Email Notifications in ServiceNow – A Complete Overview

[yashkamde]

Overview

Email notifications in ServiceNow automatically inform users and teams about important record activities such as assignments, approvals, updates, and SLA breaches. They improve communication, speed up response times, and ensure transparency across processes.

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What Are Email Notifications?

Email notifications are system-generated emails triggered by record changes or system events. They are widely used across Incident, Change, Request, HR, and custom applications.

Common uses:

• Incident assignment and resolution

• Approval requests

• SLA alerts

• Status updates

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How Email Notifications Work

1. A record change or event occurs

2. Notification conditions are evaluated

3. Email content is generated

4. Email is queued and sent via SMTP

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Notification Configuration

Path: System Notification > Email > Notifications

Key elements:

• Table – Source table (e.g., Incident)

• Trigger – Insert, Update, or Event

• Conditions – When the email is sent

• Recipients – Who receives it

• Content – Subject and body

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Notification Triggers

• Record-based: Triggered by insert or update actions

• Event-based: Triggered using system events for advanced use cases

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Recipients

ServiceNow supports:

• Users and groups

• Caller, Assigned to, Requested for

• Watch list

• Scripted recipients for dynamic logic

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Email Content

• Subject and Body support dynamic fields like ${number}

• HTML and plain text formats are supported

• Email scripts allow advanced formatting and logic

• Templates help reuse standardized content

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Events and Event Queue

Events are system signals used to trigger notifications. They are processed asynchronously through the event queue for better performance.

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User Notification Preferences

Users can control how and when they receive notifications via Notification Preferences, including enabling or disabling email alerts.

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Inbound and Outbound Email

• Outbound Email (SMTP): Sends emails from ServiceNow

• Inbound Email: Allows record creation or updates through emails

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Monitoring and Troubleshooting

• Email Logs help track sent, failed, or ignored emails

• Common issues include inactive notifications, unmet conditions, missing email IDs, or SMTP problems

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Best Practices

• Keep notifications clear and relevant

• Avoid excessive emails

• Use templates and events where possible

• Regularly review and clean unused notifications

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Please add the prefix Blog / Article so it is easy for readers to identify whether the content is knowledge-based or a question. @yashkamde 

[UmesH77]

Nice Article ,

Very Helpful.