You can send emails directly from Beacon, based on templates that let you merge fields from records into your email content.

Creating an email template

Sending emails

Sending emails from Person records without a template

Activity logging

Frequently Asked Questions

First, you'll need to create a template for your email. You can find your email templates in the Email templates section under Settings.

A template has two parts: Template settings and Email content.

Template settings have three values:

So, if you wanted to set up a template to send a 'thank you' email when a person has made a cash donation you would chose Payment as the record type and Person > Email as the email address. This is because you want to send the email to whichever email address is stored on the person record that the payment points to.

These are the standard fields that you would expect to find in an email application. You can include any Cc's or Bcc's that you want all of your emails to be sent to. You must also choose a subject for your email.

The body of your email can contain variables that map to the fields on the record from which the email will be sent, or any record that it points to. These will be populated when you're ready to send an email. Access the field references by click the <> button on the right of 'Email body' section.

In this example we add in the amount that has been donated and the donor's name. The donor's name comes from the person record that this payment points to.

To send an email from a record, click the email icon in the top right when viewing a record:

You can then choose the template you'd like to use and a preview of your email will display in the dialog.

You can edit the email text before sending it so you can add some personalisation to your message.

If any of the fields that the template uses are blank then the email will contain empty space where they should be and you'll be prompted to check the content carefully to make sure you haven't made a mistake.

​

When you are ready click send and your email will be sent right away.

If you are on a person record you have the option to create a blank email rather than using a template.

You can send this email to an email address on the person record you're looking at or on a record that the person points to.

You can type any text that you like but you can't add any variables here. If you want to add variables then you should use an email template.

A record of the email being sent will be logged to the timeline of the recipient. Note that this activity log will only be present on Person timelines.

All emails from Beacon come from your name ('Ben at The Beacon Trust') but a 'fake' email address ([email protected]).

The 'Reply-to' address is set as your email address, so any replies will go direct to your own inbox.

Yes! You can apply what's known as Markdown syntax to your templates to apply some formatting.

You can use the following to bold, italicise, or even hyperlink your text:

Yes. Whilst you can't upload a picture file directly to your email, you can add an image by using a link to the image, but that image will need to exist somewhere on the internet already.

For example, we're going to use this picture in our email. We add a link to it by using the following format:

![alt text](link to image)

No. You can only send basic text emails from Beacon. Instead, you can upload the file somewhere (e.g. OneDrive, Google Drive, etc.) and link to the file from your email.

No. You can only use our default email style and the formatting options above.

No. If you want to send email to large numbers of people you should use our Mailchimp, Dotdigital or Sendgrid integrations.

If the roles and permissions element has been purchased, admin users can restrict access to features, records, and fields. In order to send emails, a standard user will need at least the following permissions: