Problem: Email to inactive users

[Annika Aaltonen]

Hi all,

I have understood that it is not possible to send email notifications to inactive users, and I do understand the reasons behind this.

However, on our catalogue items, we have a variable (let's call it variable 1) where the submitter can add users to the watchlist (filtered on active SNOW accounts), and another string type variable (variable 2) where they can add email addresses to the watch list for people who don't have SNOW accounts. 

Now if someone actually has a SNOW account, but it was deactivated due to inactivity, this person would not show up under variable 1. So the submitter proceeds to enter the email address in variable 2 in order to add this person to the WL. The submitter obviously doesn't know if the person ever had a SNOW account or not, they just know that this person is not showing up under variable 1. 

Now this person added to the WL as just an email address won't receive any notifications because of the rule in SNOW that says no notifications are sent to inactive users. And the submitter is left wondering why the WL is not working since the watchlisted contact is not receiving the emails, not knowing that the email contact actually HAS a SNOW account, it's just inactive. Everything is technically working as it should, but I'm sure you can see the problem here. Did anyone ever solve this issue, I would be curious to know?

TIA

Annika

[Sourabh26 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

As you mentioned above the variable 2 is a string type where the user can add the external email addresses (watch list for people who don't have SNOW accounts.)

Then in that case you can configure the emails to be received by external users (who do not have Snow account or there account got deactivated). Although its not recommended to configure external ids to view and updates the changes in ServiceNow.

What I suggest is to not provide the option (variable 2) to add the external ids (other than Snow) for the end user.  We should to communicate/educate the users for the same as it not the good practice to configure.

Mark this as Helpful/Correct, if Applicable.

Regards,

Sourabh