Use email notifications to send selected users email or SMS notifications about specific activities in the system, such as updates to incidents or change requests.

Email notifications allow administrators to specify:
  • When to send the notification
  • Who receives the notification
  • What content is in the notification
  • Whether the notification can be delivered in an email digest and if so, the digest content

Additional email notification options are available. Users can subscribe to notifications, and administrators can make some notifications mandatory.

Administrators also have the option of converting existing email notifications to a rich HTML format. This format provides several advantages, including:
  • Raw HTML content is converted into a WYSIWYG format.
  • The content can be edited in a feature-rich HTML editor.
  • Mail scripts are condensed into a single, easy-to-read line that can be reused in multiple email notifications.
  • To prevent broken links, items like images and incidents, that are linked with URLs relative to an instance are converted to absolute links. For example, if an incident is linked using a relative URL, the link is converted to an absolute link.
Note: The rich HTML format is the default for all new email notifications.
Note: Instances cannot send or receive encrypted email messages. The system strips out the body of the encrypted email because it cannot process the encrypted content in plain text or HTML.

An email notification can also send as an SMS notification if the recipient has subscribed to the notification on an SMS channel. The system uses the subject line of the email notification and converts it to an SMS message. If the administrator doesn't want to use the email notification subject for the SMS notification, they can define an alternate SMS message in the email template form or email notification form. For more information, see Create an email notification.

For more information on creating an SMS channel, see Create notification channels.

For more information on setting up SMS notification see KB0712569.

If you want to change how the instance processes incoming email, see Inbound email actions. See System email log and mailboxes for examples of messages the system displays when notifications or inbound email actions are not processed.