How it works  

Setting up the Email trigger  

1. In the My Flows section, click + Create, then Create Flow.
   
2. Enter a name for your flow and optionally a description.
   
3. Click Create
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4. Select Email as the trigger, then click Configure in the email trigger block in the builder.
   
5. Click Create Template to create a new template.
   

6. Send a sample email with your desired format to the email address provided. This sample should match the format of the emails that will trigger your flow in the future.

Once Zoho Flow receives the email, the template configuration screen will open.
In the template, highlight the words or groups of words where new data is likely to appear in future emails. These positions are recorded as variable. Each time a new email arrives, the values at those positions are extracted and made available for the flow.




7. Provide labels for each variable so you can identify them easily when building your flow.
   
   
   
   
8. Note the email address shown for this template. Send or forward similarly formatted emails to this address to trigger the flow.
   
9. Click Proceed and add the actions you want the flow to perform. For example, you can use the Zoho Cliq — Add bot in a channel action to have a bot post the extracted email data as a message in a channel.
   

Things to note

1. The email address is unique to each template. If you create a new template, a new address is generated.
   
2. The flow must be turned on to process incoming emails.
   
3. Each email received triggers a separate flow run.
   
4. If the format of incoming emails changes significantly, update the template to match the new format.
   

Troubleshooting  

The setup page is stuck on "Waiting for your email..."

1. Confirm that you sent the email to the exact email address shown on the setup page.
   
2. Check your sent folder to make sure the email was delivered.
   
3. Some email clients may delay sending. Wait a moment and try again.
   

The flow was triggered but the bot did not post a message on the channel.

1. Check the action step configuration and make sure the correct bot and channel are selected.
   
2. Go to the History tab to see where the flow may have failed.
   

Variables are showing incorrect or empty values.

Note: You can automate the sending of your preferred emails to Zoho Flow's email address by setting up automatic forwarding of emails from your email service provider settings.