Mail sent to ticket is put into additional comments by default - how to change

[Jens Mogensen]

In tickets and requested items when posting to additional comments, a mail is generated to the user with this content. Conversely when they reply, the reply is put into additional comments. This is fine.

Sometimes the Servicedesk needs to contact someone else by email though. If it's a colleague they will use the @ function and write in work notes. If it's an external provider or another end-user they will use the Email function:

Now here's the issue. When the external provider answers the e-mail sent from the ticket, the answer is automatically inserted into additional comments and thereby is viewable on the service portal as well as sent in an Email to the user. this is very undesirable as the info from Microsoft, Cisco etc. is not always something the user should be privy to. As well as it pretty much being spam if there is a long dialogue between technicians before the issue is resolved. The users don't need to know how the sausage is made so to speak.

So my question: Where do I change the mails sent to a ticket to be logged in work notes in stead of additional comments? Since it's not default, are there any drawbacks to changing this?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[TrevorK]

Inbound Actions: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/orlando-servicenow-platform/page/administer/notification/concept/...

This is mainly what controls the behaviour for emails that come into the instance.

You can also do a Flow with an inbound email trigger but I think out of the box they are still all inbound actions. Here is some docs on Flow with inbound triggers:

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/orlando-servicenow-platform/page/administer/flow-designer/task/cr...

I would focus on the inbound actions - the above with Flow is just in case someone has setup something else on your system

The benefit to additional comments is that anyone with the ticket can see it. And, this is exactly your problem. So no, no issues with putting it into work notes. If you wanted you could get "fancy" and store any internal communication into additional comments and everything else into work notes - however I think this would be complicated to explain to your end-users and would not recommend it for many cases based on that.

If you need any further help with your inbound actions let me know! They are on a per-table basis and should be fairly straight foward but I can always help (just provide the name of the one you need help with or paste the code here).

[Jens Mogensen]

Thanks Trevor, "inbound actions" that makes sense.

As far as I can tell this should be the one. I can't find anything in the code relating to additional comments though. Am I looking in the right place?

[p_espinar · Accepted solution]

The line current.comments = ... is the one , you have to change it to current.work_notes... under the conditions you need.

Un saludo,
Pablo Espinar
Consultant at Econocom Spain

Please mark this response correct if I've answered your question. Thanks!

[Jens Mogensen]

I will try this at once. Thanks!

Will report back when I've tested it.