According to research done by McKinsey Global, the average worker spends just shy of 30% of their time on their email. Statistics show that Gmail accounts for nearly 25% of all email traffic. With over 1.5 billion accounts, there’s pretty good odds that you’re using Gmail.
Given that so much time is spent in Gmail, Text Blaze is a natural fit to use in Gmail for increasing your productivity. There is an infinite number of things you can do with Text Blaze to enhance your Gmail experience, and this post is meant to get you started with some cool ideas. In this post, you’ll find snippets that can:
- Help you compose an email, from setting the subject to writing the body to copying people on your email (such as the BCC to Salesforce email address)
- Use AI to reply to emails or to get a summary of a thread that’s too long to read through
- Automatically create an activity log of your email activity in Data Blaze
Note: Many of these snippets leverage the Gmail command pack which cannot be previewed in the Community. Add these to your Text Blaze account to give them a try! You can also find additional ideas for how to use Text Blaze in Gmail here, in our Gallery.
Check out this video for several of these in action, too: Gmail snippets demo video
Write an entire email with just a few keypresses
Text Blaze can save entire emails as templates, including the subject line and the body. With the Gmail command, merging information about the email, such as the recipient’s name or the email received time, makes getting emails sent a breeze.
In this example, triggering this snippet from the Gmail subject line will put the first portion of text in the subject, and the remaining text into the body of the email. There’s a few form fields to further customize the email.
Reaching out from Text Blaze{key: tab}Hi {gmail-firstname: type=multiple},
I was hoping to set up some time with you to review the usage of Text Blaze at {formtext: name=company}. Is there a time this week that works for you? A good day for me to meet would be {formdate: YYYY-MM-DD}, but if that doesn't work then I'm happy to send you a link to schedule something, too.
Best,
Another example of an automatic email might be one like this, which apologizes for a slow reply and automatically sends the email:
Hi {gmail-firstname: type=multiple},
Sorry for my slow response -- I know you sent that email to me on the {gmail-datereceived: format=Do} and it has been {=datetimediff({gmail-datereceived: format=YYYY-MM-DD}, {time: YYYY-MM-DD}, "D")} days since then. I'm just buried in emails right now, so thank you for understanding.
I will get you a response in the next few days -- if you don't hear from me by the end of the week, please follow back up.
Thanks,
Andrew{gmail-send}
CC and/or BCC addresses on your emails automatically
Hi {gmail-firstname: type=multiple},
Thanks for your time on our call earlier today. Below I have provided a recap of our conversation and pertinent next steps:
{formparagraph: name=meeting notes; cols=65; rows=7; default=- Your pilot is going very well
- You're hoping to launch this month
- Need pricing for 50, 100, and 150 users
- An annual agreement will go through your procurement process
- Stakeholders have buy-in, but you'd like to schedule a final demo
- Text Blaze is saving each rep on your team 10 hours per week}
If there's anything else that you need in the meantime, please let me know.
Best,
Sales Rep
{gmail-bcc: examplebcc@salesforce.com; trim=left}
Schedule an email to be sent at a future time
This snippet leverages the autopilot functionality of Text Blaze to navigate Gmail’s UI and schedule an email to be sent 3 hours from the current time. This snippet should be triggered from the body of an email and assumes that you don’t have any additional Gmail plugins like Boomerang or MailTrack.
{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: space}{key: uparrow}{wait: delay=+0.5s}{key: enter}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: enter}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: tab}{time: h:mm a; shift=+3h}{key: tab}{key: enter}
Automatically add a label to a message
Use the following snippet to automatically add a Gmail label to an outbound message. Like the previous example, this assumes that you don’t have any additional Gmail plugins that are adding more buttons to your interface. Replace “Social” with the label of your choice.
{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: tab}{key: space}{key: uparrow}{key: uparrow}{key: uparrow}{key: uparrow}{key: uparrow}{key: rightarrow}Social{key: enter}
Summarize a long email thread using OpenAI
Note: this snippet requires an OpenAI API key. When activating the OpenAI command pack, instructions are included for retrieving one.
{note}
Toggle configuration/generation: {formmenu: default=Configure; Generate; name=current_state}{endnote}{note: preview=yes; insert=no}
{endnote}{if: current_state=="Configure"}{note}
{contexts={site: text; multiple=yes; selector=[data-message-id*="#msg-"] .ii:not([style="display:none"]) .a3s.aiL}}
Choose previous contexts: {formmenu: multiple=yes; values={=contexts}; name=chosen_contexts}
{previous_emails_str=join(map(chosen_contexts, (x, i) -> "\nEmail " & i & ": \"" & x & "\""), "\n"); trim=yes}
{`mail string`=previous_emails_str; trim=yes}
{`mode string`="Please only write a short summary for the email thread given in following lines. Do not complete the email thread."; trim=left}
Final prompt:
{prompt=`mode string` & "\n" & `mail string`}{formparagraph: name=prompt; cols=70; rows=15}
{error: Use the dropdown above to "Generate" text; block=yes}
{endnote: trim=yes}{else}{openai-text: {=prompt}; trim=yes}{endif}
(shout out to Gaurang from our engineering team for making this one!)
Automatically create a log of your email activity in Data Blaze
This snippet creates a log of your emails in a Data Blaze table, including the names, email addresses, subject-lines, and timestamps of your emails. This standalone snippet can be added to any other snippet that you use in Gmail to make it even easier, too.
{recipientemails={gmail-email: type=list}}{recipientnames={gmail-name: type=list}}{date={time: YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm}}{subject={site: text; selector=[name="subjectbox"]}}
{sequence=seq(1,count(recipientemails))}
{all=[["email": {=recipientemails[i]}, "name":{=recipientnames[i]}] for i in sequence]}
{repeat: for x in all}{dbinsert: INSERT INTO `email log` SET `Email Recipient`={=x["email"]}, `Date Sent`=@date, `Email Subject`=@subject, `Recipient Name`={=x["name"]}; space=4Gwbs1Hpwuwbv8H0KFWpuq; autoaddfields=no}{endrepeat}