Send change Approval Notifications to Approval Group Email (DL) Only (Not Individual Members)

[charankumap]

Hi Community,

I have a requirement related to change approval notifications. By default, approval notifications are triggered to approvals on the change record, and the notification is sent to all individual users who are members of the approval group.
However, my requirement is different: When a Change Request approval is triggered from a ServiceNow Approval Group (for example, an approval group like CAB, Supervisors, etc.) The approval notification email should be sent only to the Approval Group email address (for example: cab@company.com) The notification should NOT be sent to the individual users who are members of that group

Currently: Even when the approval is associated only with the approval group (and not assigned to individual users), The notification is still being delivered to all group members instead of only the group email address. but in the recipient it was showing DL(group email) only.
How this can achieved?

PFB screenshot for reference:

Thanks in Advance🙂

[GlideFather]

ahoy @charankumap,

I am not sure if this will help but if I remember correctly then a group with defined group email marked as a recipient will send the notifications to the group emails and not to the group member's email addresses. While a group with empty group email value will send to the member's mailboxes.

So perhaps you can manage this on data [sys_user_group] table level...

[charankumap]

Hi @GlideFather ,

Thanks for your response.

To clarify my requirement, I am specifically looking for email notification behavior, not just data management at the sys_user_group level.

I have already created a separate email notification with logic such that:

• If the group email (DL) is empty, the notification should fall back to the individual approvers
• If the group email (DL) is populated, the notification should be sent only to the group DL and not to the individual group members

Even though the notification recipient is configured to send only to the DL (group email) - as shown in the screenshot-the approval notification is still being delivered to individual users who are members of the group.

So the core issue is:

• Despite configuring the group email correctly and using it explicitly in the notification, ServiceNow approval notifications continue to expand the group into individual members.

I’m looking for a way to prevent this group expansion behavior for approval notifications and ensure that, when a group email exists, only the DL receives the notification.

[Tanushree Maiti]

Hi @charankumap 

• Navigate to User Administration > Groups.
• Open the relevant group (e.g., CAB).
• Ensure the Group Email field is populated with the distribution list i.e cab@company.com

Note: If group email is empty in group table and include member checkbox is checked, then then notification will go to Every member of that group.

Also you can try with Notification script / mail script

1. Create a new Notification Email Script.
2. Use a script to fetch the group email and add it to email.addAddress. 

var grp = current.group;if (grp && grp.email) {
    email.addAddress("to", grp.email, grp.name);
}

1. Add ${mail_script:your_script_name} to the body of your notification.