To send an Email, select the menu item ACTIONS > Email. With Email, you can not only send Emails with optional attachments but also send Calendar Items. This enables you to make appointments with people, just as you would in Outlook or a similar program.

Actions menu with the Email button
Actions menu with the Email button

A new window will open:

E-mail compose window
E-mail compose window

The fields indicated by an asterisk (*) are mandatory.

Interface name

The value of this field will be used for the underlying logic.

From *

You can use the value of a variable or provide text between quotes. This value can be anything you want. E.g. 'John Doe' or main.start.myname.

Reply *

You can use the value of a variable or provide text between quotes. This must be a valid Email address.


You can use the value of a variable or provide text between quotes. Free text, of course.

Send to *

You can use the value of a variable or provide text between quotes. You can provide multiple Email addresses separated by a semicolon (;). They must all be valid Email addresses. For example:


CC and BCC

Are the same as Send to, but optional.

Calendar Item

If you would like to send a calendar item, check the box called ‘Calendar Item’. The interface will change so you can enter a start and end date. You will also be able to add a description.


There are two types of attachments:

The first type are the documents one creates when running the model. If you press the plus icon you will get a list of all the documents that will be created. Be cautious that you send the email after the document is created.

The second type of attachment are files which are not created by the model, e.g. standard terms and conditions. You can select the file by pressing the browse files button (image of folder with up-pointing arrow). When you select a file, the Studio will copy that file to a subfolder of the model, and make sure that the file will be sent to the server when publishing.

The Message (body text)

The message body of the email can be typed in the field called ‘normal text’. This text is plain text, so it is not possible to add styles, colors etc. This way the receiving party is always able to read the message. In this field you can use variables (e.g. ^{main.start.name}).

If you want to use styles, you should use HTML. You can enter the raw HTML in the HTML field. You must still fill the information in ‘normal text’, to make sure all receivers can read the message.

Under the hood

When you press OK, you can see that the mechanism of sending an Email works with a graph, using the name entered in the field called ‘Interface Name’. The graph is converted using graphtodataset() and processed by an interface. Sending an Email consists therefore of three actions:

  1. call graph,
  2. graphtodataset and
  3. sending of the email via the ‘email interface’.

Do not change the order of these three actions, or the Email will fail. If you are an experienced user, you can tweak the code in the graph; the email interface expects the node sendmail, and the variable names you will find there. You can expand the graph if you wish.