Skip to the page

Recipes

Outlook recipes

Get your texts in Outlook, and text yourself when an email from a client arrives.

Two recipes for Outlook. Each names its trigger and the BlueBot step, lists the fields to map and says how to test it with your own number before anyone else gets a text.

How Outlook connects

  • Zapier: BlueBot’s Zapier app has a Send Text action and instant triggers for incoming texts and every change of state.

Get your texts in Outlook

PartWhat it is
TriggerBlueBot’s New Incoming Text trigger in Zapier
ActionBlueBot’s New Incoming Text trigger starts it, and Outlook takes the text
Connects throughZapier

Steps

  1. Start a Zap with BlueBot’s New Incoming Text trigger.
  2. Add Microsoft Outlook’s Send Email action to your own address, with the sender and the text in the body.

Map the fields

From BlueBotInto Outlook
FromThe phone number to find the person by in Outlook. It’s in E.164 (+15555550123); search by the last 10 digits if Outlook stores numbers another way.
TextThe words, for a note, a row or a message. Null when the person sent only a picture.
Received AtWhen it came in, in UTC.
FilesPictures and voice memos. Each url works for an hour, so copy a file you want to keep.
Chat IDSet when the text came in a group chat; null for a one-to-one text.

Test it

Text your BlueBot number from another phone, one you’ve texted through BlueBot before, then press Test trigger in Zapier. It loads that text with its fields, ready to map. BlueBot copies texts from people you’ve texted through it, unless you set Which chats to copy to Everything.

Text yourself when a client emails

PartWhat it is
TriggerMicrosoft Outlook’s New Email trigger in Zapier
ActionBlueBot’s Send Text action
Connects throughZapier

Steps

  1. Start a Zap with Microsoft Outlook’s New Email trigger.
  2. Add a Filter by Zapier step so it goes on only for mail from the client.
  3. Add BlueBot’s Send Text action with your own number in To and the subject in Text.

Map the fields

BlueBot fieldMap it to
ToThe person’s mobile number from Outlook. US numbers can leave off the +1.
TextEmail from {{from_name}}: {{subject}}
{{from_name}} in the textOutlook’s from name field.
{{subject}} in the textOutlook’s subject field.
Metadatasource set to outlook, and record_id set to the record’s id, so the status and reply webhooks for this text can find the record again.
ServiceAuto, the default: iMessage when the person uses it, otherwise SMS through your iPhone.

Test it

Put your own number in To and press Test step. A text arrives on your phone from your own number, and Zapier shows the message BlueBot returned with state: "queued". Then map Outlook’s field back into To and turn the Zap on.

Before you turn it on

  • Text only people who asked to hear from you. Anyone who replies STOP goes on your stop list, and BlueBot cancels texts to them. Stop words
  • A text that can’t go yet waits with a hold rather than failing: quiet hours, your Mac away, a daily limit. Holds
  • Outlook with BlueBot on the integrations page says what else the two do together.