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Send Email Automation - Repeating Group - Insert List of Records

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Kevin_DiBenedet
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

When using a simple Send Email Automation action, it is very easy to insert of "List of Records" and select which fields to show. I have this setup for an automation that is sending a confirmation email when a form is submitted, and I want them to receive a confirmation email with their form submission details integrated into the message. 

Once those forms are submitted, various other actions are done to a status field to indicate the applications path through our processes. For those applications that are still pending an approval from an outside client, their status is "Still Pending". 

I would like to create an automation that on a certain date/deadline resends the original message that is sent to the approver. I have built a second automation to trigger on that date, and "Find Records" that are "Still Pending". Once it creates that list, the action should "Repeat for each record" in the list, and send a custom email. I wanted to just duplicate the original message. This works all the way up to adding the original form field details, because there is no option to insert a "List of records" from the Use data from...Current Item from List of records. 

What am I missing here? Any other way to achieve the end result? I often find that the logic for sending different messages to different clients, even though that's how the records are built is confusing in Airtable. It seems like the logic is built more for sending one person a list of records that match. I thought that was the point in the new Find records, and repeating group automation actions, but maybe this functionality just hasn't been fully built out yet. 

Any help would be appreciated. 

7 Replies 7

Apologies, I think I may not be understanding you correctly.  I'm running with the understanding that you want to send a personalized email to each client using the details from each of the found records?

If so, here's a base where that's set up

Here's my data:

Screenshot 2024-02-16 at 11.09.49 AM.png
Email:

Screenshot 2024-02-16 at 11.09.45 AM.png
Automation:

Screenshot 2024-02-16 at 11.08.48 AM.png
I do feel like I'm missing something though, so if you could let me know where I've got it wrong in my set up I'd be happy to try to help

Kevin_DiBenedet
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

Thanks for the reply. From your screenshots it does appear that you are understanding the setup, all the way up to the last step in designing the content for the email Message. The issue that I am having is that in the message body of the email, when you click the blue plus, there is no option to insert a "List of records" from the Use data from...Current Item from List of records.  This option exists when you are just using the "Send an email" action without nesting it inside of the Repeat group. 

Option available in singular Send Email:

Screenshot 2024-02-15 at 9.18.26 PM.png

Option not available when nested in Repeating Group:

Screenshot 2024-02-15 at 9.19.20 PM.png

I would assume that I should be choosing the data from the Current item in the repeating group as this is where it iterates through each record that it finds in the "Find Records" action. 

If not available, I would guess that I could just hand build out the application detail fields with text, and then insert the field data. Though that would take considerably longer to design. 

 

Hmm, so each found record has a list of other records that you want to include in the email?  If so, I was able to do this:

Screenshot 2024-02-16 at 11.37.12 AM.png

Screenshot 2024-02-16 at 11.37.05 AM.png

And I've updated the base with this as well

Thank you very much for your patience with explaining, I do apologize for still not really understanding

Kevin_DiBenedet
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

No, I'm just using Airtable's rather confusing terminology "List of records" where it allows you to insert fields from the specific record into the email as text. You can have it insert the record fields as a grid as well. In my first example automation that is working, it happens whenever a form is submitted. So I am able to insert that specific form record information in a formatted list, just by toggling the selected field. 

Screenshot 2024-02-15 at 9.37.27 PM.png

So with one click of the blue plus, I can basically send all of the submitted form data (minus whatever I toggle off) back to the user who submitted it (as a confirmation/verification of what they input on the form). It formats the text with the field name and the data submitted.

I'm trying to duplicate this same thing in an email that is built from an automation that has to find a matching Application Status of "Still Pending". This would send emails back to specific submitters of their information and the email body because they had not gotten in touch with us. I thought it was an easy automation build with just a repeating group, but have not been able to replicate the same functionality as a simple non-repeating group of automation actions. 

 

 

 

Oh!  Yes, I finally understand what you're getting at, so sorry

Under normal conditions, e.g. when using the trigger "When record matches conditions", we're presented with the ability to "Insert the whole record as.." or some such, which allows us to easily select the fields like in your screenshot

Screenshot 2024-02-16 at 4.54.00 PM.png
However, when we use this in conjunction with 'Find records' and then 'Repeating group' to run for each found record, we don't have that option, even though it's technically the same process

Screenshot 2024-02-16 at 4.56.19 PM.png

I've never noticed that before, interesting!  It does seem like something we should be able to do

(Gah, I feel really bad that you did all this work helping me to understand your problem and then I'm like "yeah, I dunno".  Sorry about that heh)

at-com
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Kevin - I have the exact same issue. Did you ever figure out a solution to this problem?

At the time, I did not identify a solution that fixed the issue I was having. We just ending up designing the email the long way, by manually typing out the field name and inserting the field data individually. I was looking for the simpler solution that already exists, but just apparently is not implemented in the options of a repeating list.