Hi Community,
I’d like to start a discussion around email notification design and platform adoption strategy.
Currently, ServiceNow allows notifications to include all catalog variables directly in email (for example using ${variables}). While this is convenient, it can unintentionally encourage users and approvers to rely on email rather than working within the platform itself.
From a governance and user adoption perspective, this creates a few challenges:
Users may not log into ServiceNow to review the full request context.
Comments and updates may occur outside the system.
Audit trail and collaboration are weakened.
It reinforces email-based behavior instead of digital workflow adoption.
It reduces visibility into related records, SLAs, and activity history.
Many organizations are trying to increase Employee Center / Workspace adoption, yet sending the full form content in email makes it easy to bypass the platform experience entirely.
Has anyone implemented guardrails or best practices around this?
Should ServiceNow consider limiting or discouraging full variable dumps in email by default to drive in-platform engagement?
I’m interested in hearing how others balance usability vs. platform adoption.
Thanks!
