Email Automation Keeps Failing For Gmail

[Daniella_Wade]

Hi Community, I’m trying to use Automations to send a confirmation email once a record has been created. However, when I create the action and run the test, the automation is failing because the error says ‘The TO field is empty’. I have included this field correctly. I set up aprevious automation which failed the same way but eventually worked. No changes made. In this automation, everything is the same, I’m not sure what’s happening or how to fix.

[Nick_Dennis]

Welcome to the community Daniella!

Is the TO field a linked record from another table or a lookup field? I had problems with gmail automation when using a linked record like that.

To get around the problem, I created a new (hidden) field that was simply a formula equal to the TO field. This created an identical field on the table, but for whatever reason automation was able to recognize it.

Hope that solves the problem. Feel free to provide more details or screenshots if that’s not the issue.

[Trainer_Tess]

Hey @Nick_Dennis — when I use a formula field the Gmail automation doesn’t seem to capture it, it captures all the other data inserted into the email body except for the formula field output, any suggestions?

[Nick_Dennis]

Hi @Trainer_Tess. I think I’d need a bit more information about the automation and the outputted format of the formula field. Could you share a screenshot of where it’s going wrong?

I will say though, that email/gmail automations feel a little bit “beta version” to me at the moment. I had a lot of trouble getting the automation to recognize lookup/linked fields, dates, and more when I was playing around with it. It’s possible that you’re just dealing with new feature hiccups.

[Trainer_Tess]

Hey @Nick_Dennis —I think you might be right in that it could just be early version hiccups, but I’ve attached a few screenshots to help troubleshoot just in case it’s an error on my end. The only trigger that doesn’t come through when I test the email is Division Match. Name and Sport both autofill into the email body as expected.Thanks for your help!!

Screen Shot 2020-10-07 at 10.35.49 AM|700x164

[Nick_Dennis]

Yeah, this looks fine to me, it worked on my quick test. I would guess it’s a software issue, I’ve had a lot of trouble getting the automation to recognize a formula field correctly. Try deleting the field from the action, retesting the trigger, and then reentering the field.

If that doesn’t work, another silly workaround attempt would be to try making another formula field that is simply {Division Match}, to basically create a duplicate field (you can hide this field afterwards if this works). Then try running the automation on that field instead of {Division Match}. That worked for me one time when I was first testing email automation. Don’t ask me why though, and no guarantees it will here. :laughing:

[Daniella_Wade]

Hi @Nick_Dennis ,
Thanks for this. I tried, but still not getting it to work.

[Trainer_Tess]

Good news Nick—it worked! I actually deleted the automation and started from scratch and that seemed to do the trick, it worked without having to add the additional formula field that you mentioned as a copy :slightly_smiling_face: