Use BUTTON field to email a collaborator (from embedded view on website)

[Karen_Lynch]

Hello! I cannot figure this out, would be grateful for any help.
I embed a view on our website and I want to include a button that will send an email to the collaborator named on the record.
However, I can’t seem to get the URL to incorporate the collaborators email address.
When I use the ‘owner/collaborater’ field in the URL it won’t save.

I then added a new field (consultant contact) with the collaborators email and used that field in the URL code, but the email it creates uses the name of the field (i.e. consultant contact) in the “to:” section instead of the actual information included in that field, i.e. the email address.

It’s entirely possible I have the script wrong, but I’ve studied and studied the examples I could find and i’m at a brick wall now. It’s probably worth noting I don’t really have any idea how to write code or scripts of any kind and the fact I’ve gotten this far is a miracle. I’d love to cross the line though!

My ideal scenario would be to be able to reference the collaborator/owner in the record without having the ‘consultant contact’ field.

Please help!

[ScottWorld · Accepted solution]

Hi @Karen_Lynch,

The beginning of your button URL formula has to look like this:

"mailto:" & {consultant contact} & "?subject="

One of the best ways for you to troubleshoot situations like this is to create a normal formula field with your entire formula that you’re trying to create, and see if it displays the proper string appropriately in the formula field.

[Karen_Lynch]

Thank you so much Scott! I’ve been tearing my hair out trying to figure out why it wasn’t working.
I get confused with where and when to use the ampersands and quote marks - clearly need to do more googling.
That’s great advice regarding using a normal formula field too, thank you!

Whilst I have you - using the extra field with ‘consultant contact’ is actually my work-around. Ideally i’d just reference the collaborator named on the record, but I have spent so much time trying to figure this out and I think the answer is that it’s not possible - would you agree?

Thanks again, so so much!

[ScottWorld]

Hi @Karen_Lynch,

You’re welcome! Glad I could help! :cowboy_hat_face:

Karen_Lynch:

Ideally i’d just reference the collaborator named on the record, but I have spent so much time trying to figure this out and I think the answer is that it’s not possible - would you agree?

You are correct. Under most circumstances, it is not possible to extract the email address from a collaborator field, unless you are using the API or writing your own custom JavaScript.

However, the big exception to this is that Airtable’s Automations gives you the ability to extract the email address from a collaborator field.

So, for example, you could use Airtable’s Automations to send emails to collaborators, without needing to manually type in their email addresses.

Karen_Lynch:

I get confused with where and when to use the ampersands and quote marks - clearly need to do more googling.

Ha! If you have a budget and want to hire your own personal Google to keep on-hand in your back pocket for consultations & answering questions, feel free to contact me through my website at scottworld.com. I am an expert Airtable consultant. :slightly_smiling_face:

Regarding the ampersands & quotation marks:

• The quotation marks are only used when you want to “hardcode” a literal string of text that will never change. If the string of text will change (for example, if it’s pulling its value from a field), then you don’t use the quotation marks.
• Ampersands simply join different elements together. So, for example, if you want 2 different field values to be displayed, you would need to use the ampersand between their field names.

[Karen_Lynch]

Ahh thank you for the confirmation - I had in fact been pulling email addresses using the automation for other emails and so I thought it must be possible for the URL and spent literally hours trying to read documentation to find out what I was missing!

I’ll definitely be in touch via your website :winking_face:

And thankyou for the concise explanation of when to use ampersands and quotation marks! I have saved it onto a note to refer to until it breaks through the fog and embeds in my brain.

Many thanks and I’ll be in touch directly.

Karen