Email Automation Sends Empty Emails – Variables Not Populating

Automations Builder
1

I’m trying to set up a simple automation to send an email reminder on the day of a concert. Musicians submit gigs through a form linked to my WhatsApp channel, and the data is stored in a Gig Submissions table.

The automation has three parts:

  1. Trigger: “Rows are created” on the Gig Submissions table.

  2. Router: Checks if the Fecha del concierto / Concert Date is today.

  3. Send Email: Sends a reminder to jos@alofto.com with the concert details.

The Problem:
The automation sends the emails, but the email body is empty – none of the field values are populating.

What I Have Tried (and the results):

  1. SMTP Integration is Working: I can send emails successfully via the “Send Email” node when I use static text (e.g., “This is a test”). I also receive the built-in form notification emails, so the SMTP setup is correct.

  2. Router Condition Works: The Router node correctly identifies concerts happening today. If I change the condition to check for yesterday, the emails stop. If I keep it on today(), the emails are sent. The issue is not with the Router’s logic.

  3. Variable Syntax Attempts: I have tried the following syntaxes in the Subject and Body fields, but none of them populate with data:

    • {{row_0.Grupo / Band}}

    • {{node_XXX.Grupo / Band}}

    • {{ get('field_9250689') }} (also tried field('field_9250689') and {{ field_9250689 }})

    • concat('Band: ', field('Grupo / Band')) – this also appears as plain text.

  4. “Get a single row” Workaround: I attempted to use a “Get a single row” node after the Router. However, the Router only outputs “Branch taken” and does not pass the row_id, so the “Get a single row” node cannot fetch the correct record.

  5. Testing Limitations: When I use “Start test run” and select a specific row, the test completes successfully, but the resulting email is still empty. The workflow is in Draft mode, but the test should still populate variables.

  6. Field IDs are Correct: I have confirmed the internal field IDs (e.g., field_9250689 for Grupo / Band), but using them in the {{ get('...') }} function does not work in the email node.

Summary:
The email is being sent, the Router condition is working, and the SMTP integration is functional. The core issue is that variable references in the “Send Email” node are not being replaced with actual field values.

Has anyone else encountered this bug? Is there a specific formula syntax for the Automation Builder’s “Send Email” node that I am missing? Or is this a known issue with the Automation Builder?

Thank you for any help!

3

Hello @jos, sorry for the delay and thanks for the detailed explanation! Could you let us know whether you’re using Baserow Cloud or a self-hosted instance? If you’re self-hosting, could you also share your Baserow version and how you’re deploying it (e.g. Docker, Docker Compose, Kubernetes)?