Send a Slack or email notification from a workflow

Configure Slack Message and Send Email tasks with variables, safe tests, and clear side-effect controls.

Notification tasks let workflows alert people when something important happens, such as a deal moving stages, a high-value account being enriched, or a workflow finding a risk signal.

What You'll Build

A workflow that sends either:

A Slack message to a channel.
An email through Gmail.

You can use either task by itself or branch to different notifications based on workflow context.

When to Use This

Use notifications when the next best action belongs to a person:

Notify a manager when a deal moves to a late stage.
Alert RevOps when enrichment fails for a strategic account.
Send a rep a meeting-prep summary.
Share a research summary in a team channel.

Estimated time: 10-20 minutes.

Concepts used: Workflows, Tasks, Variables.

Prerequisites

Slack or Gmail integration configured for your org, depending on the task.
A workflow with useful context from prior steps.
A safe test record or test channel.

1. Decide Whether to Write a Field or Send a Notification

Before adding a side-effect task, decide if a notification is the right output.

Use Update Record when the information should become durable CRM data. Use Slack Message or Send Email when the information is time-sensitive and someone needs to act.

Many workflows do both: update the record first, then notify a person with a short summary and link.

2. Add a Slack Message Task

Add a Slack Message task when you want to post in Slack.

Required fields:

channel
message

Both fields accept variables and Liquid. Example message:

High-intent account ready for review:

Account: {{ steps.1.account.name }}
Reason: {{ steps.3.summary }}
Next step: {{ steps.3.next_best_action }}

Keep Slack messages short and actionable. Link to the GTM record when possible.

3. Add a Send Email Task

Add a Send Email task when you want to send email through Gmail.

Required fields:

toEmails
subject
content
fromUserId

Example subject:

Meeting prep for {{ steps.1.account.name }}

Example content:

Hi {{ steps.1.owner.first_name }},

Here is the latest prep for {{ steps.1.account.name }}:

{{ steps.3.brief }}

Suggested next step:
{{ steps.3.next_best_action }}

Keep recipients explicit while testing. Avoid dynamic recipient lists until the workflow is proven.

4. Test Safely

Notification tasks are side effects. They run for real when the workflow run reaches them.

Safe testing practices:

Use a test Slack channel.
Send test emails to yourself.
Run on one record before running a batch.
Put the notification task after validation steps.
Confirm variables render as expected before publishing.

If a workflow has multiple side effects, test each one separately when possible.

5. Publish and Monitor

Publish the workflow when the message is correct.

After the first live run:

Confirm the Slack message or email arrived.
Check that variables rendered with real values.
Inspect the workflow run to confirm the notification task succeeded.
If the workflow is trigger-driven, verify the trigger fired only for the intended records.

Success Check

You are done when:

The notification task has all required fields.
Variables render correctly.
Test recipients receive the expected message.
The workflow run shows the notification task succeeded.
The message is concise enough for the recipient to act on.

Common Pitfalls

Sending to a production channel during testing.
Using a variable path that is empty for some records.
Including too much raw AI output in the message.
Forgetting that reruns can send another message or email.
Using notifications for data that should be written to a CRM field.