Send email · Activation
Sends an email from a Gmail mailbox you have connected to Ocean, once for each record that reaches this step. Later steps can check whether the person replied.
When to use it
Use it to send a message straight from a workflow. For example, email each new lead a short intro note. Or email a lead, wait three days, and take a different path if they answered.
What it does
For each record, the step fills in the To, Subject and Body with that record's values, then sends the email from the mailbox you picked. The email goes out from that mailbox's own Gmail address, as plain text. The step sends one email per record, and it does not check whether that address was emailed before.
The step is a delivery step. A workflow that ends here counts as one that gets its results in front of someone, so the "No one sees these results" warning does not appear. See Publish, drafts, and versions.
Configure it
Mailbox: the Gmail mailbox to send from. Only mailboxes shown as Connected are listed. Required.
To: the recipient address. Required. Use the @ insert button to pick a field from an earlier step, such as a person's revealed email.
Subject: the subject line. Required. Type
@to insert fields, for example "Following up, " followed by a Company name field picked after typing@.Body: the message. Type
@to insert fields. Optional.
You cannot publish until Mailbox, To and Subject are filled in. The step flags "Select a mailbox", "Add a recipient" or "Add a subject".
Connect a Gmail mailbox
Mailboxes are connected for your whole workspace, and any workflow can use them. Only users with the manager role can connect or disconnect them.
Go to Settings, then Mailboxes.
Select Connect Gmail and approve access in the Google window. Ocean asks Google for permission to send email and to read email. The step reads only the thread it started, to check for a reply.
When it works, the mailbox is listed as Connected.
If a mailbox shows Expired, open its menu and select Reconnect. Select Disconnect to remove it. Workflows that use a disconnected mailbox stop sending until you reconnect.
If no mailbox is connected, the step's settings show "No mailbox connected" with a Go to Mailboxes button. If you are not a manager, ask one to connect the mailbox.
Outputs
These fields are available to later steps:
Replied: whether the recipient has answered. An out-of-office reply usually does not count. Ocean recognizes it from its standard mail headers, so a responder that does not set them can still show as a reply.
Reply text: the text of their reply. Empty until they answer.
Reply from: the address that answered. This is not always the person you wrote to, for example if the mail was forwarded.
Reply subject: the subject line of their reply.
Replied at: when they answered.
Auto-replied: whether an out-of-office or vacation responder answered instead of a person.
Thread ID: the Gmail thread this email started.
Ocean checks for a reply only when a step that uses a reply field (everything above except Thread ID) runs, and it reads the thread then. It does not wake the workflow up when a reply arrives. Put a Delay before the step that checks Replied, so the recipient has time to answer. If you check too early, Replied is false. Checking again later can still find a reply. The reply text is only read when a step uses Reply text.
Cost
This step does not use credits. See Credits in workflows.
If it fails
No recipient. If To comes out empty for a record, that record fails and no email is sent.
The mailbox cannot send. If the mailbox was disconnected or has expired, the record fails. Reconnect it in Settings, then Mailboxes.
Gmail refuses the email. The record fails with the reason Gmail gave.
By default a failed record stops here and the run reports it as failed. To let it move on without this step's data, open the step's settings, find If this step fails and switch on Continue anyway. See Troubleshooting workflows.
The play button at the top of the step's settings (tooltip: Run a test) sends one real email. It says "Connect a mailbox to test" if no mailbox is picked, and "Add a recipient to test" if To is empty. Use your own address as To when you test.
Example
A workflow finds people at new accounts, and Enrich email and phone reveals their email. Send email sends each person a short intro note from your sales mailbox, with To set to the revealed email. A Delay of three days follows. A Route then checks Replied: if it is true, the record ends. If not, a Notify step posts to a Slack channel so your team can follow up.
Gotchas
Anyone who can build workflows can add this step. Only the mailbox connection is limited to managers.
Only Gmail is supported.
The email is plain text, with no formatting or images. Ocean does not add a signature, so write one in the Body if you want it.
Because the mailbox belongs to the workspace, a workflow sends from that address no matter who built it.
If you test the step, or run the workflow again, the emails really go out.