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AnnaTamaoka's avatar
AnnaTamaoka
Qrew Member
4 years ago

Email Notification Preferences

We have about 30 "open" email notifications that are sent when items are modified. These notifications are sent to over 130 unique email addresses both inside and outside of my organization, and only a few of them have access to my application.

Instead of managing the recipients manually, is there a "notification preferences" portal I can direct people to? I'm looking to add a link or something at the bottom of each email that says "manage your notification preferences".

Alternatively, can I do this with automation or pipelines somehow?


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Anna Tamaoka
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  • MarkShnier__You's avatar
    MarkShnier__You
    Qrew Champion
    4 years ago
    Interesting question.
    You may not be aware but even for external email addresses you can list the recipients by field name in square brackets. For example.

    [email 1]
    [email 2]
    [email 3]

    So you can have a table of recipients and roll them all up in a Combined text summary field.  The make 150!  fields to parse out the separate email addresses.   Yes, A bit of a grind to do tat, but it can be one in an hour as its very repetitive to make the formula fields.

    The limit for a combined text summary field is 150 records, so you are OK up to 150 names without needing to resort to a separate table.

    So that reduces the issue into how to have these non-users self maintain that table.  It could be done with a Pipeline which is accessing a mailbox and looking say for a key word in the subject line like

    Add
    Remove.

    and the Pipeline would either add a record or delete a record.

    So I do think that it is possible but you might need some help setting up your first pipeline.  But its a really good use case which is safe to test on and learn Pipelines.




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    Mark Shnier (YQC)
    Quick Base Solution Provider
    Your Quick Base Coach
    http://QuickBaseCoach.com
    mark.shnier@gmail.com
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    • AnnaTamaoka's avatar
      AnnaTamaoka
      Qrew Member
      4 years ago
      Thank you for your reply! I didn't know about the combined text field - that helps me with another unrelated problem I'm having, too! Very exciting!

      But I don't think I understand your suggested setup of the notifications. Are these my steps?
      1. Create an application/table (let's call it "Notifications"/"Recipients") that is open to Everyone on the internet. Fields are "Name", "Recipient Email", "Company", etc.
      2. Allow the Viewer role to add, remove, and edit items.
      3. Relate the Recipients table to the table where the notifications are (Properties) so one Property can have multiple Recipients.
      4. Assign all Recipients to all Properties.
      5. Create a Combined Text Field that combines the email addresses for each Property - one for each notification. (Combined Text Field Notification 1, Combined Text Field Notification 2, Combined Text Field Notification 3...)
      6. Set up the recipients in the existing Open notifications to go to [[Combined Text Field Notification No.]] instead of individual emails.
      7. Add something to the bottom of each email that says "to manage your preferences, reply to this email with Add or Remove".
      8. Set up a pipeline that reads that verbiage and manages the related Recipients table.
      Is that correct? Where does your second paragraph come in (about the 150! fields that parse the emails)?

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      Anna Tamaoka
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      • MarkShnier__You's avatar
        MarkShnier__You
        Qrew Champion
        4 years ago
        One issue is that the email notification will not be able to process a single field with multiple email addresses.  It will only work for separate fields. I like to list the fields vertically for readability. Hence 150 ! formula fields to parse out the 1st, 2nd 3rd.. 150th,...  email address from that combined text summary field. 

        You have think through rough if you want an EOTI App. (Everyone On The Internet). If the pipeline is doing the work then the app does not need to be EOTI. If you actually expose the app to EOTI directly then you need to think through how you prevent someone, say a disgruntled X-employee,  from messing with you data. 


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        Mark Shnier (YQC)
        Quick Base Solution Provider
        Your Quick Base Coach
        http://QuickBaseCoach.com
        mark.shnier@gmail.com
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