Mail merge is the process of using a template to send similar emails to multiple recipients while keeping the content personalized.
Why is Mail Merge important? Well, using a template you can modify the content and then send the emails, but what happens when you have 3000 recipients? Copy and paste is not a scalable solution. For high-volume sends, using a mail merge template is the way to go!
In this post we will use Gmail as our email service provider to create a mail merge template with Ruby. With the Nylas Email API, we can easily support utilizing a mail merge template to send communications. Let’s explore how in this blog post.
If you already have the Nylas Ruby SDK installed and your Ruby environment configured, continue reading this blog.
Otherwise, I would recommend that you read the post How to Send Emails with the Nylas Ruby SDK to understand the setup basics.
Before we jump into the code, let’s see how our application actually works. Although for that, we need to complete a very important step, which is creating a .csv file containing all the emails and information that we’re going to use.
The file will look like this, and you can actually choose how you name it:
| Name | Last_Name | Account | Address | Gift | |
| Alvaro | Tejada Galindo | 12345 | 742 Evergreen Terrace | [email protected] | Deadpool Action Figure |
| Blag | Tejada Galindo | 56789 | 430 Spalding Way | [email protected] | AFI Poster |
| Alvaro aka “Blag” | Tejada Galindo | 46451 | 1024 Cherry Street | [email protected] | Tomb Raider Game |
Keep in mind that you can add whatever you like here or you can even delete columns. The only ones that are required for each row are the Name and Email columns.
This is what our application will look like:
Here, we can fill in the subject, and the body and click ‘Choose File’ to select the .csv file we created.
If we don’t specify all the fields, we will get an error message:
The interesting part here is how we define the subject and the body.
Here, {Name}, {Account}, {Address} and {Gift} will be replaced by the values stored on the .csv file. So each recipient will get a personalized email. Just keep in mind that the values used between brackets need to match the column names in the .csv file.
Let’s click Submit and see what happens.
We have successfully sent emails to all recipients. Let’s check their inbox.
As we can see, all recipients received a personalized email, as all the fields were replaced accordingly. This is what creating a Mail Merge template is all about.
As we want to create a Ruby web application, our best option is to use Sinatra, one of the most popular Micro Frameworks in the Ruby world. We might need to install some additional gems:
$ gem install sinatra $ gem install webrick $ gem install sinatra-flash
Once installed, we’re ready to go:
First, we’re going to create a folder called MailMerge, and inside we’re going to create another folder called views.
Let’s create a file called MailMerge.rb in the MailMerge folder, and add the following code:
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Newsroom# Import your dependencies
require 'sinatra'
require 'csv'
require 'dotenv/load'
require 'nylas'
require 'sinatra/flash'
# Use sessions
enable :sessions
# Initialize your Nylas API client
nylas = Nylas::API.new(
app_id: ENV["CLIENT_ID"],
app_secret: ENV["CLIENT_SECRET"],
access_token: ENV["ACCESS_TOKEN"]
)
# Display emails that were sent
get '/result' do
# Get the emails array
@emails = params[:emails]
erb :show_emails
end
# Main page with form
get '/' do
# Read session variables
@subject = session[:subject]
@body = session[:body]
erb :main, :layout => :layout
end
# When we submit the information
post '/' do
# Set session variables
session[:subject] = params[:subject]
session[:body] = params[:body]
if(params[:subject] == '' || params[:body] == '' || params[:mergefile] == '')
flash[:error] = "You must specify all fields"
redirect to("/")
else
# Clear session variables
session[:subject] = ''
session[:body] = ''
# Get parameters from form
subject = params[:subject]
body = params[:body]
mergefile = params[:mergefile]
# Auxiliary variables
email = ''
emails = Array.new
# Load CSV file
mergemail_file = CSV.parse(File.read(params[:mergefile]), headers: true)
# Get headers
headers = mergemail_file.headers()
# Go through each line of the CSV file
mergemail_file.each{ |line|
# Assign parameters to auxiliary variables
subject_replaced = subject
body_replaced = body
# Loop through all headers
headers.each { |header|
# If any header matches the subject, then replace it
if(subject.match(/{#{header}}/))
subject_replaced = subject_replaced.gsub(/{#{header}}/, line["#{header}"])
end
# If any header matches the body, then replace it
if(body.match(/{#{header}}/))
body_replaced = body_replaced.gsub(/{#{header}}/, line["#{header}"])
end
}
# Get Name and Last_Name if both exist
begin
full_name = line["Name"] + line["Last_Name"]
rescue => error
# Get Name only
full_name = line["Name"]
end
# Get email and send it to an array
email = line["Email"]
emails.push(email)
# Try to send an email to each email on the CSV file
begin
# Call the Send endpoint and send an email for each
# occurrence on the CSV file
message = nylas.send!(to: [{ email: line["Email"], name: full_name }],
subject: subject_replaced,
body: body_replaced)
rescue => error
# Something went wrong
puts error.message
end
}
# Call the page to display sent emails
redirect to("/result?emails=#{emails}")
end
end
Inside the views folder, we need to create 3 different files, let’s start with layout.erb:
<html>
<head>
<script src="https://cdn.tailwindcss.com"></script>
<title>Nylas' Mail Merge</title>
</head>
<body>
<% flash.keys.each do |type| %>
<div class="flash bg-green-300 border-green-600 border-b p-4 m-4 rounded w-2/5 grid place-items-center text-red-600 font-bold">
<%= flash[type] %>
</div>
<% end %>
<%= yield %>
</body>
</html>
Then, main.erb:
<div class="bg-green-300 border-green-600 border-b p-4 m-4 rounded w-2/5 grid place-items-center"> <p class="text-6xl text-center">Mail Merge</p> <br> <form method="post"> <label for="subject" class="font-bold">Subject: </label> <input type="text" name="subject" value="<%= @subject %>" size="50"></input> <br><br> <label for="body" class="font-bold">Body: </label> <textarea name="body" rows=5 cols=49><%= @body %></textarea> <br><br> <label for="mergefile" class="font-bold">Merge File: </label> <input type="file" name="mergefile"> <br><br> <button type="submit" class="block bg-blue-500 hover:bg-blue-700 text-white text-lg mx-auto py-2 px-4 rounded-full">Submit</button> </form> </div>
And finally show_emails.erb:
<div class="bg-green-300 border-green-600 border-b p-4 m-4 rounded w-2/5 grid place-items-center">
<h1 class="text-3xl"> The email was sent to the following addresses</h1>
<br>
<% @emails = @emails.gsub(/\[|\]/,'').gsub(/\"/,'') %>
<% @emails = @emails.split(",") %>
<% @emails.each do |item| %>
<p class="font-semibold"><%= item %></p>
<% end %>
</div>
<div class="bg-green-300 border-green-600 border-b p-4 m-4 rounded w-2/5 grid place-items-center">
<a href="/" class="text-blue-600">Go back</a>
</div>
And that’s it. We’re ready to roll.
In order to run our application, we just need to type the following on the terminal window:
$ ruby MailMerge.rb
Our application will be running on port 4567 of localhost, so we just need to open our favourite browser and go to the following address:
http://localhost:4567
We easily created a mail merge template application using Ruby.
If you want to learn more about the Nylas Email API, please visit our documentation Email API Overview.
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Blag aka Alvaro Tejada Galindo is a Senior Developer Advocate at Nylas. He loves learning about programming and sharing knowledge with the community. When he’s not coding, he’s spending time with his wife, daughter and son. He loves Punk Music and reading all sorts of books.