwtT97E?si=kBC2Gqe662JfNtw9

Email reply: sending an email back to the source that triggered the action.

Reply:
The system classifies an email as a reply when it fails to match it to the forward receive type and it meets any one of these criteria:

• The subject line or email body contains a recognized watermark such as Ref:MSG0000008.
• There is no watermark and the Reply-To header contains a recognized message ID of an email with watermark.
• There is no watermark and the subject line contains a recognized reply prefix such as RE: and a recognized record number such as INC0005574

Note: The Reply-To header for the associated email should have a watermark associated with it, if there is no watermark then it will be classified as new.

If my response has helped you hit helpful button and if your concern is solved do mark my response as correct.

Thanks & Regards
Viraj Hudlikar.