How to Create An Email Alert in Salesforce

I was recently working as a Salesforce administrator, and I received a requirement from the support team. They wanted to send an email to the support manager when a case is escalated. The email should contain details such as the case number, case subject, and the reason for escalating the case.

Before sending an email, we need to create an email alert, as this allows us to automate and streamline the process.

In this Salesforce tutorial, I will explain what an email alert is in Salesforce and how to create an email alert in Salesforce by using examples and step-by-step explanations.

Table of Contents

What is Email Alert in Salesforce?

In Salesforce, an email alert is a type of automated action that sends an email to recipients (such as a user or group) when specific conditions are met within Salesforce.

It is commonly used in conjunction with workflow rules, approval processes, and process builders to notify users when specific records are created or updated.

Email Alerts help automate communication, ensuring important notifications are sent without manual intervention.

Create An Email Alert in Salesforce

In the steps below, I explain how to create an email alert in Salesforce, allowing us to automate the process of sending an email after any event occurs in Salesforce.

Prerequisite-

We need an email template to send an automated email through an email alert. Here, I created an email template and checked the ‘Available for Use’ checkbox.

How to Create An Email Alert in Salesforce

Navigate to Setup, go to the Home Page, search for Email Alerts in Quick Find, and click on them. Then click the Continue button to proceed.

Click the New Email Alert button to create the email alert.

In the Description, enter the information about the email alert so you can determine for which purpose it was created. It is also used to add email alerts in workflows, process builders, and Salesforce flows.

The Unique Name will be automatically populated based on the description you entered and acts as the API.
Choose the Object on which the records or events of this email alert will work.
Click the lookup icon and select the email template you want to use when sending the email alert. Here, we selected a template that we created.

Then, in the Recipient Type, we have various options, including account owner, case team, email field, user, public group, roles, and subordinates.
- According to that, we can select the recipient’s list. Here, we selected the Email Field: Contact Email, which means that all contacts with an email address will receive an email when the case is created.

You can also add the additional email addresses to whom you want to notify and select the From Email Address sender email address. Then click the Save button.

Use An Email Alert in a Workflow Rule in Salesforce

In the steps below, I explain how to use email alerts in workflows to automate the process of sending an email when a new case is created.

Select Object, enter the rule name, select the Evaluation Criteria, and click Save & Next to proceed.

Add Email Alert to Workflow Rules in Salesforce

Then click the Add Action and Select Existing Action. There, you will see Email Alert. Click on it to add the email alert that we created.

Now, in the Available Action, you will see all the email alerts that we already created. We need to select the alert according to our requirements and click the Add button to apply it.

Then, as you navigate again to the Email Alert from the Quick Find setup, you will see that the email alert has been successfully added for a particular automation tool. Here, we apply the created email alerts for workflow rules.

How to Create Email Address in Salesforce

In this way, we can create and use the email alert in Salesforce.

Conclusion

I hope you have got an idea about email alerts in Salesforce. In this tutorial, I explained how to create email alerts and how to use the created email alerts in workflow, process builder, and flows in Salesforce so that we can automate the process of sending emails.