Sharing my Gmail BCC (with parameters) flow to add RENXT records (actions/attributes/appeals)

Philip Bien
Philip Bien
Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant Facilitator 1
in SKY Developer General Discussions

Building on @Andrew Peterson's clever email button,

which generates a comprehensive email digest featuring donors who gave to a specific Campaign during the same week last year but have not contributed during the current fiscal year. The email includes clickable links to donor records, gift records, and pre-filled personalized email templates - all formatted to work on both the Gmail desktop website and Gmail mobile app…

I built a complimenting Power Automate flow that leverages Gmail's plus-addressing (subaddressing) feature to pass structured parameters through BCC addresses, automatically adding desired records to Raiser's Edge NXT.

@Andrew Peterson added this to the email draft button, and now the donor does not see this BCC address, Power Automate follows with our desired functions, and our team has a lot less data entry to do.

Below is a flow that’s a bit complicated as it’s set up to use the same flow for multiple purposes, depending on how the parameters are set.

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While the flow focuses on two different functions from BCC addresses, you could swap these out to perform whatever functions are appropriate for you, or just make it simple.

BCC email structure with parameters:

[username]+PAF=BCC-SW=SSA-GID={gift_id}-@[domain].org

e.g.: robot+PAF=BCC-SW=SSA-GID=87322-@domain.org

Parameter Breakdown:

  • + - Gmail subaddressing delimiter
  • PAF=BCC - Program identifier (validates this email should trigger the flow, if that’s not there, the flow terminates)
  • SW=BCCSS - Switch parameter controlling execution path (e.g. when the BCC address is added to gift stewardship emails, it adds an attribute to the gift; when the BCC address is added to a LYBUNT report, it adds an appeal to the donor’s record).
    • BCCSS = Add Field to Stewardship
    • LYBUNT = Add appeal to donor’s record
  • GID={gift_id} - Gift system record ID
  • CID={cons_id} - Constituent system record ID

image-acebeb52e52ab-59aa.png

Flow Implementation Details

Trigger Configuration:

  • Connector: Gmail - "When a new email arrives"
  • Filter: BCC contains the base address pattern

Initialize variables based on the parameters in the BCC email address.

Conditional Validation Logic

image-7d1d15bacdeac8-dc7a.png

Switch Control Structure

Switch On: switch1Program

The switch evaluates the SW parameter value extracted from the BCC address to determine which function(s) to execute.

Case 1: Create Gift Custom Field (SW=BCCSS)

image-272a8a105913c8-85c0.png

Case 2: Send HTTP Request - Constituent Appeal (Placeholder/Future)

image-32933b5bd7b4d8-61f2.png

Is it Gmail only? Gmail's plus-addressing feature allows arbitrary text between + and @ without affecting mail delivery . I’m not sure if this works in the same way with other email providers. 

Key Advantages of This Approach

  1. Zero User Training - Works within existing email workflow
  2. Flexible - Switch pattern enables easy expansion
  3. Rich Data Capture - Records date, sender, subject, timestamp automatically
  4. Audit Trail / Self-Documenting - Custom field shows exactly who stewarded and when

As for next steps, I want to create a BCC email address that our staff can put on whatever email they send, without parameters, to record that email as an action by looking up the constituent record using the to: email address. 

Happy Friday! 😎

PS - many thanks again to the faculty at Blackbaud's Houston Power Automate workshop.

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