Email integrations let you create incidents, requests, and other records automatically when users send emails to a shared mailbox. This guide walks you through configuring the mailbox connection and inbound actions that parse emails into structured ServiceNow records.
Why email integrations replace manual data entry
Before email integrations, someone had to manually transcribe emails into ServiceNow records — users would email IT@company.com asking for help, and a technician would copy the request details into an incident record. This created delays, introduced transcription errors, and meant important details like original timestamps and sender information got lost. IT teams, HR departments, and facilities groups all dealt with this same problem: emails sitting in shared inboxes waiting for manual processing.
How inbound email processing works
ServiceNow polls a POP3 or IMAP mailbox at regular intervals and runs your inbound email actions against each new message. An inbound action is a condition (sender domain, subject keywords, etc.) paired with a script that creates or updates records. You start with a basic action that creates incidents from any email, then add conditions to route different email types to different record types. The email object in your script contains parsed headers, body content, and attachments. For replies and threading, ServiceNow embeds a watermark in outbound emails and looks for it in replies to link conversations.
Production improvements and advanced routing
Once basic email-to-record creation works, you'll want to add email parsing to extract caller information, automatic assignment based on sender or content, and attachment handling. Smart implementations use regex to parse structured data from email signatures or bodies, create child records for different request types mentioned in the same email, and integrate with external systems to validate senders. The difference between a basic integration and a production one is error handling — what happens when the sender isn't in ServiceNow, when the email format changes, or when the script fails partway through processing.
Before you start
- •admin role or inbound_email_action.admin
- •POP3 or IMAP mailbox credentials with polling access
- •Network connectivity from ServiceNow to your mail server
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Step by step
Configure the inbound mailbox
Navigate to System Mailboxes > Inbound and click New. Enter your POP3 or IMAP server details in the Server field, set the correct Port (usually 995 for POP3-SSL, 993 for IMAP-SSL), and check SSL if your server requires it. Set User name and Password to your mailbox credentials. Leave Poll interval at 60 seconds for testing — you can increase it later.
Test the connection immediately with the Test button before configuring actions — authentication issues are easier to debug now than after you've written scripts.
Create your first inbound action
Go to System Mailboxes > Administration > Inbound Email Actions and click New. Set Name to something descriptive like 'Create incident from IT emails'. Leave Condition empty for now — this action will process all emails. In the Target table field, select 'Incident [incident]'. Check Active to enable the action.
Write the record creation script
In the Script field, add code to create your record. Start with: current.short_description = email.subject; current.description = email.body_text; current.caller_id = email.origemail; The email object contains all message data — email.subject, email.body_text, email.body, email.origemail (sender), and email.recipients. Set whatever fields make sense for your use case and click Submit.
Configure email threading conditions
If you want replies to update existing records instead of creating new ones, add a condition to check for ServiceNow watermarks. In the Condition field, enter: email.body.indexOf('[code:') > -1. This looks for the watermark ServiceNow embeds in outbound emails. Create a separate action for replies with script: var incident = getRelatedRecord(email); if (incident) { incident.comments = 'Email reply: ' + email.body_text; incident.update(); }
Set action order and conditions
Back in your action list, set Order to 100 for your reply-handling action and 200 for your create-new-record action. Actions run in order, so replies get processed first. Add specific conditions to target the right emails — use email.subject.indexOf('keyword') > -1 for subject filtering or email.origemail.indexOf('@yourcompany.com') > -1 for sender domain filtering.
Enable mailbox polling and test
Return to your inbound mailbox record and check Active, then set Poll interval to 30 seconds for testing. Send a test email to your configured address and watch the System Logs > Emails for processing results. Check both that records get created and that any error messages make sense. Once working, increase poll interval to 300 seconds or higher for production use.
Best practices
Always handle the case where email.origemail doesn't match a ServiceNow user — either create a default caller or use email address as caller ID to avoid null reference errors.
Don't use email.body for parsing — it contains HTML and is unreliable across email clients. Use email.body_text for consistent plain text content.
Set specific conditions on each inbound action rather than relying on script-level filtering — unconditioned actions process every email and slow down mail processing.
For email threading to work, recipients must keep the ServiceNow watermark [code:xxxxx] in their replies — document this requirement for users.
Create a catch-all inbound action with Order 999 that logs unprocessed emails to a staging table so you don't lose messages that don't match your conditions.
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