AUTOMATE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Send personalised group emails with Workflow

Whether you’re announcing an engagement or the birth of a child, or you just want to send a family photo round to everyone without using Facebook, copying and pasting a templated email and filling in the blanks is a chore on a Mac, never mind on iOS.

There is a better way. If you’ve used the free Automator utility that’s been included with macOS for years, you’ll find the basic principles of Workflow for iOS are similar. If not, here’s a summary of how it works: you assemble actions in an order that achieves your particular goal. The output of one action can flow directly into the next, all working together to process information, and each action taking you a step closer to your goal. As you use the app, you’ll see this flow of info represented as a line that runs vertically from one action to the next.

Data doesn’t have to be passed forward, though; if the next action in sequence is not designed to take the kind of output the previous one produces, there won’t be a line between them. This doesn’t mean the first action’s result is lost; Workflow holds on to it, and you can retrieve that information easily later on. That’s because Workflow 1.7 added a feature called Magic Variables to save you effort — and to make workflows easier to read by not needing explicit actions to preserve and retrieve info. We’ll use this to piece together an email. Once you create this workflow, you can save it to reuse over and over!

Break it down

Before building any workflow, take a moment to list what info it needs from you or an app, and the steps you would perform manually to achieve your goal. Our example will ask for a subject line, body text (excluding a greeting and sign-off), and a photo attachment.

We’ll need a list of recipients who are to receive an email, with their address in the To field and first name in the greeting. Familiarise yourself with Workflow below, open the app, tap Create Workflow, select Normal, and then read on.