Reply Type Inbound Email Action

[tulasi8]

Hi Community,

Can anyone please say whether this was the best practice or not in ServiceNow ?If No, what are the issues we face if configured this action .  If yes , how can we implement this ? @Ankur Bawiskar @Dr Atul G- LNG 

create "reply" inbound email action 

and give conditions like "if there is RE in subject " don't create RITM

"if there is NO RE in subject " then create RITM.

Regards,

Tulasi

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @tulasi8 

You can use this approach, but I doubt it is the best way. Since there is a space between the two words, using a single Contains condition to perform the action means that if the condition fails, no action will be taken. Give it a try, but it would be better to use an If condition with the required actions in Flow Designer.

https://www.servicenow.com/community/developer-forum/inbound-action-if-subject-contains-quot-ticket-...

https://www.servicenow.com/community/incident-management-forum/inbound-action-regex-condition/m-p/24...

email.subject.toLowerCase().indexOf(' dl ') > -1 || email.subject.toLowerCase().indexOf('distribution list') > -1

[Nilesh Pol]

@tulasi8 

This is not considered a best practice in ServiceNow if the only logic is based on checking whether the subject contains "RE:" or not.

Instead of checking only "RE:":

First check whether the email belongs to an existing record using:

Watermark
Record Number

If an existing record is identified:

Update the existing record.
Add comments/work notes.

If no matching record is found:

Create a new Request/RITM.

This is how standard ServiceNow inbound email processing is typically handled.

[tulasi8]

As of now, we have only new and forward inbound email actions configured. In this scenario, the user replied to an existing email thread and sent the email to a distribution list requesting a new request creation; however, ServiceNow classified the inbound email as a reply due to the existing email thread/watermark and therefore did not trigger the logic to create a new RITM. How can we handle this use case and ensure an RITM is created when such reply emails are received?

@Nilesh Pol 

[Nilesh Pol]

@tulasi8 When a user replies to an old email thread and sends it to the distribution list:

ServiceNow detects the watermark.
Email type becomes Reply.
New Inbound Action is skipped.
No RITM gets created.

Create a Reply inbound email action specifically to handle this use case. and Check for indicators that the user wants a new request:

Subject contains "NEW REQUEST"
Email body contains "Create new request"
Sent to a dedicated mailbox/distribution group

var createNewRITM = false;

if (email.subject.toLowerCase().indexOf('[new request]') > -1) {
    createNewRITM = true;
}

if (email.body_text.toLowerCase().indexOf('create new request') > -1) {
    createNewRITM = true;
}

if (createNewRITM) {

    // Create Request/RITM

    var reqItem = new GlideRecord('sc_req_item');
    reqItem.initialize();

    reqItem.short_description = email.subject;
    reqItem.description = email.body_text;

    reqItem.insert();

    action.setAbortAction(true);
}