TechNow Ep 64 | Engage users with the ServiceNow email client

[Chuck Tomasi]

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Originally aired: June 25, 2019 8:00 AM PT

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Questions and Answers

While testing Madrid version in Dev and QA, my cc people are not receiving the email. Where would I look for information on that?

-- Mary Klein

I would start by checking System Mailbox> Sent to ensure the headers are correct. Also ensure the recipients have valid email addresses, have notifications enabled, subscribed, etc. There are lots of places to "turn off" email. If you cannot fin it, consider contacting customer support for additional help.

-- Chuck Tomasi

I assume the From address can be different and different than the Reply To address. So i can say the email is from ME but if they reply it goes back to the instance email. does the email contain a watermark?

-- Matt Small

Yes, that would work.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can the Email Address Filter blacklist specific email addresses rather than entire domains?

-- Nia McCash

As I understand it, you could whitelist a domain and then have email address exceptions that would NOT be whitelisted (hence blacklisting a specific address.) I haven't had a chance to test this out yet.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Lastly can quick messages use mail scripts?

-- Vincent Stefano

No, not at this time.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Recommend a better solution to attachment is a link you your KB article instead. management of the KB article is most likely easier

-- Matt Small

Thank you

-- Chuck Tomasi

How is the email client different than adding comments (that in turn, sends out email to the requestor) ?

-- Siddharth Jain

With the email client, you have flexibility in determining who the email goes to, the subject, and the body. Notifications are pre-set to have specific recipients, specific subject lines, etc.

-- Stacey Bailey

what happens if that invalid field is first in your quick message

-- Matt Small

The remainder of the message will not display.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can you constrain the to so you cant put a free form email

-- Jean Boiteux

Yes, you can use the recipient qualifier.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Is there a way to move the Email to the main page. For example make it a button similar to the "Save", "Update" buttons.

-- Dwayne Turner

I'm not sure which main page you are referring to. Perhaps we can have a longer discussion (including mock up screenshots) in the comments below.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Are Email client activities recorded in object (incident, task)?

-- Hari Jobanputra

Yes, as long as your activity filters are showing Sent / Received emails, these emails should appear.

-- Stacey Bailey

can you easily change the default SUBJECT on a quick message

-- Marc Love

Quick messages only deal with the message body, not the subject.

-- Chuck Tomasi

About my question for email client configuration, you can ignored it because I have confirmed this is from Madrid and I am in London. Thanks anyways!

-- Steven Chaparro

So, if you change the "From" email to a company email address does this only then post to the ServiceNow case or will it send a copy to the from email as well?

-- MATT HARRIS

Think of "From" as a display value. It doesn't impact who receives the message. "From" doesn't get a copy of the message from the email client.

-- Chuck Tomasi

If someone responds to the email, will the Servicenow instance get the reply, so that i can process it? or has changing the "from" eliminated that capability?

-- James Kailukaitis

You can change the "From" address - it's more of a "display value". Reply-to is what tells email how to get back to the instance.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Any emails sent thru the client will include the token that references the ticket in case they reply to the email?

-- Ricardo Rivera

You are referring to the "watermark" on messages. Those are applied by the outbound email engine. Yes, they are there for email client messages also.

-- Chuck Tomasi

What version are you demoing

-- Jana Brooke

This webinar was done on Madrid. Sorry for not mentioning that.

-- Chuck Tomasi

If I "spoof" the sender, will a reply automatically come back to ServiceNow. Also do the spoofed emails run into problems with email inbound filters?

-- John Feist

As long as the reply-to address is back to the instance, you won't have an issue. You can modify the From address all you like.

-- Chuck Tomasi

We are considering using ServiceNow to "intake" emails from our employees to Service Desk. In this, we have identified we can use Interaction Records and the Agent Workspace to record email intake into a working record. Is there any special functionality of the email client in regards to communicating/contacting a caller that makes it easy to flow work between responses and Technical Support Reps?

-- Justin Nelson

I'm not entirely sure I understand the ask here. The email client has a specific purpose of sending on-demand outbound messages. If you like, let me know more of what you are looking for in the comments below or engage with a ServiceNow Solution Consultant. Thank you.

-- Chuck Tomasi

When testing inbound email action, emails do not always reach ServiceNow (not present in logs). Issue is probably on (company) email server side but no way to confirm. Any new features like email server monitoring for ServiceNow?

-- Lon l Landry

Sorry, I wasn't able to touch on that topic. Perhaps debugging inbound actions can be a topic for another show. If you require assistance sooner, I recommend reaching out to the community or customer support. Thank you

-- Chuck Tomasi

I cannot see the email client configuration in my navigator search , I am in kinston version

-- vinay kumar cherukumalli

The email client configuration menu has been added recently. The core capabilities, though, go back several years. For Kingston, add the email client attribute to the table to get started. Here is the documentation that relates to Kingston features of the email client: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/kingston-servicenow-platform/page/administer/notification/concept...

-- Stacey Bailey

Messages sent from the email client are not easily found in the activity tracker. Is there a way to get them to appear, similar to Additional Comments? Could the body of the email client be more prominently displayed in the Activity tracker without being copied into Additional Comments, which might trigger additional notifications?

-- Mike Adams

Emails sent from the email client are marked as "Email sent" and contain the Subject, To, From, and Cc lines. Since the body can be quite long, it's hidden by default with a "More" link to expose it. This keeps the activity formatter from getting unruly.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can you talk about how to process incoming emails? Specifically concerning receiving data or attachments from customers.

-- Brandon Phillips

This webinar focused on the email client. Processing inbound mail could be a future topic. Thanks for the idea.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Are there any plans to build on the new functionality of embedded email surveys in Madrid, such as more supported question types, requiring mandatory fields, etc?

-- Rebecca Nizamuddin

I haven't heard of any, but that doesn't mean it's not on the roadmap. I often don't have insight to what's coming at that level. I invite you to open an enhancement request! Our product managers DO listen.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can the users create their own quick messages or does the admin have to do it for them?

-- Ronald Lehmann

Currently this is an admin function, but you can add ACLs to the table sys_email_canned_message if you like.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can you make it push to the mobile app

-- Philip Hulshizer

The SMS feature allows you to send your messages to a mobile device (not a specific app) if the user has a mobile channel configured. You can also look in to Push notifications.

-- Chuck Tomasi

If you specify a group as the recipient and check SMS will it be able to traverse each member of the group to see if they have an SMS channel record and send an SMS message?

-- James Higgins

That's my understanding, but I haven't had a chance yet to validate it.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Clients currently when they reply to the incident email through outlook result in duplicate emails being sent to the technician and also duplicate activity notes in the incident. Upon checking the business rules, email triggers and logs - we see this ONLY happens when a client replies to a ticket through email. We still are not able to find the root cause for this.

-- Fabian Ramirez

Unfortunately this isn't related to the topic discussed in this webinar. I recommend reaching out to customer support if you have issues with your inbound actions. What you described is not the expected behavior.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can you send a quick message to a group? All ITIL users for example?

-- Jeff Gonia

The quick message is simply the content. The recipients are controlled by the email client template record.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Stacey is the Sender Configuration a new feature in Madrid?

-- Karen Guerra

I believe the UI for configuring it easily is from Madrid, but the ability to set the "From" field in the email client goes back a few releases. In Kingston, for example, you may write code in the client template like below to set the email From address. javascript&colon;gs.getUserDisplayName() " <" gs.getUser().getEmail() ">" Kingston Docs article on this: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/kingston-servicenow-platform/page/administer/notification/task/t_...

-- Stacey Bailey

Can quick messages be unique to each person?

-- James Petersen

There's a User field, so yes. Putting your name in that field would limit that particular quick message to you.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Does it use Notify API to send SMS ?

-- Sundeep Singh

No. It uses phonenumber@carrier.com

-- Chuck Tomasi

Will you be sending us the link to the recording of this Webinar or the link of where it will be stored?

-- Anthony Nuccetelli

Of course. You'll receive an email as well as a link to all episodes, including Q&A. (Link included here also: https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=4d6eaeaddbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961964 )

-- Stacey Bailey

What if we want the "From" to display the name in the "Assigned To" field?

-- Patrick Canary

I don't see a way to do it at this point. I love the idea. Consider putting in an enhancement request on HI.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Will Quick Messages be allowed to use mail scripts anytime soon?

-- kristin Acree

I haven't heard, but you can register your desire using an enhancement request on HI. Our product managers do listen!

-- Chuck Tomasi

Does the custom FROM email need to be a legitimate email address?

-- Siddharth Jain

No, but I recommend it is.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Where can we make the From reflect the Assigned To tech name? People largely ignore "From Helpdesk"

-- Patrick Canary

Currently I cannot think of a way to do this with email client configuration or email client templates.

-- Chuck Tomasi

So that email sent via this method stands out in the receipient's inbox, I edit the subject line to draw attention to it. For e.g.: [*Pending clarification], [*Update as of xyz]. [*Complete]...followed by the default text.

-- Bhavna Hilligrass

It certainly does. Thanks for sharing.

-- Stacey Bailey

Are there recommended ways that HelpDesks can integrate their shared inbox into ServiceNow to create incidents and service requests?

-- Jennifer NaleN

I recommend looking in to inbound actions. You can do away with shared inboxes and make use of assignment groups to keep your work centralized in ServiceNow. Let me know in the comments below if you want more information.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can you use this for survey after the incident is closed?

-- Justin Oparaugo

The email client is not related to surveys.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Is there any OOB tables we should avoid using email on?

-- Jonathan Sandoval

On some tables, it will not be useful. CMDB perhaps...but as Chuck is showing, I would limit it's access.

--

what role(s) required to do tht configuration

-- John Feist

admin is required to configure the email client. Sorry for not mentioning this in the webinar.

-- Chuck Tomasi

are the emails sent via email client logged in the activity log (additional comment specifically for INC)?

-- Jenny Hu

Yes

-- Chuck Tomasi

If you change the from address, how does hat work if someone replies? Are those replies not processed by SN?

-- Jana Brooke

Replies come back to the instance via the Reply-to field, not From. Think of the from field as a "display value" that shows up in someone's email client.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Changing the from address would prevent the reply from being captured within the record?

-- Ronald Lehmann

Typically you want to keep the from and reply-to addresses in sync, but there are times when you want them to vary. If the reply-to doesn't come back to the instance, you won't get it captured in the record.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Do you have a document that walks you through the tip shown for previewing mail scripts

-- Philip Hulshizer

I will create one and share in the Q&A answers. Thanks!

-- Stacey Bailey

Is there any way to add additional conditions as to what quick messages are visible? For example, we have domain separation and we'd like to say if the record is x domain only show those quick messages for that domain.

-- Vincent Stefano

Not at this time that I'm aware of. I'm not an expert in Domain Separation. However, customer support may know more.

-- Chuck Tomasi

We often get complaints about too much email. I think that in Kingston or Madrid release email digests was introduced. Can you possibly show or talk about how the email digest works? Thanks!

-- Leah Ghedir

Sorry we didn't have a chance to talk about that on this episode. It might make a good future episode. Thanks for the idea.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can a user apply multiple Canned Messages in one email?

-- Eran Spira

I believe that, when you select a quick message to apply in the email, it replaces the existing message in its entirety.

-- Stacey Bailey

I was troubleshooting an issue reported to me in which a notification was not being triggered. On the topic of mail scripts, I ended up finding out if the reference to the mail script is accidently made into a hyperlink, it will prevent the entire notification from being triggered. I dont believe that is documented anywhere, so i found it interesting :)

-- Mike Morales

OH, absolutely, Mike! That is very important. Thanks for sharing that. We will include this in the Q&A for you to try to raise awareness.

-- Stacey Bailey

For the email client to work does the instance email receive have to be set to active or will the email client work with send only active?

-- James Cook

You need to configure outbound email to use the email client. Without it, the email won't get sent. Inbound email is not required.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Are signatures (especially a personal one for one person) intended to be self-service and edited by users in production? Who manages (creates/edits) other canned messages in production?

-- Fuat Baran

Personal signatures are not available out of the box, however I have heard of customers building custom solutions for them. It typically requires some custom scripting so proceed with caution.

-- Chuck Tomasi

CSM has emails as a related list which is much more useful than the activity log, as everything done via email is in a list. Can I do that in other tables? I cannot find the related list.

-- Philip Hulshizer

Yes, add the "Emails" related list.

-- Chuck Tomasi

this may not be directly related to the email client, however, why when i want to create a new field on a table, can i not select the "Email" type field. i have to use a string field, then go to list view of the dictionary, write a filter to find an email type field and my new field, then highlight both field types and double click the email option to set my new field as an email field.

-- Steven Young

I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to accomplish so it's difficult to advise on using the email. Perhaps we can have more of a discussion in the comments below.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can you create a signature line in the email client?

-- David Garber

Yes using a client configuration record.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can you provide a link to where I can find the rest of the videos in this series? I am finding this very helpful.

-- Irene Mascari

You can find all the TechNow episodes at http://bit.ly/servicenow-technow

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can we change 'FROM' email address based on Quick Messages picklist selection?

-- Anupama Duggaraju

Quick messages cannot configure the from address at this point.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Currently in the Activity Log, the emails are sent from System. Can we configure it so it shows who is logged in as the Sender?

-- Mary Klein

The system shows its from system, however the person who updated the record is also captured. This is by design.

-- Chuck Tomasi

If you change the email address, that won't keep the communication chain in service now, will it?

-- James Petersen

I'm afraid I don't understand the question. Perhaps you can clarify in the comments below.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Don't you need to configure an inbound email action for the reply to be processed onto the form?

-- Sharon Menachem

Yes. There are some great examples available out of the box.

-- Chuck Tomasi

So essentially, you are shifting collaborations using the Work Notes field to using the Email Client.

-- Reza Asachi

Work notes/comments may or may not automatically trigger notifications. The email client is a manual way to do this.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Email Client: How are Undeliverable emails managed? Who get's the bounce back, the user or the instance@service-now.com?

-- Peter Castillo

The sender always gets the bounce back. You'll find information in the email logs.

-- Chuck Tomasi

If I dont have email client configuration on the application navigator, but I can send an email from a record. How to get to the email configuration?

-- Steven Chaparro

It sounds like someone has disabled your email client configuration menu or you may have a very old release. I recommend reaching out to customer support.

-- Chuck Tomasi

for to email addresses, is there a contact list or does it connect to your contact list from your email client

-- Ken Shaw

You can either use names from the User [sys_user] table or type in email addresses.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Does SMS messages tie back to the activities?

-- James Petersen

Yes

-- Chuck Tomasi

Does the email client send email from service-now.com email address or using MY email address?

-- Siddharth Jain

Chuck will review the configurations where you can set who the email comes FROM. I think that should be coming very soon.

-- Stacey Bailey

We are using a template which is branded with HTML header with logo, etc. When a user responds to the message, the HTML images are added to the incident has attachments. Is there anyway to avoid this from occurring?

-- Cyndi Major

Yes. There are some email properties to help this starting in London I believe. Work with customer support and they can help you.

-- Chuck Tomasi

on the client templates, is there any plans on being able to set a "Email Layout" i wrote some custom code to use a layout in my client templates. this give it our company branding.

-- Steven Young

If you implemented this with code, you could always try calling that with a mail script.

-- Chuck Tomasi

It may be covered, but just in case. Can I add a related list at the bottom of a form showing the back and forth emails? This exists in CSM, but I have not been able to find anywhere else.

-- Philip Hulshizer

Yes, the activity filter can show sent / received emails, which will include emails sent using the email client.

-- Stacey Bailey

Can we use the email client with a client template and a quick message?

-- Patricia Britt

Yes. In fact, I just set this up a few weeks ago to do just that.

-- Stacey Bailey

Just verifying - email client configuration and email client templates require Madrid?

-- Doug Yorke

Client templates have been around for a very long time (check System Policy> Email> Client Templates). Much of the client configuration I showed is new to Madrid.

-- Chuck Tomasi

How would you dynamically add the senders Name and title to any email they send with the email client?

-- Drew West

That depends where you want to add it. If it's in the body, you can use a mail script in an email client template.

-- Chuck Tomasi

question for a job title. Chuck, What is a Sr. TPMM?

-- Steven Young

Sr. Technical Product Marketing Manager. Sr. TPMM fits on conference badges better. :)

-- Chuck Tomasi

Stacey I would be interested in getting the steps for your quick tip.

-- Karen Guerra

Thanks. I will post those in the Q&A.

-- Stacey Bailey

Can you give some examples of why you would want to use this email client?

-- Pete Pulido

In my system, I have records I would like to contact the people on the record without creating an incident or something.

--

how do you setup the email to use my company email vs. servicenow email. From=John.Smith@mycompany.com instead of @Servicenow.com

-- Anicetus Fernando

Reach out to customer support. They can help you with this. It's a bit too extensive to cover in a quick comment.

-- Chuck Tomasi

can you change the default SUBJECT in a quick message?

-- Marc Love

Quick messages affect the message body only, not the subject.

-- Chuck Tomasi

I use [the email client] ALL THE TIME

-- Bhavna Hilligrass

It is very flexible and useful!!

-- Stacey Bailey

Will these emails be added to the activity of that ticket as well?

-- Vijayanand Dhandapani

Absolutely. 🙂 It's a great way to consolidate all email communication -- both notification-based as well as ad-hoc emails.

-- Stacey Bailey

Is it possible to include just the latest E-Mail reply as an activity log entry (i.e., not the entire stream)?

-- Bill Roberts

Yes. There is a property to determine where to "break" the new content from the reply chain. Check the System Properties> Email properties and look under the inbound email configuration for a property called "Discard everything below this text if found in a reply body (comma separated, case sensitive)"

-- Chuck Tomasi

Will this only affect the from field, but still have reply-to back to service now for activities to be updated?

-- James Petersen

Reply-to is required for responses to get back to the instance. From is more a "display value".

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can we use script in TO or CC field of Client Template to dynamically populate the value from different table?

-- Saurabh Kumar

At this point it only accepts field names (e.g. opened_by, caller_id, etc.) that reference sys_user.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Are the quick tips documented somewhere?

-- Akshaya Shetty

They will be captured in the recording for replay, but I'll also enumerate the steps for today's in the answered Q&A thread, which will be posted here: https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=4d6eaeaddbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961964

-- Stacey Bailey

You can send a quick message (text message) in conjunction with an email, correct?

-- Ian, Atwater Atwater

If you check the SMS checkbox, messages will be sent as SMS. It's either/or.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Is there a way for the email attachments to display in the work notes in Incident when it shows the message?

-- Seth Friedt

Only if the attachment is an image.

-- Chuck Tomasi

We had a partner configure our instance, and I don't see email client configuration. How can I get this back?

-- Kerri Gibson-Tutt

Check the dictionary attribute email_client=true on the table(s) in question

-- Chuck Tomasi

Thanks. If HTML content has screenshot, would that show up too?

-- Hari Jobanputra

Yes, I tested this just a few weeks ago. Screenshots and images included in the email will show in the Activity log as part of the email body.

-- Stacey Bailey

what happens to a reply to an sms?

-- Patricia Britt

As far as I know, it's treated as an incoming email back to the instance.

-- Chuck Tomasi

The tip was a little fast, are there written description of the steps published.

-- James Kailukaitis

I can add those steps in the Q&A responses. The formula to generate the code to call the mail scripts looked like this. ="${mail_script:"&[@Name]&"}"

-- Stacey Bailey

Any way to domain separate/filter the quick messages based on the company/domain of the record initiated from?

-- Vincent Stefano

Not that I'm aware at this point, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You might want to check with customer support to verify.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Hi, there was a 'glitch' when you shown us the "mail script excel tips". :'(

-- Olivier Docteur

We repost this on YouTube perhaps you can come back and watch it.

--

Are there email scripts for the risk module?

-- Dale Ott

I'm afraid I'm not strong on risk so I cannot answer that.

-- Chuck Tomasi

can we send emails to users outside ServiceNow?

-- Ashok Katam

Yes. As I was just mentioning, in my system I have just email addresses in a Watch List and I want to send them messages.

--

Is there any way to pull data from the form with quick messages?

-- Vincent Stefano

Yes. Use the ${fieldname} convention like in a normal notification.

-- Chuck Tomasi

is it limited to just User and Group, or can you limit access by Role as well?

-- Trent Landreth

I assume your question was around quick messages. The answer at this time is user and group.

-- Chuck Tomasi

does this need a plugin? I can't find Email Client in my navigator

-- Diane Ledbetter

It's part of the platform. No plugin required. Configuration is done in the "Email client" application. If you don't see it, contact customer support. Someone may have disabled a menu option.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can the quick messages be set to not overwrite the template that might be populating the body when you open the email client? Just append it to the end or beginning?

-- Kaleb Long

As of now, the message is replaced in its entirety. Please submit this as an enhancement. I'm sure many customers would find this incredibly useful.

-- Stacey Bailey

Can the SMS option be configured per table in the Email Client Configurataions?

-- Tony DiRienzo

The SMS option is controlled by a system property, not by table.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can you add mail scripts to the quick messages?

-- James Petersen

Not at this time.

-- Chuck Tomasi

How about inserting dynamic data like the name of the user composing the email? (this may be different from the Assigned To)

-- Eran Spira

I'm afraid I don't understand the question. Where are you interested in inserting dynamic data?

-- Chuck Tomasi

Can SN make the email client easily configurable to include the company branding?

-- Annabel Nemmers

Great suggestion. I recommend you create an enhancement request from HI.

-- Chuck Tomasi

If we change the 'From' address to some text and a user responds to that email, still that will be targeted to respective record?

-- Vijayanand Dhandapani

Yes. The outbound email engine is what puts the watermark on the message. It doesn't matter if it was sent from the email client or automatically by a notification record.

-- Chuck Tomasi

We had contractors build email client templates, and I believe Chuck stated we could change the Sender configuration from a different address than the Instance email address.

-- Karen Guerra

Yes, that was covered in the video. There are several options (per table) you can do for the From address.

-- Chuck Tomasi

Why isn't the Save option a default option on the top ribbon bar? We've had users hit submit on different things and not realize they had to go back in to actually do something else.

-- James Petersen

This question doesn't seem related to the Email client. Sorry, I don't recognize the context. Perhaps this is a good question for the community.

-- Chuck Tomasi

How do you manage the emails going out from the Email Client and the emails that are sent via the Notification engine? Wouldn't the receivers get confused between the two?

-- Reza Asachi

Email client is meant for on-demand (manually triggered) email notifications. The notification engine does them automatically based on rules you set. I don't see a conflict.

-- Chuck Tomasi