One of the most common requirements is to be able to email a copy of the Form entry to various people.
For example, if a building inspection is performed you may want to email a Certificate of Inspection to the building owner.
Or if you are taking a product order from a customer, you might want to send them an order docket or invoice automatically.
This is where the Email Connector for Forms comes in.
You can add as many Connectors as you like to a Form, via the Connectors page.
The Connectors page can be accessed from your Form design or settings pages.
or from the Screens listing if you mouse over the Form row in question.
Adding a Connector
Once you are in the Connectors page, setting up an Email Connector is easy:
Click on “Add Connector” button to see a list of the available Connectors.
The Choose Connector Popup window will appear.
Click the Email option.
This will refresh the page and display your Email Connector, ready for configuration.
* Note that at this stage nothing has been saved – you must click the Save button to save your Connector after you’ve finished setting it up
Your first decision is what format you want your Form entry data to be sent as.
You have the choice of:
Body: This will send the Form entry data as plain text in the body of the email. Each field answered is placed on a new line.
CSV: Sends a Form data as a CSV file attachment on the email.
PDF: Sends a PDF file attachment on the email, generated using either a generic PDF output or the Word/Excel template provided.
Word: Sends a Microsoft Word attachment which is generated using a Word DOCX template you upload.
Excel: Sends a Microsoft Excel attachment which is generated using a Excel XLSX template you upload.
- To Addresses
Input a static list of email addresses, separated by a comma. An email will always be sent to every address in this field. - To Form Field
This allows you to have dynamic behaviour based on the email address(es) input into a chosen Form field.
For example, in an product order Form you may be capturing the customer’s email address in a field named “customerEmail”.
You could then have the system automatically email an invoice or order confirmation to the customer, by setting the To Form Field to be customerEmail. - To User that submitted the Entry
This allows you to automatically email the app user that captured and uploaded the Form entry.
At this stage, your Connector is ready to go.
Hit the Save button to save your changes and activate the Connector.
There are a number of additional options that you can use to make your Email Connector extra awesome.
Customise The Email
The system will generate a default subject, body and attachment file name for the email it sends.
However you may want to customise these values to make the email more personal.
This is easily done – just hit the “customise email” link on the Connector.
You will see that Subject, Body and Attachment Name fields are displayed for you to edit.
Notice also that a hammer icon shows next to the fields.
Clicking the hammer will open the Text Builder, which is where you can create dynamic text by injecting the answer values from fields in your Form.
This lets you have truly dynamic emails being sent out automatically.
Add a Data Template
Customise the output of your Form entry to your hearts desire with our powerful Data Template functionality.
This lets you create Word or Excel templates that are injected with the Form answers to create any kind of PDF output you may need.
The template is uploaded specifically to the chosen Connector, so you can have multiple Connectors that output different files.
For example, you may send a PDF Certificate of Inspection to a building owner in one Email Connector, and send an Excel “Inspection Log” to your internal department address on a separate Email Connector.
Learn all about templates in the Outputting Data with Templates area.
Add a Run Condition
Sometimes you may have a Connector that you only want to fire in the event that the Form entry has a given answer value.
For example you may have an Audit Form, which has a risk rating question with options like “Low”, “Medium” and “High”.
If the user answers the risk rating as “High”, then you want an email to be sent to a supervisor for follow up and action.
This is where a Run Condition comes in.
Run Conditions are defined by creating a true/false formula.
The Connector will only run if the formula you define in the Run Condition has a true result.
So in the example above, the Run Condition formula would be something like:
{{riskRating}} = ‘High’
When you hover over the Run Condition field, you will see a hammer icon appear.
Clicking the hammer will take you into the Formula Builder, which helps you to put together the formula you desire.
See the Creating a Formula page to learn more about form formulae.