Email interaction sections

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated May 11, 2026
  • 4 minutes to read
  • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Email interaction sections

    The Email Interaction sections in ServiceNow allow agents to view and update detailed information about customer contacts, interactions, and related activities. This functionality is key for efficiently managing email-based customer communications within the platform, streamlining issue tracking, and enhancing customer service workflows.

    Show full answer Show less

    Contact and Interaction Management

    • Contact Form: Capture essential contact details such as name, phone numbers, email, address, and associated account for each customer contact.
    • Contact Lookup: Quickly find contacts by name, phone, or email using a dynamic search component that displays matching records and allows adding guest users as contacts.
    • Interaction Form: Displays key fields including an automatically generated interaction number, type (Email), account, contact, consumer details, verification status, current state, assigned user, requester organization, and notes describing the issue and resolution progress.

    Communication and Activity Tracking

    • Compose and Activity Stream: Enables agents to compose and send emails directly within the interaction record while maintaining an internal work notes stream for agent-only visibility. It also provides filters to navigate emails, work notes, and field changes, and shows the full email conversation history.
    • AI-Generated Summaries: Offers an AI-powered summary of the email interaction to help agents quickly understand the issue and key actions taken. Agents can refresh, copy, provide feedback, or save the summary, but should review for accuracy as AI summaries may have errors.

    Contextual Side Panel Applications

    • Attachments: Access files linked to the interaction for quick reference.
    • Recommended Actions: Suggests next steps based on interaction context to guide agents.
    • Consumer and Contact Verify: Validate identity or details of the people involved.
    • Response Template: Provides email templates for consistent communication.
    • Related Lists: Displays connected emails, tasks, knowledge articles, and open cases to provide comprehensive context for the interaction.
    • Customer History: Shows historical interactions and data filtered by customer, consumer, or account to inform agent responses.

    AI Summary Card Controls

    These controls allow agents to generate, expand/collapse, copy, refresh, and provide feedback on AI-generated email summaries. An information icon reminds agents to verify the AI’s accuracy before use.

    UI Actions

    • Create Case: Convert the email interaction into a formal case for deeper issue management.
    • Close: Close the email interaction when resolved.
    • Save: Save any updates made to the interaction record.
    • Associate Record: Link existing cases to the current interaction for traceability.
    • Assign to Me: Quickly assign the interaction to the current agent if unassigned and in the New state.
    • Summarize: On-demand AI summarization to assist with understanding the email interaction, subject to entitlement.

    This comprehensive email interaction framework in ServiceNow empowers agents to manage email communications effectively, maintain detailed records, leverage AI assistance, and seamlessly transition interactions into cases, improving overall customer service responsiveness and accuracy.

    Use the sections on the email interaction page to view and update contact, interaction, and activity details.

    Table 1. Contact form
    Field Description
    Name Name of the customer contact.
    Mobile phone Mobile phone number of the customer contact.
    Business phone Business phone number of the customer contact.
    Email Email address of the customer contact.
    Street Name of the street.
    City Name of the city.
    State/Province Name of the state or province.
    Account Account with which the customer contact is associated.
    Table 2. Contact lookup
    Field Description
    Lookup by name, phone, or email Component for looking up a contact by name, phone number, or email address:
    • Search for a contact by name, phone number, or email address. Matching results appear in record cards as characters are entered in the search box.
    • Select a contact by selecting the matching record card. The record card replaces the lookup component.

    You can also create a record to add a guest user as a contact. For more information, see Create a customer contact.

    Table 3. Interaction form
    Field Description
    Number Automatically created interaction number.
    Type Type of customer interaction, which is Email.
    Account Name of the customer contact's company. This field is filled in automatically if the information is available in the contact record.
    Contact Name of the customer contact.
    Consumer Name of the consumer.
    Guest Email Email address of the guest user.
    Verified Option to mark the record as verified or validated.
    State Current state of the interaction. For more information, see Interaction states.
    Assigned to Name of the assigned user.
    Consumer Profile Information about the consumer.

    Requester Organization

    Organization requesting the omnichannel interactions.
    Short description Brief description of the customer issue.
    Work notes Information about the interaction and the work being done to resolve the customer issue.
    Table 4. Compose and Activity stream
    Application Description
    Work notes Internal notes documented for the agent's reference. These notes are visible only to agents and not to customer. When a work note is created, it appears in the Activity stream. For more information on work notes, see Compose a work note for internal use.
    Email Compose and send emails without leaving the record. For more information, see Compose an email response.
    Note:
    The first email response that the agent sends is used to calculate the first response time duration, which is then populated in the First response wait time field.
    Filters Filters for emails, work notes, and field changes on the interaction.

    Activity

    View of email conversations between the agent and the customer. For more information, see Using the activity stream in an email interaction.
    Summarize this interaction Displays the AI-generated summary of the email interaction. Agents can refresh the summary, copy it, provide feedback, or save it to the interaction record.
    Note:
    AI-generated summaries may be inaccurate. Review the summary before using it. Check your entitlements to determine whether you have access to this feature.
    Table 5. Apps on contextual side panel
    Application Description
    Attachments Displays files and documents associated with the current record or interaction.
    Recommended Actions Displays the most relevant next steps based on the current context. For more information, see Using the Recommended Actions application.
    Consumer Verify Confirms the identity or details of the consumer involved in the interaction. For more information, see Lookup and verify.
    Contact Verify Confirms the identity or details of the contact involved in the interaction. For more information, see Lookup and verify.
    Response Template Displays the response template required to respond to the customer. For more information, see Compose emails and work notes using response templates.
    Related Lists Displays associated items such as emails, tasks, knowledge articles, and open cases linked to the current interaction.
    • Related Email Interactions: Lists the email interactions linked to the current interaction.
    • Emails: Displays all the emails associated with the interaction.
    • Draft Emails: Find emails that are currently being drafted and not yet sent.
    • Related Tasks: Lists all cases created out of an interaction.
    • Related Knowledge Articles: Displays relevant knowledge articles that can provide further information related to the interaction.
    • Open Cases: Shows any open cases that are related to the consumer or contact.
    Customer History Displays customer, consumer, or account history information, depending on the customer information provided on the interaction record. This tab includes a search field, filter, and date range selector that agents can use to find specific information in the history. For more information on the customer history, see Customer History component features.
    Table 6. AI summary card controls
    Control Description
    Summarize Generates an AI summary of the email interaction using ServiceNow Otto. The summary appears in the Interaction Summary card and may include Issue, Key Actions Taken, and Next Steps depending on the email content.
    Note:
    AI-generated summaries may be inaccurate. Review the summary before using it. Check your entitlements to determine whether you have access to this feature. For more information, see AI summarization of email interactions and Summarize an email interaction
    View less or View more Collapses or expands the AI summary card.
    Copy icon Copies the summary content to the clipboard.
    Helpful or Not helpful icons Submits feedback on the quality of the AI-generated summary.
    Refresh icon Regenerates the summary when email interaction data has changed since the original summary was created.
    Information icon Displays the AI disclaimer: AI summarized this using the record details. Check it for accuracy.
    Table 7. UI Actions
    Application Description
    Create Case Creates a case from the interaction.
    Close Closes the email interaction.
    Save Saves the updates made in the email interaction.
    Associate Record Associates existing cases with the current interaction.
    Assign to me Assigns the interaction to the current agent.
    Note:
    Assign to me is visible only in interactions in the New state and when the Assigned to field is empty.
    Summarize Generates an AI summary of the email interaction on demand. Check your entitlements to determine whether you have access to this feature. For more information, see AI summarization of email interactions.