Start runs by email

A workflow can have its own email address. Send a message to it and Manifestly starts a run: the subject becomes the run's name, the body and any attachments become the first comment, and a few optional lines at the top of the message can set tags, participants, role assignments and field values. It suits work that arrives by email anyway, such as a request forwarded from a customer or a note sent from a phone.

Starting runs by email is enabled per account. If you do not see Start Runs by Email in a workflow's settings, contact support and we will turn it on.

Turn it on and get the address

Open the workflow in the editor and click Settings.
Under Run behavior, tick Allow starting a run of this workflow by email.
Click Update. The workflow's address appears under the setting, with a Copy button.

The address looks like run-workflow-<code>@incoming.manifest.ly and is permanent for the workflow. Turning the setting off stops it accepting email; turning it back on brings the same address back, so saved contacts and forwarding rules keep working.

Who can send

The message must come from the email address of someone in the workflow's department who could start the workflow in the app: an admin or a user of that department, or an admin of the master account. Email from any other address is ignored.

Confirming the run

If the sending mail server proves the message really came from the sender's domain (it passes SPF or DKIM alignment, which is normal for company email), the run is created straight away.

Otherwise the sender receives a confirmation email summarising what we read from their message and anything we could not use, with a Start the run button. The run is created when they click it. The link is valid for 48 hours; after that, sending the email again produces a fresh one.

What the run gets

Name: the email's subject. If the subject is blank, the run is named after the workflow with "started by email" added.
Creator and participant: the sender.
First comment: the email body, with up to 10 attachments of 25 MB or less each. Larger or extra attachments are left out.
Origin: the run is marked as started by email, so you can tell these runs apart in reports and activity.

Setting more from the email

Start the body with one or more of these lines. The first line that is not one of them ends the list, and everything from there down becomes the comment.

Tags: onboarding, q3
Participants: jane@example.com, sam@example.com
Assign: Reviewer = jane@example.com
Customer Tier: Gold

Tags: a comma-separated list. Each tag must already exist in the department.
Participants: email addresses to add to the run.
Assign: Role = email pairs, comma-separated. The role must exist in the department.
Any input name: sets a workflow field by its label, or a step's data input by the name you would use for it in a variable such as {{Customer Tier}}. Give each input its own label, because two inputs with the same name cannot be told apart.

Lines that cannot be used are skipped rather than guessed at: a tag that does not exist, an email address that is not valid, a role that is not in the department, or an input name that clashes with an email header such as From or Subject. When a confirmation email is sent, it lists what was read and what was skipped, so check it before clicking Start the run. When the run is created directly, open it and check the comment and fields.