Email filters
Summarize
Summary of Email Filters
Email filters in ServiceNow allow administrators to specify which inbound emails should be ignored or routed to a specific mailbox. Ignored emails are saved in the instance without processing and can be accessed through the Email [sysemail] record. The Email Filters plugin is active by default in releases after Kingston, while it needs to be activated for earlier versions.
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Key Features
- Default Email Filters: Several pre-configured filters are available, including:
- Ignore VCAL: Ignores emails with vCalendar requests to prevent unnecessary incident creation.
- Ignore Header: Ignores emails containing specific headers and overrides certain properties.
- Junk Email: Filters out emails where the sender is the same as the recipient.
- Ignore Subject: Ignores emails with specific terms in the subject line, with limitations for unknown users.
- Move Spam to Junk Folder: Moves emails marked as spam to the Junk folder based on the spam header.
- Filter Actions: Administrators can define actions such as marking emails as ignored or moving them to the Junk folder. Custom action scripts can also be implemented.
- Spam Scoring and Virus Scanning: Each email is assessed for spam likelihood, allowing for headers to be used for filtering. Emails with virus-infected attachments are ignored.
Key Outcomes
By configuring email filters, customers can effectively manage inbound email traffic, reduce unnecessary incident creation, and enhance email security by filtering out spam and potential threats. This enables a more streamlined email handling process within their ServiceNow instance.
Specify which inbound emails to ignore or move to a particular mailbox.
When an email is ignored, the email is saved to your instance but is not processed. You can access an ignored email by viewing its Email [sys_email] record.
The Email Filters (com.glide.email_filter) plugin is active by default for releases after Kingston, for releases before Kingston, it needs to be activated, for more information see Activate email filters.
Default email filters
By default, the following filters are available from the module:
| Filter | Description |
|---|---|
| Ignore VCAL | Ignores all email containing vCalendar requests. This filter prevents inbound email actions from creating unnecessary incident records when the instance receives a response to sent email. vCalendar requests in email responses are identified by the EmailUtils script include. |
| Ignore header | Ignores email that contains specific headers. This filter overrides the glide.pop3.ignore_headers property. |
| Junk email - sender equals recipient | Filters out emails that are from the same user as the SMTP user to the Junk folder. |
| Ignore subject | Ignores email with specific terms or phrases in the subject line. This filter overrides the glide.pop3.ignore_subjects property. This filter might not apply to emails arriving from unknown users. Unknown users can be locked out. |
| Move spam to junk folder | Moves email identified as spam to the Junk folder. This filter checks for the value
of the ServiceNow spam header. If the header is
X-ServiceNow-Spam-Status:Yes, the filter moves the email to the
Junk folder |
To learn more about enabling spam scoring and filtering, see Email spam scoring and filtering (instance security hardening) in Instance Security Hardening Settings.
Email filter script include
Email filters use a script include called EmailUtils that contains a simple
utility function to determine if vCalendar is in the body of the response
email. The results of this query are used in a condition script in the Ignore
VCAL email filter.
Spam scoring and virus scanning
Every message sent through email servers is assessed for the likelihood of being spam. Based on this assessment, the instance adds headers to each message that can be used for filtering within the customer instance using the Email Filters plugin.
The system also adds the X-ServiceNow-Virus:INFECTED header to an email
that contains one or more virus-infected attachments. The system ignores the email.
Spam scoring and virus scanning are available only for instances that use the ServiceNow email infrastructure. For more information on spam scoring and filtering, see KB0549426.