Use the Send an Email action to send an email from within a flow. The resulting email may contain values referenced using:

  • @contact variables
  • @flow variables
  • @date
  • @channel
  • @step
  • @extra 
  • @parent
  • expressions, e.g. @(HOUR(NOW()))


In the example below, we demonstrate how a job training agency might use this action to send an email to staff notifying them that an applicant has registered to get more information about a training program.



@flow.registration_date references the registration date collected at a previous step in the flow. The same is true for @flow.industry.



Create an Email Pipeline

This action is also a super simple way to push a contacts’ inquiry to a team member. Simply create a flow that asks for a contact’s name, inquiry and preferred response method, and configure Community Connect to send an email containing that info off to your support feed or Slack channel. Team members will be able to instantly access the ticket via your CRM or Slack feed and respond accordingly. 



The variable @flow.name references the name of the contact if you collected it at a previous step, while @flow.inquiry and @flow.preferred_channel reference the contact’s inquiry and the way they’d like you to respond (SMS, Call, Email), respectively. Note that if a contact's "Name" field has already been given a value, you may substitute @flow.name for @contact.name or @contact.first_name. 



Using your Own Address

By default, Community Connect sends emails from no-reply@communityconnectlabs.com. If you’d like to add your own address, simply navigate to your account’s settings page and click the email icon.



Here we’re using a Gmail-hosted email address. You’ll want to plugin your email address, host URL, credentials, port and encryption preference. In the example above, encryption needs to be set to TLS because that’s the protocol Gmail’s SMTP port 587 uses.



Gmail-Specific Considerations

If you want to link a Gmail address to Community Connect, you’ll need to switch the ‘Allow less secure apps’ setting in your Gmail account’s ‘Connected apps & sites’ page to ‘ON’:

https://myaccount.google.com/security#connectedapps


Note that a standard Gmail account is limited to 500 emails per day. Learn more about Gmail’s limits here:

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/22839?hl=en