Send Email action

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Send Email action

    The Send Email action in ServiceNow allows you to send emails to specified users or groups as part of an automated flow. Available in Workflow Studio and accessible to users with theflowdesigneroradminrole, this action enables seamless email communication triggered by record changes or other flow events.

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    Key Features

    • Target Record and Table: Associate the email with a specific record and its table, enabling replies to update the target record automatically.
    • Recipient Configuration: Specify main recipients (To), carbon copy (CC), and blind carbon copy (BCC) using email addresses or data pills representing users or groups. For group emails, ensure the group’s email address is used or that the group includes members if sending to individual members.
    • Subject and Body: Customize the email subject and content using plain text or dynamic data pills. Inline styles can be added, but full email templates with variables are not directly supported and require manual data pill substitution.
    • Outputs: The action produces an email record output, which can be referenced in subsequent flow actions.

    Practical Considerations

    • Recipient limits are controlled by the glide.email.smtp.maxrecipients system property to comply with SMTP restrictions.
    • Access Control Lists (ACLs) apply; ensure users initiating flows have permissions to send emails.
    • Email records can be reviewed in the Email [sysemail] table to verify successful email generation during testing.

    Example Use Case

    An example flow sends an email when an incident is created, provided the Assigned to field is populated and the incident category is inquiry/help. The email is sent to the assigned user, with the subject and body dynamically referencing the incident number.

    Send an email to specified users or groups as an action in a flow.

    Roles and availability

    Available as a Workflow Studio ServiceNow core action. Users with the flow_designer or admin role can add an action to a flow and define configuration details.

    Inputs

    Provide a value for each input that your flow needs. To add dynamic values, you can also drag and drop pills from the Data panel or select them from the pill picker.

    Target Record
    Data type: Document ID

    Record that the email is associated to. When a user sends a reply to your email, the target record is updated with the reply email content.

    Table
    Data type: Table Name

    Table containing the target record.

    To
    Data type: String

    The main recipients of the email. Enter a list of user email addresses separated by commas or white spaces. You can also drag data pills that contain email addresses into the field, such as a User or Group record. For example, if you want to send an email to the group assigned to the incident, drag the [Assignment group] data pill from the data panel.

    To send email to a group, you must provide a Group email address. To send email to group members, the group must have the Include members option enabled.

    Note:
    The number of email recipients must be equal to or less than the maximum number set by the glide.email.smtp.max_recipients system property. See Minimize SMTP Recipient Quantity [Updated in Security Center 1.3] for information about setting this value.
    CC
    Data type: String

    Additional recipients copied on this email. Enter a list of user email addresses separated by commas or white spaces. You can also drag data pills that contain email addresses into the field.

    BCC
    Data type: String

    Additional recipients of this email, who are visible only to the sender (blind copied). Enter a list of user email addresses separated by commas or white spaces. You can also drag data pills that contain email addresses into the field.

    Subject
    Data type: String

    Subject of the email. You can enter text or drag data pills into the field.

    Body
    The content of the message body. You can enter text or drag data pills into the field. The editor formatting options add inline styles. There is no style sheet associated with an email body. You can add your own inline style sheet to this HTML input.
    Note:
    You can partially reuse content from the Email Template [sysevent_email_template] table with some manual editing. The Send Email action can't process Email template variables, which are strings that start with the dollar sign character and include content in curly braces. You must replace email variables with references to data pills. For example, replace the string ${number} with a data pill reference to an incident record number.

    Outputs

    These outputs appear in the Data panel. You can use them as inputs elsewhere in your action or flow.

    Email
    Data type: Record

    Email record created.

    Configuring instance Email

    For information about configuring your instance to send and receive email messages, see Configure email administration.

    Testing the email action

    To verify that the email was generated when testing the action, review the email record in the Email [sys_email] table. The Headers field indicates whether the email was successfully generated. For example:Email header generated by the Send Email action ACL restrictions apply to the Send Email action. If you configured your flow to run as the user who initiates the session, ensure that the user can access email. To test access controls for a Send Email action, impersonate a typical email sender and manually trigger the flow.

    Send email when incident created

    Flow that sends an email message to the assigned to user of an incident record

    In this example, the system sends an email whenever an incident record is created where the Assigned to filed is not empty and when the incident category is inquiry/help. The incident trigger record provides the values used by the send email action. For example, the email is sent to the email address of the assigned to user, and the email subject and email body both refer to the incident number.