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Email Alert Actions
An email alert is an email generated by an automated process and sent to the designated recipients. The action consists of the standard text and the list of recipients. You can use an email alert in an automation, such as a flow, approval process, or entitlement process. Legacy workflow rules and processes built in Process Builder or through the Invocable Actions REST API endpoint also use email alerts.
Required Editions
| Available in: both Salesforce Classic (not available in all orgs) and Lightning Experience |
| Available in: Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions |
From Setup, enter Email Alerts in the Quick Find box, and select Email Alerts. Then use these settings to configure your email alert.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Description | Enter a description. |
| Unique Name | Enter a unique name to refer to this component in the API. The requirement for uniqueness is only within the selected object type. You can have actions of the same type with the same unique name, provided they’re defined in different objects.The Unique Name field can contain only underscores and alphanumeric characters. It must be unique within the selected object type, begin with a letter, not include spaces, not end with an underscore, and not contain two consecutive underscores. |
| Object | If available, choose an object for this email alert. Salesforce uses this object when generating merge field values for email templates. Also, you can define the recipients of this email alert using contact and user lookup fields that are relevant to that object. For example, if you select Contract, you can define the contract signer as a recipient. The object is read-only if the new email alert is associated with an automation for a particular object. |
| Email Template | Choose an email template. Insert merge fields to reference specific information based on the record that triggers the email alert. For example, insert a merge field for the opportunity. Classic Email Templates Except for {!ApprovalRequest.Comments}, approval merge fields named {!ApprovalRequest.field_name} in email templates return values only in approval assignment emails and email alerts for approval processes. When used in other emails—including email alerts for automations—the approval merge fields return null. The {!ApprovalRequest.Comments} merge field returns only the most recently entered comment in emails for an approval step that requires unanimous approval from multiple approvers. If available, select Protected Component to mark the alert as protected if it’s part of a Managed - Released package. The Recipient merge field isn’t supported in either Classic or Lightning email templates used for automations. Lightning Email Templates In Lightning email templates, merge fields are resolved for activity-enabled objects only, except Contact and Lead merge fields. Activity-enabled objects appear in the Related Entity Type field on the email template record home. Cross-object merge fields aren’t supported. The object specified in the Related Entity Type field must be the object used in the template’s merge fields. For a workaround, see Cross-object Merge Fields Do Not Work in Email Templates. There isn’t equivalent support for
special merge fields in Classic email templates, such as UTF-8 encoding is used on all emails sent through email alerts. |
| Recipient Type | Select who receives this email alert. In master-detail relationships, email alerts are sent only to the master record's owner. Detail records lack an owner field and inherit the master's sharing and security settings.. For example, you select Owner for recipient type for objects involved in a master-detail relationship. Only the owner of the master record is available for recipients. See Object Relationships Overview. |
| Recipients | Select who receives this email alert in the Available Recipients list and click Add. If you change the object after selecting recipients, Salesforce clears the Selected Recipients list. If your email recipient is a role and that role contains multiple people, Salesforce emails each person in that role. If your email recipient is a record owner and the owner of the record is a queue, the queue email receives the email alert. If the queue is set up so that email is sent to all members, queue members are notified as well. If no queue email is specified, only queue members are notified. |
| Additional Emails | Enter up to five more email addresses for recipients who aren’t Salesforce users, leads, or contacts. |
| From Email Address | Either the default workflow user or a previously configured and verified organization-wide address. This field lets you use a standard email address for your organization (such as support@company.com) instead of the default From field, which is the email address of the person who updates the record. If the default workflow user is the guest user, you must have a verified organization-wide address in this field. If you select Make this the default From email address for this object's email alerts, this email address overrides the From Email Address for all email alerts associated with the object. You can still customize individual email alerts to use a different From Email Address. The From Email Address in an email alert changes to the current user when the email alert is installed using a managed or unmanaged package. The From Email Address doesn’t change when using other types of deployment, such as Metadata API or change sets. |
The daily allocation for emails sent through email alerts is 1,000 per standard Salesforce license per org—except for free Developer Edition and trial orgs, where the daily email allocation is 15. The overall org allocation is 2,000,000. This allocation applies to emails sent through email alerts in automations or REST API. Single emails sent to external email addresses are also limited, and how those limits are enforced depends on when your org was created.
Recipient Types for Email Alerts
When you configure an email alert, you identify who receives the email. The options available vary based on your Salesforce settings and the object that you selected.
Required Editions
| Available in: both Salesforce Classic (not available in all orgs) and Lightning Experience |
| Available in: Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions |
| Recipient Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Account Owner | The user listed as the owner of the account itself or the account associated with the record. This option works only for email alerts on accounts, opportunities, cases, contacts, contracts, and any custom object that is a child of the account object. The associated account must also specify an account owner. If you select another object type or the associated account doesn’t have an account owner, Salesforce sends the email alert to the record owner instead. |
| Account Team | All users assigned to a particular account team role. The Account Team option is always available. However, emails are sent only when the rule is associated with the account object or its immediate child objects. |
| Case Team | All users assigned to a particular case team role. |
| Creator | The user who created the record. |
| Customer Portal User | All users associated with a Customer Portal. |
| Email Field | An email address field on the selected object, such as the Email field on lead records or custom email fields. When creating email alerts for campaign members, Email Field refers to the email field on the lead or contact that the campaign member is based on. |
| Opportunity Team | All users assigned to a particular opportunity team role. This option appears only when team selling is enabled. The Opportunity Team option works only for email alerts configured for opportunities. It doesn’t work for email alerts configured for child objects of opportunities. |
| Owner | The record owner. |
| Partner User | All users associated with a partner portal. |
| Portal Role | All users assigned to a particular portal role. |
| Portal Role and Subordinates | All users assigned to a particular portal role, plus all users in roles below that role. |
| Public Groups | The users in a particular public group. |
| Related Contact | An associated contact on the record. For example, you can select the Customer Signed By field for contracts that contain the name of the contract signer. |
| Related Lead or Contact Owner | A campaign member’s lead or contact owner. |
| Related User | An associated user on the record. For example, contract records have an Activated By field that contains the name of the user that activated the contract. |
| Role | All users assigned a particular role. |
| Role and Internal Subordinates | All users assigned a particular role, plus all users in roles below that role, excluding partner portal and Customer Portal users. |
| Role and Subordinates | All users assigned a particular role, plus all users in roles below that role. |
| User | A particular user. |
The Recipient merge field isn’t supported in either Classic or Lightning email templates used for automations.
