How to Send Email Alerts using Workflow Rule in Salesforce

In this Salesforce tutorial, we will learn how to send email alerts using workflow rules in salesforce.

The Salesforce workflow rule is a computerized process that can be used to execute certain actions or activate certain events established on a particular condition. It can be used to streamline business processes and lower physical effort by automating repetitive tasks.

Overall the workflow rule is a salesforce tool that can be used to imbrute business processes and upgrade efficiencies. By explaining the particular criteria and actions. The workflow lowers the physical effort and improves overall productivity.

So, if you are working with Salesforce and you want to learn how to send email alerts using workflow rules in Salesforce Lightning and Salesforce Classic, you have to come right place.

The following are the topics that we will cover in this Salesforce tutorial:

• What is an email alert in Salesforce?
• When to use workflow rules in Salesforce
• Features of workflow rule in Salesforce
• Advantages of workflow rule in Salesforce
• Disadvantages of workflow rule in Salesforce
• How to send email alerts using workflow rule in Salesforce Lightning
• How to send email alerts using workflow rule in Salesforce Classic

What is an email alert in Salesforce

An email alert in Salesforce is a notification that is sent via email to one or more particular receivers when a certain event occurs within a system. Email alerts can be activated by several actions like creating a new record, changes to a record, or completing a process.

For example, An email alert can be set up to inform a sales representative when a new lead is allocated to them or to inform a manager when a sales opportunity extends a definite stage.

The email can hold the information related to the event that activated it, like the name of the record, the date and time of the event, and any other relevant details.

In Salesforce the email alerts are highly specialized and can be arranged to involve particular fields from the records and also custom text and formatting. The email alert can also be sent to a specific user or a group or involve links and attachments to the related records.

Moreover, In Salesforce email alerts are a powerful tool for trusting users are informed and making sure that important events are taken action in a timely manner

With this, we learned about what is an email alert in Salesforce. Now we will move ahead and try to understand when we need to use workflow rules in Salesforce.

Read How to Create Workflow Rule in Salesforce

When to use workflow rules in Salesforce

In Salesforce, workflow rules are used to automate level internal policy and processes to save time across teams. Here are the several circumstances where workflow rules can be useful:

• Field Updates: We can use workflow rules for updating fields on records automatically like setting a default value or updating a status field based on certain criteria.
• Data Validation: We can use workflow rules to validate data entered into records, like making sure that the required field is occupied, or examining that the date is within a particular range.
• Email Alerts: We can use workflow rules to activate an email alert to inform a user or a group of users when a particular event occurs when a new lead is created.
• Task creation: We can use workflow rules for creating tasks for the users or groups of users based on definite criteria, like building flow-up tasks for sales representatives after a lead is converted.
• Outbound Messages: We can use the workflow rules for sending outbound messages to external systems, like informing a shipping system to ship an order when an opportunity is closed.

In this way, we have learned when we need to use workflow rules in Salesforce. Now we will move further and try to understand the Features of workflow rules in Salesforce.

Features of workflow rule in Salesforce

Here are several key features of workflow rules in Salesforce are :

• Rule Criteria: We can explain the criteria for when a workflow rule should perform, like when a particular field value is changed, or when a record encounters a definite condition.
• Triggers: In Salesforce the workflow rule can be triggered by changes to record when a record is created it can also be edited or deleted.
• Time-based Actions: In Salesforce workflow rules can also execute time-based action, like scheduling a task or sending an email after a definite amount of time has passed.
• Intermediate Actions: Workflow rules can execute instant actions like updating field values or sending email alerts when they are activated.
• Chaining: The workflow rule can be chained at one time so that the output of one rule can activate another rule.
• Monitoring and reporting: Salesforce gives the tool for monitoring and reporting on the production and effectiveness of our workflow rules across the use of reports and dashboards.
• Delegation: Workflow rules can be delegated to other users or a group of users, permitting multiple people to control and modify the rules.

Moreover, the workflow rule is a powerful tool for computerizing business processes in Salesforce and provides a range of features for helping us streamline our organization workflow and better efficiency.

So, with this, we have learned features of workflow rules in Salesforce. We will move further and learn the advantages of workflow rules in Salesforce.

Advantages of workflow rule in Salesforce

Here we are discussing the advantages of workflow rules in Salesforce. The workflow rule in Salesforce gives a number of advantages are:

1. Increased automation: Workflow rules permit us to automate repetitive tasks and smooth our business processes. This can lead to enlarge efficiency and productivity.
2. Enhanced communication: can be configured to send notifications and alerts to users or groups when a particular event occurs. This can help better communication and collaboration among all the team members.
3. Improve data quality: Workflow rules can help make sure data quality by imposing data validation rules and systematizing data entry.
4. Customization: The workflow rules can be customized to fit the particular needs of our business, permitting us to create workflows that are customized to our unique processes and requirements.
5. Greater control and visibility: The workflow rules supply greater control and visibility into the sales processes by automating tasks and giving notifications that can help the sales manager trace processes and recognize areas for improvement.
6. Time-Saving: Workflow rules automate tasks, decreasing the time and effort need to required to complete them physically. This process can save time and free up the employees and concentrate on other important and main tasks.

The workflow rules are a helpful tool and they can help businesses grow efficiency and better the data quality and also enhance communication and obtain the highest control and visibility into their sales process.

In this way, we learned the advantages of the workflow rule in Salesforce. Now let’s move further and learn the disadvantages of workflow rules in Salesforce.

Read How to add Dashboard to Home page in Salesforce

Disadvantages of workflow rule in Salesforce

There are a few possible disadvantages of workflow rules in Salesforce are:

• Limited Complexity: Workflow Rules are powerful tools for automating easier business processes, but they can rapidly become limited when trading with more composite workflows that need branching logic or more powered control.
• Limited criteria: Workflow rules depend on criteria to activate actions, which can be sometimes schematic to capture more complex business logic.
• Limited actions: Workflow rules can only activate a limited set of actions like sending an email, or updating field values. For more advanced automation, other tools like Process builder or Apex code may be required.
• Limited visibility: Workflow rules sometimes be difficult to fine-tune or debug, mainly if they are activated by complex criteria or multiple workflows this can make it demanding to understand why definite actions are or are not been activated.
• Limited scalability: As our organization extends and the number of workflow rules increases the production of our system may be struck. Salesforce has restrictions on the number of workflow rules that can be triggered at any given time, and striking these limits can slow down our system.

Now we have understood the Workflow rule, let’s move ahead and see how to send email alerts using the workflow rule in salesforce. We will explore both the salesforce experiences: Salesforce lightning and Salesforce Classic.

How to send email alerts using workflow rule in Salesforce Lightning

Here we are sending email alerts using the workflow rules in salesforce lightning. If you want to learn how to send email alerts using workflow rule in salesforce lightning follow these steps:

Step-1: First, login into the Salesforce lightning account. Go to the gear icon(⚙️), under the gear icon there are two options Setup and Service Setup. Here we are selecting the Setup option.

Step-2: After clicking on the setup option. Now enter the workflow rule in the Quick Find box that is present on the left sidebar. After entering the workflow rule in the Quick Find box the workflow rule comes at the top. Click on that.

Step-3: After clicking on the workflow rule, The workflow rule page is open then scroll down to the bottom and click on the checkbox and then click on the continue option.

After clicking on the continuous option All the Workflow Rules page is open, there is a new rule option click on it.

Step-4:  After clicking on the new rule option, Try it in the Flow Builder dialogue box is open. In this dialogue box, two options choose the first one which is Continue with Workflow Rules.

Step-5: Here we are selecting the contact object to which this workflow rule applies. After selecting the object click on next.

Step-6: Now fill in the complete information, enter the rule name that is the Using workflow send an email, and enter the description that is This workflow rule for an email alert.

Step-7: After filling the edit rule information scroll to the bottom of the page and then select evaluation criteria as created every time it’s edited this workflow rule will work while creating or editing a record.

After evaluating the criteria, now we are putting the rule criteria. Firstly choose the field Contact: Email then chooses the operator as not equal to and after that leave the value as a blank field after that click on Save & next option.

Step-8: After clicking on the Save and next option the edit rule using workflow rule send email alert page is open. Here we adding the workflow action as New Email Alert.

Step-9: After clicking on the New Email Alert option, the New Email Alert page is open. Now fill the description as Send Email to Contact. After filling the description the Unique Name field is automatically filled by simply clicking on it. Now click on the search option of the Email Template field.

Step-10: After clicking on the search option of the Email template, the look-up page is open. Enter the email template name in the search box and click on the Go option. The search result is shown under the search results Name as Contact Email Alert. Click on it.

Step-11: After searching the email template, search the recipient type as Email Field and then add the recipient from available recipients to Select recipients after that click on the Save option.

Step-12: After clicking on the save option, there are specific Workflow actions in which we can specify the workflow actions that will be triggered when the rule criteria are met and then move to the immediate workflow action in which we can edit or remove the Email Alert after that click on the done option.

Step-13: After clicking on the done option, the workflow rule page is open. Under this page using workflow send email alert workflow rule is created.

And under the Using workflow send email alert there is an activate button. On clicking on the activate button the workflow is activated. Click on the activate button.

Step-14: Go to the App Launcher, and enter the sales in the search box. Click on the sales, the Sales page is open. Click on the Contact object that is present on the nav bar.

After clicking on the contacts object, the contacts recently viewed page is open. Click on the New option that is present at the top of the page.

Step-15: After clicking on the new option, the new contact dialogue box is open. Fill the contact information. Firstly fill the Name Ulises Grimes and then fill the email address. If we leave the email address blank then we get the email alert.

After filling the email address click on the save button that is present near the Save & New option.

Step-16: After clicking on the save option. Open Gmail, which Gmail account you can mention on the contact information page. After opening the Gmail account you can see that email is received.

Click on that email, the email is open we can see that we get a congratulatory email for registering our email successfully.

In this way, we have learned how to send email alerts using the workflow rule in salesforce lightning. Further, we will learn how to send email alerts using the workflow rule in Salesforce classic.

Also, read, Public Calendar in Salesforce

How to send email alerts using workflow rule in Salesforce Classic

Here we are sending email alerts using the workflow rules in salesforce classic. If you want to learn how to send email alerts using the workflow rule in salesforce classic follow these steps:

1: Click on the setup option. Now enter the workflow rule in the Quick Find box that is present on the left sidebar. After entering the workflow rule in the Quick Find box the workflow rule comes at the top. Click on that.

2: After clicking on the workflow rule, The workflow rule page is open then scroll down to the bottom and click on the checkbox and then click on the continue option.

After clicking on the continuous option All the Workflow Rules page is open, there is a new rule option click on it.

3: After clicking on the new rule option, Try it in the Flow Builder dialogue box is open. In this dialogue box, two options choose the first one which is Continue with Workflow Rules.

4: Here we are selecting the USA students object to which this workflow rule applies. After selecting the object click on next.

5: Now fill in the complete information, enter the rule name that is Send an email to USA student, and enter the description that is This workflow rule for an email alert.

After filling the edit rule information scroll to the bottom of the page and then select evaluation criteria as created every time it’s edited this workflow rule will work while creating or editing a record.

6: After evaluating the criteria, now we are putting the rule criteria. Firstly choose the field USA students: Email then chooses the operator as not equal to and after that leave the value as a blank field after that click on Save & next option.

7: After clicking on the Save and next option the edit rule using workflow rule send email alert page is open. Here we adding the workflow action as New Email Alert.

8: After clicking on the New Email Alert option, the New Email Alert page is open. Now fill the description as Send Email to Contact. After filling the description the Unique Name field is automatically filled by simply clicking on it. Now click on the search option of the Email Template field.

After clicking on the search option of the Email template, the look-up page is open. Enter the email template name in the search box and click on the Go option. The search result is shown under the search results Name as USA Student Email Alert. Click on it.

After searching the email template, search the recipient type as Email Field and then add the recipient from available recipients to Select recipients after that click on the Save option.

9: After clicking on the save option, there are specific Workflow actions in which we can specify the workflow actions that will be triggered when the rule criteria are met and then we move to the immediate workflow action in which we can edit or remove the Email Alert after that click on the done option.

10: After clicking on the done option, the workflow rule page is open. Under this page using workflow send email alert workflow rule is created.

And under the Send Email to USA Student, there is an activate button. On clicking on the activate button the workflow is activated. Click on the activate button.

11: Go to Setup, click on the USA student object that is present on the nav bar. Click on the new button. After clicking on the New button the New USA Student page is open.

Now Fill the USA student information. Firstly fill the Name Lucas Heathcote DVM and then fill the student ID as 10023 and after that fill the email address. If we leave the email address blank then we get the email alert.

After filling the email address click on the save button that is present near the Save & New option.

12: After clicking on the save option. Open Gmail, which Gmail account you can mention on the contact information page. After opening the Gmail account you can see that email is received.

Click on that email, the email is open we can see that we get a congratulatory email for registering our email successfully.

So, with this, we have learned about how to send email alert using workflow rule in Salesforce classic.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a workflow rule is a powerful tool in Salesforce that can be used to imbrute business processes and upgrade efficiencies. By explaining the particular criteria and actions. The workflow lowers the physical effort and improves overall productivity.

In addition, we have learned about the features of workflow rules in salesforce. We have also discussed the advantages of workflow rules in Salesforce and also discuss disadvantages of workflow rules in salesforce. And, we have covered How to send email alerts using workflow rules in Salesforce lightning as well as salesforce classic.

• What is an email alert in Salesforce
• When to use workflow rules in Salesforce
• Features of workflow rule in Salesforce
• Advantages of workflow rule in Salesforce
• Disadvantages of workflow rule in Salesforce
• How to send email alerts using workflow rule in Salesforce Lightning
• How to send email alerts using workflow rule in Salesforce Classic

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