Building an Email Action
Follow the steps to create an email action that can then be associated with a sequence:
Navigate to the Actions tab provided within the managed package
Select the "New Action" button at the top right of the page
On the Create Sequence Action screen, enter a name for your new action.
Next, select the "email" action type from the icon list on the page.
Next set the activation preference for whether to require user interaction to send emails
- Select Automatic to send the email on behalf of the user when the email is triggered
- Select Manual for users to send emails directly from their today view to customize or personalize the template used to define the context of the email
Lastly, set the trigger time fort of the email to be sent once queued
- Select Immediate Activations to send the email as soon as it is triggered by the managed package even if on the weekends or off-hours
- Select Weekday Business Hours to send emails based on a user-defined start and end to their day managed within their user account (configured in Salesforce Personal Information Settings)
- Select Business Hours any day to send emails only between defined user business hours on any calendar day.
Once configurations are set, you may either select a previously used email template to copy into your new email action using the right panel or start creating a new email using the template editor.
Creating a New Email Template
When writing your new email template, use the Rich Text Editor to write, format, and execute the email copy that best fits your needs.
The text editor includes basic formatting options you would expect. In addition, you will find some features that can really help your email templates drive success.
Merge Fields: Merge fields are dynamic texts that you may add to your email templates. For example, if you want to open an email with "Dear First Name," you may insert a Merge field for the recipient's first name. Click the Merge Field button on the Rich Text Editor to see a modal of fields available to you.
The Merge Fields are split into two sections, Participant and Sender. Participant fields will pull any fields on the Lead or Contact (some fields such as First Name are available on both). An icon indicates which record type uses that field. An orange person icon represents a Lead and the purple ID card represents a Contact.
Sender includes fields available on the User profile for the Participant Action owner, i.e., the person who will be sending the email.
NOTE: Though merge fields work similarly to how they're used in Salesforce templates, Guided Selling uses a different syntax. If you copy/paste an existing template, you will need to be sure you update the merge field with the correct format. We recommend using the merge field button for this.
Make Selected Text Required to Update
If you are creating a manual email and want users to add personalization to the email before sending it, you may highlight text in the email template and set it as required for update. This will highlight the text and add brackets to indicate it must be updated before sending.
Snippets
You may insert existing blocks of text using the Snippets feature. This will open a modal where you may select from a list of existing blocks of text.
Signature Lines
For email signatures, it's a best practice to create your company's email signature in either a template that is copied for each new email action or as a Snippet that you can drop into each email.
To create a signature, use Sender fields.
Test Your Email
You can send a test email to verify formatting and merge fields are working correctly. You may send a test while editing the template or after you have saved the template on the action viewer.
- Click the Send Test Email button
- Choose either Lead or Contact for object type
- Search for and choose the lead or contact who's fields you want to use for the test
- Click Send
Note: to test emails you will need to have your email account integrated with Guided Selling