You can send emails directly from Beacon, based on templates that let you merge fields from records into your email content.
link Creating an email template
First, you'll need to create a template for your email. You can find your email templates in the Email templates section under Settings.
A template has two parts: Template settings and Email content.
link Template settings
Template settings have three values:
- Name - The name of your template
- Record type - The record type from which you would like to send your email
- Recipient email field - The field that contains the recipient's email address
So, if you wanted to set up a template to send a 'thank you' email when a person has made a cash donation you would chose Payment as the record type and Person > Email as the email address. This is because you want to send the email to whichever email address is stored on the person record that the payment points to.
link Email content
These are the standard fields that you would expect to find in an email application. You can include any Cc's or Bcc's that you want all of your emails to be sent to. You must also choose a subject for your email.
The body of your email can contain variables that map to the fields on the record from which the email will be sent, or any record that it points to. These will be populated at send time. Not all fields are available to be mapped into your email - for example, you cannot yet add files as attachments.
In this example we map in the amount that has been donated and the donor's name. The donor's name comes from the person record that this payment points to.
link Sending emails
To send an email from a record, click the email icon in the top right when viewing a record:
You can then choose the template you'd like to use and a preview of your email will display in the dialog.
Don't see a template in the drop-down list? It's likely that the template's record type is different to the record you're currently viewing.
You can edit the email text before sending it so you can add some personalisation to your message.
If any of the fields that the template uses are blank then the email will contain empty space where they should be and you'll be prompted to check the content carefully to make sure you haven't made a mistake.
When you are ready click send and your email will be sent right away.
link Sending emails from Person records without a template
If you are on a person record you have the option to create a blank email rather than using a template.
You can send this email to an email address on the person record you're looking at or on a record that the person points to.
You can type any text that you like but you can't add any variables here. If you want to add variables then you should use an email template.
link Activity logging
A record of the email being sent will be logged to the timeline of the recipient. Note that this activity log will only be present on Person timelines.
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FAQs
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When I send an email through Beacon who appears as the sender?
The email sender will be set to an email address generated from your account name. The name of the sender will be based on the user who sends the email and the account name. For example, if Chris Houghton sends an email from The Beacon Trust then the recipients will display as:
Chris from The Beacon Trust <[email protected]>
The reply email address is set to be the sender's real email address that they use to log in to Beacon. If a recipient hits 'reply' on an email - the email will go to the person who sent it.
link Can I send emails in bulk from Beacon?
No. If you want to send email to large numbers of people you should use our Mailchimp, dotdigital or Sendgrid integrations.
link Can I customise the email style?
Not yet! Right now you can only use our default email style.
link Can I send attachments?
You can only send basic text emails from Beacon.