Email Not Showing in Activity Stream for Some Cases

[SNOW_22]

Hi All,

We are facing an issue with inbound emails creating Cases in ServiceNow.
When an email is received, a Case is created. For some Cases, the “Email received” entry is visible in the Activity Stream. For other Cases, the email is NOT visible in the Activity Stream. In some of the corresponding sys_email records, the Target field is empty. In other records, the Target is populated and the email appears correctly.

Expected Outcome
All received emails that create Cases should appear in the Activity Stream of the respective Case.

Additional info:
We are using custom Flows (Flow Designer) for inbound email processing.
Issue occurs in both Classic UI and Workspace.
Email type is “received”.
Some emails link correctly, some do not.

What could cause the Target field in sys_email to remain empty in certain scenarios?
When using Flow Designer for inbound email, is it mandatory to explicitly update the sys_email record with the Case sys_id?

Is there any OOB behavior difference between Inbound Email Actions and Flow-triggered processing that impacts Activity Stream visibility?
Any suggestions or best practices to ensure consistent Activity Stream updates would be greatly appreciated

[Ankur Bawiskar]

@SNOW_22 

yes the target field should be updated so that the linkage happens between Case and Email record

then only that email will be shown in Activity stream

Please update your inbound flow to update that Target field and then test

💡 If my response helped, please mark it as correct ✅ and close the thread 🔒— this helps future readers find the solution faster! 🙏

[srijareddy4]

Thank you for your answer. However, we are still facing a scenario where, even though the Target field is populated with the Case number, the email is not appearing in the Activity Stream.
In such cases, what additional checks should be performed?
Apart from verifying the Target field and confirming that the Activity Stream filters include Emails and Attachments, are there any other configurations or components within the Activity Stream that could cause emails to be missing?

[Ankur Bawiskar]

@SNOW_22 

is it not visible even by admins?

[srijareddy4]

Hi @Ankur Bawiskar ,

Yes, even for admins its not visible.