When do emails execute? Before or after form rules?

API & Customization Ask Developers
1

Does anyone know when emails are sent out? I want emails to only be sent once on a form, but the form may be utilized numerous times. If emails are sent before form rules I can just add a field that the email has been sent.

If form rules are executed before an email is sent, does anyone have a work around to only send an email one time?

2

Unfortunately for your scenario the record rules are executed before the email and so the email would not send.

However, there is a way round this which involves:

  1. Send the email from your existing form with the criteria Email Sent is not Yes
  2. Configure the Submit rule to open a new child form which edits the same record (probably open as a popup for neatness). This form needn't have any fields on it - just the submit button and you could rename it - or you could add some text to tell the user it's updating.
  3. In this new form have a record rule which updates the Email Sent field to Yes.

The downside so far is that this new form needs to be submitted which is a pain - however you can get it to Auto Submit with the following Javascript:

$(document).on('knack-view-render.view_191', function(event, view, data) {
$('button[type=submit]').submit();
});

Note '191' above should be replaced with the view number of your view. Also, this code is for the new Standard Theme.