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heather_hansen
heather_hansen
VIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
April 26, 2016
Solved

Rules Engine: Send Internal Emails

  • April 26, 2016
  • 6 replies
  • 205 views
We are utilizing the new functionality to use the Rules Engine to create Success Plans, and as a second action on that rule, we wanted to send an email to the CSM to let them know that we had created the Success Plan for them, and they needed to customize it and make it active. The email action kept failing, and when I contacted Support, I was told that the Rules Engine couldn't send internal emails, and I'd have to use Copilot.

While I understand the limitations, it seems like it would make things easier to be able to send that email via Rules Engine since I'd already built out the logic and filters there. Instead, I had to go to Copilot, figure out how to recreate it, and then, send from there.
    Best answer by jeffrey_coleman
    Aviv -- for clarity, the formula doesn't solve the contact issue. You still need to create a contact with the correct email address.

    I created a formula field on Customer Info called "Notification Emails." The type is Text and the value of it is simply "enterprise-gainsight-alerts_at_surveymonkey.com" (including the quotes.) Then I created a contact (first name "Enterprise" last name "Alerts") with this email address. The rule runs and sends email to this email address.

    The benefit of the formula is that it applies to all records regardless of when it was created. And I can update it if/as needed. I could also be far more complex, changing the address based on revenue band, region, etc. and keep the rule the same.

    But, remember, if you have 3 revenue bands and 3 email addresses, you need to create 3 associated contacts as well.

    Hope that helps.

    6 replies

    karl_rumelhart
    karl_rumelhart
    Expert ⭐️
    April 26, 2016
    Totally makes sense, Heather. I agree that this is more disjointed than would be ideal.  We are actually very sensitive to this sort of situation and would go further and say that we would want to be able to create the plan, send the email and then if the plan isn't touched send another email and if still not touched create a CTA for the manager, or something like that.  (To be clear, we are mostly focused on that sort of process when it involves touching your customer, but the same principle holds for these internal processes.)  It is possible to do that sort of thing now but would be a very complicated set of rules and outreaches; definitely not good enough.  Rule Chains is one step in the right direction but, IMO, best adapted for data management rather than business process flows.  Sundar and team are working on a project to get things nicely lined up for multi-step business processes, though this is a big piece of work so will not be ready for a while. 
    seth
    seth
    Expert ⭐️
    April 26, 2016
    Heather, I've had success setting up Gainsight to email me whenever I have CTAs in my Cockpit.

    (Since I'm Ops Director, not a CSM, then if I have any CTAs, it means that a rule assigned them to me as the default owner and they need to be reassigned. But that's neither here nor there for answering your question.)

    This is the Action setup that I have: http://cl.ly/1I372C2Y0a09
    And then the Email template is suuuuuper basic, fwiw: http://cl.ly/3u2G0D1P3U43

    I don't see why you couldn't do something similar based on the Success Plan object, instead of the CTA object...
    AI Transformation @ Gainsight
    jeffrey_coleman
    jeffrey_coleman
    Helper ⭐️
    April 28, 2016
    Heather -- like Seth said, we've been able to make this work. The issue is that the email address you send to has to be exposed in the rule and then associated to a contact in Salesforce.

    We solved the email by creating a formula field on Customer Info that I called "notification email." A formula works better than a text field because you can easily change 
    aviv_caspi
    aviv_caspi
    Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
    August 28, 2016
    Hi Jeffrey,

    Can you please supply more details about your workaround?

    What exactly did you do with the formula field?

    I have the same problem as Heather and as you said - I'm not able to send an email to myself due to the fact that my email address isn't associated with a SF contact.

    Thanks much,

    Aviv.
    jeffrey_coleman
    jeffrey_colemanAnswer
    Helper ⭐️
    August 29, 2016
    Aviv -- for clarity, the formula doesn't solve the contact issue. You still need to create a contact with the correct email address.

    I created a formula field on Customer Info called "Notification Emails." The type is Text and the value of it is simply "enterprise-gainsight-alerts_at_surveymonkey.com" (including the quotes.) Then I created a contact (first name "Enterprise" last name "Alerts") with this email address. The rule runs and sends email to this email address.

    The benefit of the formula is that it applies to all records regardless of when it was created. And I can update it if/as needed. I could also be far more complex, changing the address based on revenue band, region, etc. and keep the rule the same.

    But, remember, if you have 3 revenue bands and 3 email addresses, you need to create 3 associated contacts as well.

    Hope that helps.
    aviv_caspi
    aviv_caspi
    Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
    August 31, 2016
    I understand.

    Yes, thanks much!!! 🙂
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