Automate mail merge for emails
10 Check input & output
Tap the If action’s title and you’ll see that it passes forward its input — the quantity of email addresses. You need the actual email addresses – use a Magic Variable: Add the Get Variable action, and tap Choose Variable.
11 Use a Magic Variable
Next, tap Magic Variable. All of the actions in the workflow will spread out a little, with tokens between them. Find the ‘Get Email Addresses from Input’ action in the workflow, and tap the token labelled Email Addresses below it.
12 Choose an address
To list those addresses so you can choose one, add the ‘Choose from List’ action. Ensure Select Multiple is off, then set the action’s prompt to ‘Use which address for ?’ and place the insertion point right before the question mark.
13 Personalised prompt
It may not be obvious exactly who an email address belongs to, so let’s tailor the prompt with the name of the person being emailed on this pass through the Repeat loop. Tap the Repeat Item token in the keyboard’s top row.
14 What’s substituted?
After you insert the token into the prompt, it’ll be selected and a contextual panel will appear at the bottom of the screen. That panel should indicate that the contact’s full name will be used in the token’s place when the action runs.
15 With one address
If the contact has only one email address, the workflow will proceed along the If action’s Otherwise branch instead. In that branch, we need only to retrieve that address, so add a Get Variable action just below the Otherwise bar.
16 Retrieve the address
Tap Choose Variable in the action and then pick Repeat Item; it’ll appear as a token within the action. Tap that token to be presented with a list of info that can be retrieved from the item (a contact). Choose Email address, then tap Done.
19 Add prewritten body
Clear the contents of the second row to serve as a blank line in our email. Add a third row and set its contents to a Magic Variable containing the second Ask for Input action’s result. Rename the variable ‘msgBody’ for clarity.
17 Check your work
Check that you have two actions (Get Variable and Choose from List) between If and Otherwise, and only Get Variable between Otherwise and End If. The result that will be passed forward now will always be a single email address.
20 Sign off your email
Add another blank item, then add two more for ‘Kind regards,’ and your name, for example. Add one last item to the list: make it a Magic Variable that takes the output of the Select Photos action, and rename that ‘Photo’.
18 Start composing
We have all the info we need for our email. Below the End If bar, add a List action. Replace its first item with ‘Hi ’ followed by a Magic Variable; use the techniques you already learned to set it to Repeat Item’s first name attribute.
21 Send the email!
Add Send Email next. Let it show its Compose sheet until you’ve tested the workflow. In the To row, add a Magic Variable for the result below End If; call it ‘msgRecip’. In Subject, add the very first action’s result; call it ‘msgSubject’.