Create an email notification

Creating an email notification involves specifying when to send it, who receives it, what it contains, and if it can be delivered in an email digest.

1. Navigate to System Notification > Email > Notifications.
2. Click New.

   

3. Fill in the fields at the top of the Notification form, as appropriate.

   Field	Description
   Name	Enter a unique name for the email notification. Descriptive names help identify the purpose of the email notification. For example, Incident Opened & Unassigned.
   Table	Select the database table to link the notification to, for example Incident [incident]. Attention: Do not select the Task [task] table. This table is for extending other tables. Notifications that run on the Task table directly are not supported. Note: Only tables and database views that are in the same application scope appear in the list.
   Type	Select the type of notification you are creating: EMAIL or Meeting Invitation.
   Active	Select the check box to enable the email notification.
   Category	Select the category to which this notification belongs. A category identifies and groups related notifications. This notification, if active and subscribable, is listed in the selected Category in the notification preferences for each user (Notifications tab in the System Settings window). Note: Do not leave the category as Uncategorized, as users may not be able to find the notification in their list of notifications. If you need a new category, see Create notification categories.
   Allow Digest	Select the check box if an email digest is to be created for the notification. If selected, the What Digest will contain tab is displayed for creating the digest content.
   Description	Type a description for this notification.

4. Fill in the fields on the When to send tab.

   

   Note: If the same trigger generates multiple notifications, the system only sends one notification. The system considers all other notifications, even if they have a different subject and body, as duplicates. The Ignore Duplicates business rule controls this functionality.

   Field	Description
   Send when	Select under what condition the notification is sent: When a record is inserted or updated When a particular event is fired When triggered as an action step in Flow Designer
   Weight	[Required] Set a numerical value for the notification priority relative to duplicate notifications. Notifications that have the same target table and recipients, or the same subject and body, are considered duplicates. When there are duplicate notifications, the system only sends the notification with the highest weight. All other notifications are moved from the Outbox to the Skipped mailbox. The default value 0 causes the system to always send the notification (assuming the conditions are met). For example, suppose that a service desk agent adds a comment to an incident and shortly thereafter closes it. By default, these actions trigger both the Incident commented and Incident Closed notifications. However, both notifications are from the Incident table and also notify the incident caller. The system only sends the notification with the highest weight, which in this case is the Incident Closed notification. Note: The SMTP Sender scheduled job determines how often to send email. By default, this job runs every minute.
   Conditions	Use the condition builder to select the conditions under which this notification is sent. For example, select Priority > greater than > 3 - Moderate to send the notification only for High and Critical priority incidents.
   Inserted	Select the check box to enable email notification when a record is inserted. This field appears when you set the Send when field to Record inserted or updated.
   Updated	Select the check box to enable email notification when a record is updated. This field appears when you set the Send when field to Record inserted or updated.
   Event name	Select the event that triggers this notification. This field appears when you set the Send when field to Event is fired.
   Advanced condition	Create a script to perform certain actions, like sending a notification based on the current email record, changing field values, or changing system properties. The advanced condition script must return true or set a global answer variable to true to send the notification. The advanced condition script uses the following global variables: current: contains the current record from the table to which the notification is linked. event: contains the event that triggered the notification. Note: The Advanced condition field is evaluated in addition to other conditions you set on the notification. Both the condition and advanced condition must evaluate to true to send the notification.

5. Fill in the fields on the Who will receive tab.

   The following example shows the default view of the tab. The advanced view contains additional fields (see table).

   Tip: Consider limiting the recipient list of any notification to 1000 users. By default, if a notification has more than 100 intended recipients, the system creates multiple notification messages with up to 100 recipients each. If you want to change the recipient limit, set the system property glide.email.smtp.max_recipients.

   

   Field	Description
   Users	Select the users you want to receive the email notification. You can search for users with the reference lookup icon or manually add their email addresses. This list of users is static.
   Users/groups in fields	Select users or groups from reference fields. For example, if a notification uses the Incident [incident] table, you can select users or groups from incident fields like Opened by and Assignment group. This list of users or groups is variable and depends upon the values of the associated task record. Note: You can dot-walk to values in reference fields by clicking the plus sign in the field selector and then selecting the related field. If you address the notification to a user with an inactive record in the User [sys_user] table, the system does not send the notification to that user.
   Groups	Select the groups you want to receive the email notification. You can search for groups with the reference lookup icon or by manually entering the group name. This list of groups is static. Note: Group members receive individual notifications only if Include members is selected in the group record.
   Exclude delegates	Select this option to prevent the instance from sending email notifications to delegates of the users and members of the groups you selected.
   Send to event creator	Select this check box to send the notification to the person who performed the action that started the notification process if the person is also a recipient. If the event creator is not specified in one of the recipient fields, the event creator does not receive a notification regardless of the setting in this field. For new notifications, this option is selected by default. If you want to know why you may not be receiving certain email notifications, see the blog post Troubleshooting email notifications - Send to the Event Creator by a ServiceNow Technical Support Engineer in the ServiceNow Community.
   Event parm 1 contains recipient	Select this check box if the event parameter 1 contains one or more notification recipients (in a comma separated-list). This field is visible only when the Send when field is set to Event is fired.
   Event parm 2 contains recipient	Select this check box if the event parameter 2 contains one or more notification recipients (in a comma-separated list). This field is visible only when the Send when field is set to Event is fired.
   Subscribable	Select this check box to allow all users to subscribe to this notification. See Subscription-based notifications for more information. Note: If the record contains sensitive or protected data, consider restricting the recipient list only to those users and groups who normally have access to it, and do not enable the Subscribable option. You can also configure your notification content so that private or sensitive data is not exposed. For example, you could insert a link back to the associated record, so that details are not revealed in the notification.

   The system does not exclude recipients based on access controls. Recipients can receive email about records that they cannot normally access from the user interface. For example, requesters can receive email about incidents and catalog requests opened on their behalf even though they normally do not have access to these records. If a notification includes record details, verify that all recipients need these details.

   Note: By default, the system does not send email notifications to itself. For example, an email notification from instanceABC@service-now.com does not send to instanceABC@service-now.com. The system prevents this behavior to avoid looping.
6. Fill in the fields on the What it will contain tab.
   The following example shows the default view of the tab. The advanced view contains additional fields (see table).

   

   Field	Description
   Email template	If you want to reuse existing content, select an email template to add content to the email notification. You can only select an email template that meets one of the following conditions: shares the same scope and table as the notification shares the same scope but has no specified table shares the same table and is in the global scope
   Subject	Enter the subject line for the email message. The subject can include variables from the Select variables column. If empty, the system uses the Subject value from the Email template. If you enter a value in this field, it overrides the template value. If your recipients subscribe to the email notification on an SMS channel, then the system sends the email notification subject as an SMS message. To send a different SMS message, fill in the SMS alternate field on the email template form or the email notification form.
   Message HTML	Enter the content of the email notification message. The message can include variables from the Select variables column. Variables map to column names available from the notification table, its parent tables, and reference tables. Use variables to include values from a record in the table such as an incident short description or comments and work notes. The Message HTML field is visible only if you set the content type to HTML and plain text or HTML only. If empty, the system uses the Message HTML value from the Email template. If you enter a value in this field, it overrides the template value. To prevent adding extra <p> and <div> elements to your email notifications, see the blog post Extra line spacing with paragraph tags in email client by a ServiceNow employee in the ServiceNow Community.
   SMS alternate	Enter the notification message to send to an SMS device. The SMS alternate message is limited to 140 characters. If empty, the system uses the SMS alternate value from the Email template. If you enter a value in this field, it overrides the template value. If you don't fill in the SMS alternate field on this form or the email template, then the system uses the email notification subject as the SMS message.
   Importance	Set the importance of the email message to low or high.
   Content type	Select the content type for the email notification: HTML and plain text HTML only Plain text only By default, HTML only is enabled.
   Include attachments	Select this check box to send all attachments from the triggering record as email attachments.
   Omit watermark	Use this check box to apply or remove the watermark attached to each email. If the email does not contain a watermark, the system reviews the conditions of the inbound actions to create or update task records. For more information, and an alternative way to hide watermarks, see Watermarks on notification emails.
   Message Text	Enter the notification message to send in plain text. This field appears when you set the content type to HTML and plain text or Plain text only. If empty, the system uses the Message Text value from the Email template. If you enter a value in this field, it overrides the template value.
   From	Enter the email address that you want the email notification to use in the From field. For example, helpdesk@yourcompany.com. The email must be in a valid format, otherwise a notification message appears near the field. Changing this address may require an advanced email setup such as enabling email forwarding, for example when using Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records for spam detection.
   Reply to	Enter the email address you want people to use when replying to the email notification. For example, helpdesk@yourcompany.com. The email must be in a valid format, otherwise a notification message appears near the field. You can add no more than one email address in this field. Changing this address requires an advanced email setup such as enabling email forwarding.
   Push message only	Select this option to send this notification only as a push notification to a mobile device. The Push Notification feature must be active.
   Push messages	Associate one or more push messages with this notification. The Push Notification feature must be active. Note: The push message and notification must be for the same table.

7. If you selected the Allow Digest check box, fill in the fields on the What Digest will contain tab to create the email digest content for the notification. The following example shows the default view of the tab. The advanced view contains additional fields (see table).

   

   Field	Description
   Digest Template	If you want to reuse existing content, such as headers or footers, select an email template to add content to the email digest.
   Digest Subject	Enter the subject line for the email digest. The subject can include variables from the Select variables column. If empty, the system uses the Subject value from the Email template. If you enter a value in this field, it overrides the template value.
   Digest HTML	Enter the recurring content for the email digest. The digest content can include variables from the Select variables column. Variables map to column names available from the notification table, its parent tables, and reference tables. Use variables to include values from a record in the table such as an incident short description or comments and work notes. To prevent adding extra <p> and <div> elements to your email digest, see the blog post Extra line spacing with paragraph tags in email client by a ServiceNow employee in the ServiceNow Community.
   Digest Separator (HTML)	Use the line to separate each item summarized in the digest.
   Digest From	Enter the email address to be used in the From field of the email digest. For example, helpdesk@yourcompany.com. The email address must be in a valid format, otherwise a notification message appears near the field. Changing this address requires an advanced email setup such as enabling email forwarding.
   Digest Reply To	Enter the email address that you want people to use when replying to the email digest. For example, helpdesk@yourcompany.com. The email must be in a valid format, otherwise a notification message appears near the field. Changing this address requires an advanced email setup such as enabling email forwarding.
   Digest Text	Enter the recurring content of the email digest to send in plain text. This field appears when you set the content type to HTML and plain text or Plain text only.
   Digest Separator (text)	[Optional] Use the dash character as a line to separate each item summarized in the digest. This field appears when you set the content type to HTML and plain text or Plain text only.

   When you save or update the notification, the email Digest option is available for the notification in the notification settings of your users.
8. When you finish creating the notification, click Submit.Or, if you are done modifying the notification, click Update.