Sending an email with Zapier
Last updated
Last updated
Zapier acts as the connection between two apps. It takes a “Trigger” from one app and causes an “Action” to happen in another app. This tutorial will show you how to use Zapier to send an email to yourself when a new database record is added to a database in Stacker.
In this tutorial you’re going to learn how you can use Zapier to send yourself an email when one of your users adds a new record to a Stacker table. This would be very useful to make sure you get notified when an important bit of information is uploaded.
By the end of this tutorial, you’ll know how to:
Set up the “trigger” - a new item being created in Stacker
Set up the “action” - an email being sent to you
In this tutorial, we’ll refer to an example app that is a marketplace of dogs available for dog walkers to walk. We’re going to make it so when a user uploads a new dog to the database, you receive and email with details of the dog.
These dogs are in a Stacker Tables database, although this method will work in any type of database in Stacker - Airtable, Google Sheets, etc. It will also work in databases that aren’t about dogs.
You’ll be taken to a page where you’ll be asked to set up your “Trigger”. Search under “App event” for Stacker and click Stacker in the list that appears.
This will take you to the page where you configure the trigger (I’m a poet and I know it). We want to set the Event to “Record Created”, then click “Continue”.
You need to let Zapier know which Stacker account, app, and table it should wait for new records to be created in.
Under “Choose Account”, choose the Stacker account you’ve linked to Zapier.
For the app and table, choose whichever table you’d like to receive updates about. In this case we’ve chosen the database of dogs in our dog walkers’ app.
It will now ask you to Test the trigger. If you’ve set things up correctly it should pull in information about one of the records in the table you selected, like in the image below.
For this step to work you need to have a row of data already created in the table!
Great success!
Click “Continue”
Now let’s make this Zap actually do something. You should be presented with a prompt to search for an “Action”. (If not, click the “+” symbol below your Trigger).
We’re going to use Zapier’s built in email service - search for “Email” in the search bar and click “Email by Zapier”.
For the Event, pick “Send Outbound Email”
Now, put the email address(es) you want to receive updates. You can put up to 5, separated by commas.
In the “Body” field, you can either type in text for the email, or you can use Dynamic Data to include information from the new record that was created in Stacker. Click “Insert Data” and find the information you want to add.
You can also add the following optional fields:
Attachments
From Name
Reply To
Cc
Bcc
But you don’t have to. No Pressure!
Click “Continue”
You’ll now have a chance to test your Zap to make sure it’s working. If you click “Test & Review” it will send an email to the address you put in when setting up the Action. This is a good opportunity to make sure you’re getting the right information and the formatting is looking good.
Finally, assuming no errors, you’ll be able to click “Publish Zap”.
Congratulations!
Also, a pro tip: Give your Zap a helpful name so you can remember what it does!
Now you’ve mastered the basics, you could also use a similar Zap to:
Send a Slack message
Send a Teams message
Or even send a Tweet!
There are thousands of tools you can connect Stacker to, so have an explore.
You’ll need to set up the connection between Zapier and Stacker first - check out this .
If you get stuck at any point in this guide, please ask for help in our !
Head to the — you’ll need to be logged in to the account that you linked to Stacker. Click the button to Create Zap.
