Email triggers

Send an email to a template’s unique address to start a process without logging into Tallyfy. This works well for mobile users or when you’re working from external systems.

Prerequisites

• Permission to edit templates
• No required kick-off form fields in the template (optional fields are fine)
• Sender’s email must belong to an active member in your organization

Cannot use with required kick-off fields

Email triggers don’t work if the template has any kick-off form fields marked as Required. You’ll get a failure notification email. Only use templates with optional (or no) kick-off fields for email launching.

Setting up email triggers

Each template gets its own unique email address.

1. Open a template in Edit mode.
2. Click Triggers in the left sidebar.
3. Choose Other options.
4. Find the Via inbound email option.
5. Copy the email address shown - it’s unique to this template.
6. Share this address with team members who need to launch this process via email.

What happens when an email arrives

1. Tallyfy checks if the sender is an active member in your organization. Non-members get a rejection email.
2. If verified, Tallyfy launches a new process from the linked template.
3. The email Subject becomes the process name.
4. If you’ve set up email capture fields (see below), the body and attachments fill in automatically.
5. Assignees on the first task(s) get notified.

How does the email trigger process work?

This diagram shows the full validation flow and possible outcomes.

Capturing email content

Tallyfy can save the email body and attachments into kick-off form fields. When you open the Via inbound email trigger panel, Tallyfy offers to create these fields for you with a Create it now link:

Field Label	What it captures	Field type
Inbound Email Trigger - Email Body	The full text of the email body	Long Text Area
Inbound Email Trigger - Email Attachments	Files attached to the email	File Upload

These fields are optional. Without them, the process still launches - you just won’t capture the email content.

Email address format

The trigger email address follows this pattern:

bot+[TemplateID]-launch@tallyfy.com

[TemplateID] is your template’s unique ID. You don’t need to construct this yourself - Tallyfy shows the full address in the trigger panel.

Example uses

• Site visit reports - Technicians email after visits (Subject: Site Visit - Client X; Body: details; Attachments: photos)
• Support escalation - Forward a customer email to the trigger address to start a complaint process

Consider structured forms instead

Email triggers work, but emails are unstructured - people write whatever they want, in any format. This creates data quality issues.

Better approach: Use kick-off forms instead. Structured forms give you consistent data formats, required fields, and validation before the process starts.

Use email triggers as a fallback, not your primary launch method.

Smart email forwarding with keywords

You can launch Tallyfy processes from regular email conversations using a keyword and an email filter rule.

1. Pick a unique keyword like TRIGGER-TALLYFY
2. Set up an email rule in Gmail, Outlook, or your mail system that:
   • Watches for emails containing your keyword
   • Auto-forwards matches to the Tallyfy template address
3. The process launches when Tallyfy receives the forwarded email

Use different keywords for different templates (e.g., TRIGGER-ONBOARDING, TRIGGER-COMPLAINT).

Gmail example:

1. Go to Settings > Filters and Blocked Addresses
2. Create filter: “Has the words: TRIGGER-TALLYFY”
3. Action: Forward to bot+[TemplateID]-launch@tallyfy.com

Security notes

• Only active Tallyfy members in your organization can trigger launches - emails from outsiders are rejected
• Each template has its own unique trigger email address
• Write clear subjects - they become the process name

Adding comments via email replies

You can add comments to existing tasks by replying to Tallyfy task notification emails.

1. Receive a task notification email from Tallyfy.
2. Reply to that email.
3. Your reply becomes a comment on the task.
4. File attachments in the reply get added to the comment.

The reply-to address format is bot+[TaskID]-comment-task@tallyfy.com.

Best practices

• Keep a shared list of trigger email addresses for your team
• Agree on standard subject line formats for easier tracking
• Test the trigger from each email client your team uses

Related articles

Launching > Triggers

Tallyfy offers seven ways to start a process — manually clicking launch or submitting a form or automatically through API calls and emails and magic links and recurring schedules and task completion chains — with some triggers able to pre-fill kick-off form data to cut manual entry and reduce errors.

Triggers > Launch via a kick-off form

Kick-off forms in Tallyfy collect essential information at the start of a template and feed that data directly into subsequent workflow steps while also supporting public sharing so external users like customers or vendors can submit a form to automatically launch an internal process with email verification and progress tracking.

Power Automate > Working with email automation in Power Automate

Power Automate connects email services like Outlook 365 to Tallyfy so incoming emails can automatically launch processes and populate form fields while Tallyfy events can trigger personalized outbound emails — all without manual work.

Triggers > Launch via a magic link

Magic links in Tallyfy are special URLs that let logged-in users trigger actions like launching processes or completing tasks simply by clicking a link and these can be embedded in emails or intranet pages with pre-filled data using URL parameters and JSON-encoded field values.

Was this helpful?

YesNo