Targeted communications

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Targeted Communications

    The Targeted Communications application enables ServiceNow customers to create and send articles and emails targeted at internal and external audiences, including employees, customer contacts, accounts, and consumers. Authorized users with thepublications authorandpublications administratorroles can author, manage, and distribute publication articles that are accessible via self-service portals and can be delivered through email notifications.

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    Key Features

    • Audience targeting: Recipients can be dynamically selected using conditions, scripts, or manual file uploads. Recipient lists support both dynamic and manual entries and allow manual adjustments after creation.
    • Publication lifecycle management: Authors define publish and expiration dates to automate article visibility. Articles progress through defined stages including Authoring, Review, Ready to Publish, Published, Expired, and Canceled, visually tracked via a process flow formatter.
    • Email notifications: Optional email alerts are sent to all recipients upon article publication, using BCC to protect privacy. Delegates of recipients do not receive these notifications.
    • Workflow support: Two default workflows exist—instant publishing and approval-required publishing. Publication administrators can customize workflows and assign publications approver roles to manage reviews.
    • Monitoring and reporting: Both authors and administrators can track which users have received and viewed publications.
    • Access for recipients: Customer contacts and consumers can access publications via the Customer Service or Consumer Service Portals, while employees use the Targeted Communications > Publications module.

    Publication Article Stages

    Articles follow a defined process flow:

    • Author: Initial creation state.
    • Review: Waiting for approval; articles cannot be edited in this stage.
    • Ready to Publish: Approved and ready for publishing.
    • Published: Article is live and visible after the publish date.
    • Expired: Article is no longer visible after the expiration date or manual expiration.
    • Canceled: Pending publications that have been canceled.

    Publication Lists

    The application provides multiple publication views to help manage content:

    • Active Publications: Includes all articles in Author, Review, Ready to Publish, or Published states.
    • Draft Publications: Contains articles created and sent for review but not yet published.
    • Expired Publications: Articles that have passed their expiration or have been manually expired.

    The Targeted Communications application provides the ability to create and send articles and emails to internal and external customers.

    Users with the publications author (sn_publications.author) and publications administrator (sn_publications.admin) roles can use the Targeted Communications application to author publication articles and emails for employees, customer contacts and accounts, and consumers. Articles are available for viewing from the self-service portals and can also be sent out as email notifications.

    Each publication article includes content and a specified list of recipients. Articles can also include optional email notification. Recipients lists can be created dynamically by using a condition builder to identify the desired conditions, by running scripts, or by manual file upload. Recipients can be added to or removed from a list manually and lists can have both dynamically generated and manually added records of the same type.

    When creating an article, publication authors specify a publish date and an expiration date. The system uses these dates to automatically publish and expire the article. Authors can also request a review prior to publishing an article. Articles can include an optional email notification that is sent to all recipients in the recipients list when the article is published. In this email notification, all of the recipients are included in a bcc list to maintain privacy.
    Note:
    Delegates of recipient list users do not receive published email notifications.

    The process of publishing articles is based on workflows and two default workflows are provided: one to publish articles instantly and one that requires approval prior to publishing. Publication administrators can update workflows and add users with the publications approver (sn_publications.approver) role to perform reviews. Both authors and administrators can monitor publications and see which users have received and viewed the information.

    Customer contacts and consumers can view publications by logging in to the Customer Service Portal or the Consumer Service Portal and selecting the Publications link in the portal header. Employees can view these publications by navigating to Targeted Communications > Publications in the application navigator.

    Note:
    For more info see, Components installed with additional plugins for Customer Service Management

    Publication article stages

    Publication articles progress through several stages which are displayed in a process flow formatter on the Publication form.

    Table 1. Publication stages
    Stage Definition
    Author The initial state of the publication creation process.
    Review Publications that are waiting for review. A publication cannot be updated when it is in the Review stage.
    Ready To Publish Publications that have been reviewed and are ready to be published.
    Published Publications that have reached their Publish Date.
    Expired Publications that have reached their Expiry Date or that have been manually expired.
    Canceled Pending publications that have been canceled.

    States are shown in a process flow formatter at the top of the Publication form. The current state is indicated by a blue underline. States that have been completed are indicated by a blue check mark.

    Publication lists

    The Targeted Communications application menu includes several views of publication records.

    Table 2. Publications lists
    State Definition
    Active Publications Includes publications in the following stages:
    • Author
    • Review
    • Ready to Publish
    • Published
    Draft Publications Includes publications that have been created and sent for review.
    Expired Publications Includes publications that have reached their Expiry Date or have been set to Expired.