Email interaction sections

Release version: Zurich

Updated July 31, 2025

3 minutes to read

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Summary of Email interaction sections

The Email interaction sections in ServiceNow Zurich release provide a comprehensive interface for managing customer email interactions effectively. These sections enable agents to view and update interaction records, manage contacts, compose emails, track communication history, and perform key actions such as case creation and assignment—all within a structured and user-friendly page.

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Contact Management

Agents can manage customer contact information through detailed contact forms capturing personal and company details like name, phone numbers, email, and address. A contact lookup feature allows searching contacts by name, phone, or email with instant matching results and easy selection. Agents can also create new contact records for guest users when necessary.

Interaction Record Details

The interaction form automatically generates a unique interaction number and captures essential information such as interaction type (Email), associated account, contact, consumer details, verification status, current state, assigned user, and a brief description of the issue. Work notes enable internal documentation of progress, visible only to agents.

Email Composition and Communication Tracking

Agents can compose and send emails directly within the interaction record without switching contexts. The first email response sent is used to measure the first response time metric. The activity stream provides a chronological view of all emails, work notes, and field changes, with filtering options to focus on specific types of interaction data.

Contextual Side Panel Applications

Attachments: Access files related to the interaction.
Recommended Actions: Suggest relevant next steps based on current context.
Consumer and Contact Verify: Confirm identities and details for accuracy.
Response Template: Use predefined templates to streamline message composition.
Related Lists: View linked emails, draft emails, tasks, knowledge articles, and open cases to provide comprehensive context.
Customer History: Review historical customer, consumer, or account information with search and filtering capabilities to inform responses.

Key User Actions

Create Case: Create a new case directly from the interaction when needed.
Close: Close the email interaction once resolved.
Save: Save updates made to the interaction record.
Associate Record: Link existing cases to the current interaction to maintain traceability.
Assign to me: Agents can assign new, unassigned interactions to themselves to take ownership efficiently.

Overall, these capabilities help ServiceNow customers streamline customer email communications, improve response tracking, maintain accurate contact and interaction records, and enhance agent productivity through integrated tools and contextual information.

The Email interaction sections enable you to manage information within the interaction record.

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	The contact lookup component enables agents to do the following: Look up a contact by name, phone number, or email address. As the agent types characters in the search box, matching information appears in record cards below the search box. Select a contact after searching by selecting the record card. The selected 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 ID 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.
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 agent’s reference. These notes are visible only to agents and not to the 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	Enables you to filter emails, work notes, and field changes on the interaction.
Activity	Enables agents to view the email conversations between the agent and customer. For more information, see Using the activity stream in an email interaction.

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 Use a response template to compose an email or a work note.
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. UI Actions
Application	Description
Create Case	Enables the creation of a new case from the interaction.
Close	Closes the email interaction.
Save	Saves the updates made in the email interaction.
Associate Record	Enables associating the 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 with the Assigned to field as empty.