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Look before you send: Write better emails by inviting others to review

Create email drafts directly from this doc using the Gmail pack.

Have you ever heard someone say, “I didn’t have time to read everything in your email...” or “I read your email, but didn’t quite understand what you were asking me to do...”?

If so, this might be a subtle hint that your messages are either too long, too confusing, or don’t come across as relevant or important enough for them to read through. In order to get better at writing emails, start a habit of reviewing your emails before you send them—either by reading them aloud or ask others to help review.

This doc gives makes it easy for you and others to:

Draft important emails (or any message)

Review your email drafts before you send them.

Queue up send-ready, draft emails to your Gmail account (directly from this doc!)

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Ready to get started? Copy this doc, then get set up in a few steps:

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Copy this doc

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Setup: Connect your Gmail account (optional)

You can create email drafts directly from this doc by connecting your Gmail account to this doc.

How do I connect my Gmail account to this doc?

If you missed the initial prompt to connect to Gmail when you first copied this doc, you can easily connect your Google accounts by clicking Insert → Packs → Gmail. Set up your Google account as a ‘Private account’ so only you can send Gmails through this doc.

How will I know I’ve successfully connected to my Gmail?

You’ll know you’ve successfully connected with Google when you click the ‘Set up Gmail draft’ button in ‘step 3’ and see your draft in your Gmail account’s ‘Drafts’ folder. If you need help with this step, the Coda team can help. Just click the question mark at the bottom right of the screen.

Step 1: Draft emails

Clear sample data

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Click the ‘Compose new message’ button to start a new draft. To edit existing ones, click the ‘notes’ in the ‘Draft’ column. By default, all emails need to be reviewed by you. Invite others by selecting them in the ‘Reviewer(s)’ column.

Where can I view my drafts?

Once you’ve composed a new message, you’ll see your drafts in the the table below, sorted with the most urgent at the top

What’s the ‘Send by’ date for?

This is help reviewers prioritize the more important emails. The default ‘Send by’ date is an hour from now, but you can always change this. Also, note that only drafts with some content in them will show up in the Review list.

How do I notify reviewers a draft is ready for their review?

To notify a reviewer of drafts you’ve assigned to them, switch the ‘Notify?’ toggle to the ‘on’ position, and click the ‘Notify now’ button. They will receive an email (or Slack message if Coda’s been installed as Slack app) letting them know.

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Compose new message

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Subject

Draft

Recipients

Email (can add more later)

Reviewer(s)

Send by

Notify?

Notify now

Special announcement

Qiang Chang, Buck Dubois

QiangChang@dayrep.com

Tue, Jan 18, 2022

Newly proposed process

Teresa Mathews

TeresaEMathews@dayrep.com

Fri, Mar 10, 2023

There are no rows in this table

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Step 2: Review emails

This is where you, as a reviewer will see all the emails you’ve been assigned. Others you’ve added as ‘Reviewers’ will also see emails they’ve been assigned. Click inside any ‘Draft’ column to review messages.

Why is the table below blank? Appear to be missing emails.

Only emails you’ve been assigned to review will show up here, so this page will look different for different people (based on who’s currently viewing the page.

How do I add comments when reviewing?

To add comments, just select the text inside the Draft area and click the chat icon to the right of it.

How do I ‘sign off’ and indicate I’ve finished reviewing?

Once you’ve resolved all the comments, click the ‘Looks good!’ button to indicate it’s ready to send.

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What if I can’t find anyone who’ll review my draft?

Reading your draft aloud is a great way to check for errors, clarity, and flow.

You can use text-to-speech tool like

Speechify⁠

Chrome extension or

set up Mac OS to speak text⁠

on the screen to have your messages read back to you.

Urgency

Send by

Subject

Draft

Looks good!

Overdue

Today

Tomorrow

Later

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Step 3: Send emails drafts to Gmail

Once messages have received ‘thumbs up’ from all reviewers, they can be emailed in one of two ways: (1) Click the button to create a draft in Gmail, then customize and send it from your

Gmail drafts folder⁠

. (2) Copy the Draft email to the clipboard and paste it into any other email or messaging app.

Why is the ‘Create Gmail draft’ button disabled?

The ‘Create Gmail draft’ lights up once everyone in the ‘Reviewer(s) list has reviewed it, otherwise, it’s disabled, and number of reviews still left shows up in the badge. If you want to skip any pending reviews for whatever reason, you can still copy the email draft to the clipboard manually paste it into an email.

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