Hello, everyone! 😀
I'm Ian, one of the copywriters here at Pipefy.
I published in our Help Center an article dedicated to Purchasing Teams, teaching how to centralize communication with emails inside Pipefy. You can also check this same article below:
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Purchase requests must be processed efficiently and quickly by the Procurement team, but this can be a challenge when communication is scattered across different platforms and sources, like emails, Slack, and Microsoft Teams, forcing you to go back and forth between them and perform constant verifications.
To meet deadlines, find better suppliers, and achieve cost savings goals, Procurement teams should eliminate manual work to avoid mistakes and gain speed. With email automation, you can ensure that the correct information is sent to requesters and suppliers, and centralize messages in a single source of truth, with easy traceability.
In this article, we will cover the following topics:
How to create email templates
You can send and receive emails directly in Pipefy. Therefore, you centralize communications of purchase orders in their own cards. The first step to speed up your operation is to create an email template, which can be used in different cases, such as manager approval or supplier quotation. Templates can have dynamic fields, which are automatically filled in with the information of each purchase request.
For example, an email to request approval of a specific purchase order, where the order details are automatically populated with the employee’s request and quote data. This way, you don't need to compose an email from scratch every time you send a message to the approver.
Tutorial
You must be an admin member of the pipe to access email settings. Click on the Emails button, located in the header of the pipe. Then on Email Templates. The email configuration screen will appear, and then you can select the previously configured emails or create a new one. Click Create New Template.
Let's create an email together to send to the approver responsible for a purchase. This is the logic: after the buyer analyst quotes the product, an automatic email is sent to the approval manager requesting their sign off.
Here's how you can configure the fields:
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Email template name: Purchase Approval Request
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From name: [Screening → Name] [Organization → Name]
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From email: [Card → Email]
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To email: [Approval → Approver]
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Subject: Hello! We need your approval for the purchase of [Start Form → What would you like to buy/hire?]
The items in bold and square brackets above are dynamic fields that you choose by clicking the “+” button. Feel free to customize the template title or subject as you wish, you can write down any text.
When defining the sender's email with the standard card email, the email used will be the one on the card itself. This means that the entire exchange of information will be centralized in the same place (the purchase request card), ensuring organization and easy visibility.
After defining the sender and recipient information, it's time to write the email. The body text area has a rich text editor where you can make lists, add images, links, tables, and much more.
To add dynamic fields, click on the Dynamic field button located in the header, and customize the message as you wish. You can choose as many dynamic fields as you like, or not apply any. In this case, we want to set up an automatic email requesting approval. Here’s an example:
Just click Save and close and that's it, the email template is ready! The next step is to create automations to trigger sending an email template.
How to automate sending an emails
To automate sending an email template, click the Automate button located in the header of the pipe. Again, you must be an admin member to set this up. Then click Create New Automation.
Here, we see the event and action columns. Select the When a card enters a phase event and choose the Approval phase. On the side of the actions, select Send an email.
Next, just select the desired template. If you want, there is a shortcut to create new email templates here. In this case, we will choose the [Approval] Purchase approval request template. In the email preview, take the opportunity to check if all the information and dynamic fields are correct. If everything is OK, click Create automation.
The automation is ready!
Quick tip: create a test purchase request with your email and move it to the approval phase to verify if the template is working correctly, the email is automatically sent to you, and is registered inside the card in the email field.
Other possibilities: quote request email template
You can also use email templates to request quotes from suppliers, with all order details automatically populated. Email templates can be sent manually within the phases, so it is possible to send the same email to different suppliers or create an automation related to a list of suppliers registered in a database — and you receive quotations directly in the Quotation phase, within your purchase flow.
With a phase form, suppliers send their quotes, which in turn fall directly into Pipefy, inside the purchase card itself. This way, you have all the message exchanges about an order centralized in one place, guaranteeing that no messages will be lost and you can choose the best supplier.