Tableau Tip: How to send an E-mail by URL Action?

What is the URL Action in Tableau?

A URL action is a hyperlink that points to a web page, file, or other web-based resources outside of Tableau. You can use URL actions to create a link to additional information about your data. To customize links based on your data, you can automatically enter field values as parameters in URLs.

 

Could we use URL Action to create an email?

With URL actions, we can actually create actions to achieve this! Instead of embedding a typical URL. You can use <mailto> to send an e-mail to anyone.

 

Sample

From the demo, when I click the e-mail logo, you can see it will automatically pop up in the e-mail editing interface. Additionally, the sender has been written. In this blog, I’ll show you how to send an E-mail from a Tableau Dashboard by URL Action.

GIF 1. Sample

 

Steps to send an E-mail by URL Action in Tableau

a) Add a chart to the Dashboard

For my case, I just put data in my chart and create an email shape. You can do whatever you want. Then you put this worksheet in a dashboard.

Figure 1. Chart Sample

 

b) Add a URL Action to the dashboard

Find the <Dashboard> in the menu and Click it.

Select the <Actions> to add actions to the dashboard.

Select <Go to URL> to add URL action.

Figure 2. Add URL Action

 

c) Edit Configuration

Fill in the URL with the following:

mailto:kobe24gmail.com

This URL will send an email to mailto:kobe24gmail.com just like the demo.

Then it’s finished!

Figure 3. URL Action Configuration

 

d) Additional

You may have questions about whether could I make it more intelligent. For example, fill in the subject and body automatically. My answer is of course you can do it!

If you want to add a subject name, you just need to include a ‘?’ like the following:

mailto:kobe24gmail.com?subject=GOAT

You can even include the body of the email using “&”:

mailto:kobe24gmail.com?subject=GOAT&body=I Miss U

 

If there are any problems, please feel free to point them out. Besides, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. I will try my best to answer your questions about Tableau or Alteryx.