Emails can be used in two different ways in Okendo and the type of the email will determine how it can be used. The first way an email can be used is within a Sequence's send block. The other way an email can be used is to directly activate it so that it's ready to send in response to an action taken within Okendo.

The "Review Request" and "Add Media" email types are used in Sequences whereas the "Review Reply", "Coupon Reward" and more email types are used by directly activating them.

Sequences is Okendo's powerful email automation engine which handles post-purchase email flows. Emails and Sequences work hand in hand with each other: choose which emails you'd like to send as part of a sequence and they will be sent to customers as they make their way through the sequence. Currently, our "Review Request" and "Add Media" email types are available to be used in Sequences. Let's see how to use a review request email in a sequence.

To get started, create a basic sequence by navigating to Mail > Sequences and then clicking New Sequence > Single Review Request > Create Sequence.

Note: If you already have an existing sequence with a send block, you can use that sequence and follow these same instructions.

On the Edit Sequence page, click on a "Send" block from the sequence tree on the right side. The left panel will now show the details of that block and you can choose which email to send as part of this block's action. To ensure that the correct email has been chosen, you can preview it or send it as a test email to your email address. If the email needs any changes, click the pencil icon and you'll be taken directly to the Edit Email page for that email.

Once you're happy with the email that you've selected in the sequence, click "Save Changes". The newly selected email will now be sent when customers reach this point in the sequence. Remember that for emails to be sent, the sequence needs to be running. You can start a sequence by clicking the "Start" button.

More complex sequences may contain multiple "Send" blocks which allows for multiple different emails to be used in a single sequence. For this example, we're going to take a look at the "Review Request with Photo Reminder" sequence template which showcases two "Review Request" emails and an "Add Media" email type.

To get started, create a basic sequence by navigating to Mail > Sequences and then clicking New Sequence > Review Request with Photo Reminder > Create Sequence.

On the Edit Sequence page, instead of seeing just one "Send" block, you'll notice that in this sequence there are three send blocks: two "Review Request" blocks, and one "Add Media" block. Each block can be setup with its own email which gives us great flexibility when customising this sequence.

For the first "Review Request" block, click it and select the email you'd like to use for the initial review request.

Next, click on the send block with the "Add Media" type (pictured above). Notice that the Type of this block is different to the first send block that we set up. This means that on this block only "Add Media" type emails can be selected. Go ahead and select an add media email from the dropdown.

Remember: The block's Type will determine which type of email can be selected.

Finally, click on the last send block in the sequence (the one at the very bottom). This is our review request reminder send block. Just like the first send block, this is a "Review Request" type block so we can choose from any of our "Review Request" type emails. Select the same email you selected for the initial send block and click "Save Changes".

Now, this setup is great but we can improve it by using a different email for the reminder that's more tailored to the context. In general, we want the reminder email to feel the same as the initial email but with a different subject and different body text. To do this, we're going to Duplicate the email and make those changes to our duplicate copy.

Start by clicking the pencil icon next to the email you selected in the review request reminder send block which will take you directly to the Edit Email page for that email. From here, click the ... menu, then "Duplicate" and confirm the duplication.

This will take us to the Edit Email page for the duplicated email (note the "Copy of" at the start of the email name). Firstly, let's rename our new email so it's easier to find later. Click the ... menu, then "Rename" and enter a clearer name for our reminder email such as "Review Request Email - Reminder". From here the reminder email can be edited like any other review request email but for now we're just going to update the Subject Line and Body Content in the Body section. Once you're happy with your edits, click "Save Changes".

Navigate back to the sequence we were setting up earlier and select your new email in the final "Send" block in the sequence and click "Save Changes". Your sequence should now look something like this:

Congratulations, you're now set up with a multi-email sequence with a personalised review request reminder email and add media email!

Some emails are directly activated so that they can be sent in response to various actions in Okendo. For example, when you reply to a review in Okendo and select "Email a copy to the reviewer", your active "Review Reply" email will be used.

In most cases, you won't need to worry about activating any emails of these types because Okendo is already set up with an active email in each of these categories. Usually, it's easiest to customize the active email which has already been created on your behalf rather than creating a new email and activating it. However, there are times when you'll want to create a new draft email in these categories and then set it to be active so this guide will explain how.

This technique can be applied to any of the email types that are available for direct activation but in this example, we're going to use the "Review Reply" email. To get started, navigate to Emails > Review Reply. Here we can see the currently active "Review Reply" email.

To make a new draft review reply email, click "New Email", enter a name for the new email and then click "Create". This will take us to the Edit Email page where the new email can be customized. Once the customizations to the email have been completed, click "Save Changes".

To activate this email, click "Activate". This email is now the active Review Reply email and will be used the next time a review reply email is sent. If we go back and look at our list of Review Reply emails we'll see that our new email is active and our previously active email has been deactivated and returned to a draft state.

Remember: For every email type that is available for direct activation, only one email will be active at any one time. Therefore, when you activate a draft email, the currently active email of that type will be deactivated and returned to a draft state.

We can use this same technique to change the active email of other email types that are available for direct activation.