Recipients lists

Release version: Australia

Updated March 12, 2026

2 minutes to read

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Summary of Recipients Lists

Recipients lists are essential for creating child cases linked to major issues. Major issue managers and customer service managers can select a recipients list in the Affected Customers field on the Major Case form. Upon selecting "Create Child Cases," a child case is generated for each account or consumer in the list. Note that the Affected Customers field becomes read-only after child cases are created.

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Key Features

Creation Methods: Recipients lists are created using the Targeted Communications application, allowing managers to create lists by uploading files, selecting dynamic conditions, or utilizing scripts.
Type Specifications: Lists must be exclusively of type accounts or consumers and cannot contain mixed types.
Editing Capabilities: Managers can manually edit recipients lists by adding or removing accounts or consumers through the Recipients List form.
Dynamically Added Records: The recipients list includes a Dynamically Added column that indicates how records were added, whether dynamically or manually.
Active Communication Status: Records are marked with an Active Communication status indicating whether active communication is required.
Refreshing Lists: Recipients lists can be refreshed, which does not affect manually created records; dynamically generated records may reappear if they meet dynamic conditions.

Key Outcomes

By effectively utilizing recipients lists, ServiceNow customers can streamline the management of major issues by efficiently creating and managing child cases. This functionality enhances communication with affected customers and ensures that relevant accounts or consumers are accurately represented in the case management process.

Use recipients lists that contain account or consumer information to create the child cases for a major case.

Major issue managers and customer service managers can select the desired list in the Affected Customers field on the Major Case form. Selecting Create Child Cases then creates a child case for each account or consumer in the recipients list.

Managers can change the recipients list before child cases are created. After child cases are created, the Affected Customers field becomes read only.

Creating recipients lists

Recipients lists are created using the Targeted Communications application. With this application, managers can select the type of list to create and the method used to create the list: by uploading files, selecting dynamic conditions, or using scripts.

The Targeted Communications application creates several types of recipients lists, including accounts, contacts, consumers, and internal users. The recipients list for a major case must be of type accounts or consumers. Recipients lists are limited to one specific type and can’t contain mixed types, for example accounts and consumers.

Note:

The Major Issue Management plugin is dependent on the Targeted Communications plugin. If Targeted Communications is active, recipients lists can be created for internal users. If Targeted Communications and Customer Service Management are both active, recipients lists can also be created for accounts, contacts, and consumers.

Manually editing a recipients list

Major issue managers and customer service managers can manually add or remove accounts or consumers from a recipients list by navigating to the Recipients List form, selecting Edit in the Recipients related list, and then using the arrows to add or remove records.

The Recipients related list includes the Dynamically Added column which displays either True or False, depending on how a record was added:

True for records that are dynamically generated, either by using the condition builder or by running a script.
False for records that are added manually, either by using the Edit button on the Recipients related list or by file upload.

The Active Communication column is set to True by default for both dynamically and manually added records. This field indicates whether the recipient requires active communication.

Refreshing a recipients list

Refresh a recipients list by selecting Refresh Recipient List on the Recipients List form. For major issue management, the following guidelines apply to refreshing a recipients list:

Refreshing a recipients list doesn’t impact manually created records.
If you remove a manually created record from a recipients list, it doesn’t reappear when the list is refreshed unless it meets the dynamic conditions used to filter the list.
If you remove a dynamically generated record from a recipients list, it may reappear when the list is refreshed if it meets the dynamic conditions used to filter the list.
If the Active Communication field is set to false for a record, this setting doesn’t change when a recipients list is refreshed.
If created using the Upload File method, you don’t need to refresh the recipients list.