Your application can send emails such as signup confirmations and status notifications without a separate email service. You can manage templates, set the address your application sends from, and review sent messages in Configuration.
Emailing requires the Aha! Builder Scale plan. Sending also depends on governance. Your account's default rules or the rules template applied to your application must enable the Applications can send emails rule.
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Enable emails
Aha! Builder includes email sending. You do not need to configure SMTP or add an API key. To turn on emails for your application, use Elle, the AI assistant.
Navigate to your application in Aha! Builder.
Open the Elle chat panel.
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Describe the email you want your application to send, including the recipient, trigger, and message.
For example, you can ask it to: “Send a confirmation email to anyone who completes the new vendor request form. Thank them for the submission and let them know that our team will respond within two business days.”
Review the changes in Preview, then accept them.
After you deploy your application, end users will receive these emails from your Production environment.
Test email flows in Preview before you deploy. Preview and Production have separate email logs. When you deploy, Aha! Builder deploys the templates you set up in Preview to Production.
Set the sending address
Your application's emails send from an Aha! managed domain by default. You can send from a domain your company controls instead, so recipients see a familiar address. This is separate from the custom domain that gives your application its own web address.
To set up a custom domain, you will need help from the person on your team who manages DNS records for your company’s domain.
To review or change the address your application sends from:
Navigate to your application in Aha! Builder.
Select Operate -> Configuration.
Select Email, then select the Sent tab.
In the Sending address section, enter the part of the address that comes before the @ symbol, such as “no-reply” or “notifications.”
Select a domain from the dropdown. Aha! Builder selects aha.io (Aha! default) until you add and verify a domain of your own.
Only verified domains appear in the dropdown, so your application keeps sending from the default address until verification succeeds.
To add a custom domain:
Switch to the Preview environment. You add and verify custom domains in Preview.
In the Sending address section, select Add custom domain.
Enter the Sender email you want recipients to see — the part before the @ symbol, then your domain, such as “notifications” and “yourcompany.com.”
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Select Save. Aha! Builder generates the DNS records your domain needs.
These records authenticate messages sent from your domain, so receiving mail servers can confirm the messages are authorized.
Send the records to the person who manages your company’s DNS settings and ask them to add each one exactly as shown.
After your DNS administrator publishes the records, return to the Sending address section to finish verifying the domain.
Once the domain is verified, select it in the Sending address section so your application sends from it.
You set the sending address separately in Preview and Production. After you verify a domain in Preview, switch to Production and select it there so live messages send from the address you expect.
View sent emails
Aha! Builder logs each email your application sends so you can review details such as the recipient, subject, and sent time.
Navigate to your application in Aha! Builder.
Select Operate -> Configuration.
Select Email, then select the Sent tab.
The table lists each sent email. Select a row to view the recipient, subject, and sent time.
In Preview, Aha! Builder does not send emails to recipients. It still adds them to the Sent tab so you can confirm what your application would have sent. Switch between Preview and Production to view each environment’s email log.
Manage email templates
Email templates control the subject line, body, and formatting of the messages your application sends.
Navigate to your application in Aha! Builder.
Select Operate -> Configuration.
Select Email, then select the Templates tab.
Each template appears in a list. Select a template to preview the email.
When you deploy your application, Aha! Builder deploys templates from Preview to Production. They might not appear in the Production template list yet, but they still work in Production.
Elle builds and changes templates for you. You can start from the Templates tab or from the Elle chat panel:
Select Create template to start a guided request. Elle asks what kind of email you want, who receives it, and what triggers it, then builds the template from your answers.
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Describe the change in the Elle chat panel instead when you already know what you want. For example, you can ask it to:
“Add a template for a weekly digest of new requests, grouped by team.”
“Update the welcome email template to include a link to our user guide.”
“Remove the password-reset template because we no longer use it.”
Elle generates the code change, and you can review it in Preview before you deploy.