Why doesn't Alteryx have a draft email option?

[Joker_Hazard]

Morning all!

I've been researching ways to draft e-mails instead of just sending them with email tool in reporting tab. 

There are plenty of people that need this feature and some ideas like: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Enhance-Email-tool-to-Allow-for-Creating-Dra...

Or https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Saving-Draft-Email-in-Outlook-draft-ma... from @kelvin_tsang .

However, as Alteryx is been used more and more through out businesses, some companies have 4 eyes check. 

Can some admin give us some insights on this? Will we ever get a draft feature?

Thanks.

[Samantha_Jayne]

Hi @Joker_Hazard it is such a great idea, I would recommend if you really want to see this feature within the platform, that you comment (in detail) on the initial idea so that Alteryx can see the customers on the idea itself explaining how important it is to your business, the more customers that do this the better understood an idea can be to create a new Alteryx feature.

[Joker_Hazard]

Hey Samantha!! Thanks for reaching me out!

I've created an idea for that matter. Can you kindly give me your opinion about? Should I try to improve or is it in accordance to alteryx forum rules?

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Enhance-Email-tool-to-Allow-for-Creating-Dra...

@Samantha_Jayne 

[Luke_C]

I actually think there's an idea logged for this already: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Enhance-Email-tool-to-Allow-for-Creating-Dra...

[Joker_Hazard]

Yep I used some of his ideas and words to create mine, as his is "stuck" for 2 years already.

Best regards

[Robin_McIntosh]

I know you are looking for a specific feature within Alteryx.  However, another way to do this if you know QuickBase is "create" the emails in Alteryx and then export as a JSON file.  Then upload the resulting JSON file to QuickBase, have the 4-eye review there, and QuickBase can then send the emails for you once approval is valued (based on QB design).  Would also serve as an audit trail for the reviews.

[Joker_Hazard]

Interesting workaround. What I do today is to use HTML coding in a Text tool and then afterwards save it as .eml.

The attachements I encode them so outlook read them as proper attachments. The only issue is to update the body of the email with dynamic info, as I hard coded the html there, its really dauting to substitute the info every time. 

In Alteryx Server its nearly impossible to work with this workaround as many people will need a dynamic e-mail body.

About json though, would it be simpler? Whats your opinion?

[Robin_McIntosh]

Not sure how (if) JSON can handle actual attachments.  Didn't realize you were working with attachments in the email.  And as far as HTML formatting, I've run into issues with the JSON file not uploading to QB based on the formatting so I've had to revert to plain text for the time being.  But QB can do HTML formatting when sending emails so it's a matter of tinkering with it to figure out.