8 min read

How to send messages from Coda

Connect Coda to Gmail to streamline communication.

Collaboration isn’t just about managing tasks and projects—it’s also about communication. On the surface, communication through your org seems easy: just let people know what’s happening and when. But we live in a complicated world, where people are spread across timezones, juggling multiple projects, and trying to have dinner with the family once in awhile. Ensuring everyone stays in the loop will make or break a project—and that’s where Coda comes in. By using Coda’s Slack and Gmail Packs, you can take a deep breath knowing that all the tiny communication tasks are taken care of, giving you the space to tackle more strategic work.

What you’ll learn:
  • How to set up the Gmail pack for easy note distribution
  • How to send reminders so you can focus on getting work done rather than nagging people
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What you’ll use:
  • Gmail Pack
  • Slack Pack
  • Automations

Connect the communication dots.

In this guide, we’ll explore the most common use cases for communication-focused Pack connections:
  • Sending notes
  • Sending reminders
  • Creating time-based reminders
  • Creating situation-based reminders


Send notes with the Gmail Pack.

Before you can start sending emails from Coda, you’ll need to connect to your email provider. As of this writing, Coda connects to Gmail and Outlook, but we’ll be using Gmail for this example.

Adding the Gmail Pack.

  • Click Insert in the top right of your screen and choose Packs.
  • Search for and select the Gmail Pack.
  • Click Add to doc.
Now that you have the Gmail Pack added to your doc, you can can make a button to send an email or create a draft. For this tutorial, we’re going to use a template to create a draft in your gmail for your meeting notes.
  • Type "/email meeting notes."
  • Select the Email meeting notes template.
  • Right click on the Draft email button in the Meeting notes table.
  • Click the Connect an account button.
  • Select the account you want to connect.
Congrats! You’re all set up to create an email draft in your Gmail account. Press the Draft email button and go check out your drafts in your Gmail. You can press send there to send the email.

Behind the scenes

The draft you created is based off the Message column and is set to be sent to the Attendees column. You can set all of the specifics up by right-clicking on the Draft email button. Here’s a screenshot of the settings 👉 We set up this tutorial to create a draft, but what if you want to send an email directly from Coda? Simply change the On Click dropdown from Create draft to Send email. In the On Click dropdown, select PacksGmailSend email. The rest of the settings will reset, so you’ll need to refill them. Set them up like this:
  • ToAttendess.Email address
    • Put in your own email to test.
  • SubjectEmail subject
  • ContentMessage
  • Results ColumnEmail result
You’ll also want to change the Label to something like Send email.
Tip: Having a results column populate when the button is pushed allows you to disable your button. This ensures you won’t accidentally send the same email twice!

Now what?

There are an infinite (not really, but close) number of ways you can connect Coda to your communication workflows, and the Gmail Pack is just the beginning. You can repeat the above flow for Outlook, Slack, and Teams. Think about the repetitive communication tasks you have...Coda can probably help! Once you write out their steps, you can translate them into components or automations to make it easy and streamlined with Coda. Check out these guides for the next steps in your message sending journey:

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