How we handled BCC

[AM_Guy]

Expectations

This is not a general BCC Solution.   It is a very targeted solution used in a specific circumstance.

Background

We had a requirement where we needed Service-Now to deal with BCC emails from one email address and the email be routed a certain way.   The emails were confidential in nature and so had to be handled properly.

Environment

We use Exchange and setup email in-boxes to forward to Service-Now.   Our Service-Now rules process the email, usually based on the recipients field.

Issue

When we BCC the email address in question, Service-Now has no way of knowing the email address because BCC information is not included in the recipients.   Therefore we don't have a way of knowing the email was sent to this address.

Solution

We changed the forward rule on the email inbox to be an inbox rule as opposed to our normal back-end forward.   When the email is received in Service-Now, we look in the header for "Resent-From: <address@company.com>".

Additional problems caused by this setup

If we send an email to two addresses that forward to Service-Now, Service-Now still receives only 1 email.   Because we changed the forward on this one particular inbox to an inbound rule, Service-Now started receiving two emails and processing two tickets.   See examples below.

Normal Example

Assume I email test1@company.com and CC test2@company.com and both forward to Service-Now.   Service-Now logs one email and will create 1 ticket according to the inbound email actions.

Our BCC Example

Assume I email test1@company.com and CC test2@company.com and test2@company.com has the email forward setup as an inbox rule instead.   Service-Now logs two emails and needs to be setup correctly to handle the emails.