Introduction to Email Automation

Workflows just got an automation upgrade! You can now use Workflows to automate emails to send out to a person when a card is moved into a specific step.

Some common use cases would be:

Send a welcome email to a new visitor after they submit a connect form.
Send a confirmation to a volunteer applicant when their application is received.
Send a reminder when a Card lands in a follow-up Step.

How it works

Your Dashboard User account needs either the Workflows Manager or the Administrator role to be able to create and edit email automation on a Workflow

You write the email once and save it on a Workflow Step. When a Card enters that Step, the system sends the email automatically. A Card can enter a Step in two ways:

Manually, when a staff member moves the Card from one Step to another on the Kanban board.
Automatically, when a new Card lands in a Step (e.g. from a form submission).

In both cases, the email goes out immediately to the configured recipient.

What you can configure on each email

Recipient: Who receives the email. Pick the Key Person on the Card or the Default Assignee.
From: The sender name and email address the recipient sees.
Reply-to: Where replies will go.
Subject: The subject line.
Body: The message itself. Build it with text, images, buttons, and personalization tokens for things like the recipient's first name.

How to set up an email automation on a Workflow Step

Each Step can only have one email automation.

To start the setup for email automation on a Workflow Step, the Workflow Step you want to use must already exist. Create the Step first if it doesn't. You can see how to create a Workflow Step here.

Open the Step settings

Open the Step you want to add the email to. There are two ways:

Quick edit: On the Kanban board, click the pencil icon on the Step. This opens an edit modal for that single Step.
Full edit: When viewing the Workflow, click Edit Workflow in the top right to make the whole Workflow editable, then click the Step you want to configure.

In the Step settings, find the Automations section at the bottom and click Add email automation.

Configure the email

Pick the Recipient: Key Person (the person the Card is about) or Default Assignee (the staff member assigned to Cards in this Step).
Set the From name and email. This defaults to your name and email address. Change it if you want a different sender.
Set the Reply-to email. This defaults to your email address. Change it if replies should go to a different address.
Enter a Subject line.
Build the Body in the email editor. Add formatted text, images, and buttons. Use personalization tokens to pull in details like the recipient's first name.

Once you have finished configuring the email, you can click Preview to see how the email will look when it sends. If anything is missing, the system flags the required fields you need to fill in. Click Save when you're ready.

The automated emails will go to the primary email on the recipient's profile.

Viewing automated emails in the Card timeline

This applies to Cards on Workflows that have an email automation configured. Each time the system sends an automated email from a Step, it adds an entry to the Card's timeline.

Find and read a sent email on a Card

To find and review any automated emails, just open the Workflow and click the Card for the person whose history you want to see. From there, scroll to the Timeline section and look for entries labeled as an automated email. Each entry shows which Step triggered the email and when the system sent it. Hover over the entry to see the exact timestamp.

To read the email, just click the email entry. A window will open showing the exact email the system sent: recipient, subject, and body.

FAQs

What email address is this going to for the recipient?

The system sends automated emails to the primary email on the recipient's profile. To change which email the system uses, update the primary email on that profile.

Can recipients unsubscribe from these emails?

Yes. Every automated email includes an unsubscribe link. When a recipient clicks it, they confirm the unsubscribe and stop receiving future automated emails.

Can I delay an automated email from sending out?

While there is not currently any way to add a time delay to the automated email sending out, there is a workaround to help with scenarios where you wouldn't want the email to send immediately.

For the example, you have a Connect Card form where you don't want it to seem like a generic automated email fires off the second the user submits the form. So you would set up your Workflow so that when the Connect Card is submitted, the Workflow card goes into Step 1 which does not have an automation set up. Then on Monday morning, someone goes in and manually moves all those Cards to Step 2 to trigger the Welcome Email Automation that feels a bit more personalized.

The system is not sending out an automated email to the recipient on the card?

The system does not send automated emails in these cases:

The Workflow is archived. Cards on archived Workflows do not trigger emails.
The recipient's profile is archived. No email goes out.
The Card has already triggered this email once. If a Card enters the same Step a second time (e.g., because you moved it back to that Step), the system does not re-send the email.
The recipient has unsubscribed. They will not receive any more automated emails.

Why can't I remove the footer of the email?

In compliance with comply with CAN-SPAM regulations, every email must have an address in the footer. The system defaults to the org address used when the account was set up. However, if there is no available org address, then you can set this up manually when setting up the email automation. If you want the address to be there automatically, then an Admin needs to add a new Location in your Dashboard Settings. Then this location will be the default in the email footer.

Workflows Email Automation