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✅ Description (Post Content):

Hey everyone,
I recently built a Zap that triggers when someone posts !reply in a Slack thread (used to respond to customer tickets). Everything’s working perfectly:

  • The Zap correctly filters to only trigger on threaded replies with !reply

  • It extracts the user’s email address from the original Slack message (using Get Message by Timestamp)

  • The Gmail step sends the email to the user — confirmed working ✅

Problem:
While the email is sent successfully, the body of the email does not include the actual reply message that the support agent typed after !reply.

Example:
Agent types this in Slack:

!reply Thanks for reporting — we’ve fixed the issue!

But the email shows:

📬 Hello,  
Here is the latest reply from our support system:

yNothing appears here]

Regards,  
Neuphoria Support Center

What I’ve Tried:

  • I used Formatter > Text > Extract Pattern to try to pull just the message after !reply

  • I’ve checked that the input to this formatter is coming from the correct Slack step (the threaded reply)

  • Still getting a blank or empty field in Gmail body

Would love help troubleshooting:

  • Best way to extract everything after !reply (even if it includes line breaks)

  • Confirming which field to use for the Slack reply message

  • Any encoding/formatting issues that might be blocking Gmail body from rendering it?

Thanks so much!

Let me know if you want to include screenshots or even a public view-only link to your Zap config. I can help redact it neatly too.

Hi ​@Neuphoria,

 

Welcome to the Community.

Thanks for the detailed information. To ensure your Zap extracts and passes the message content correctly, double-check your Formatter step using a pattern like !reply\s+(.*) to capture everything after !reply. Confirm you're using the correct Slack message field, as some may not contain the whole thread. If formatting issues arise (for example, line breaks or special characters), use Formatter > Text > Replace. In the Gmail step, ensure you're mapping the correct output, and test the email to confirm it displays correctly. Use "View Data" in each step to trace the message flow, or test with a service like Google Sheets to confirm extraction before it reaches Gmail.

Feel free to ask if you need further help or have additional questions. We're here to assist you.

Thanks for the help — we finally resolved it!

The issue turned out to be with the filter step logic in our Zap. Initially, we had a condition that continued if either:

  • The message contained !reply, or

  • The message was in a thread (thread_ts existed)

This accidentally allowed every follow-up message in the thread (emoji reactions, image uploads, etc.) to trigger the Zap and send emails — even when !reply wasn’t used.

✅ How We Fixed It:

We updated our Filter step to only allow the Zap to continue if:

  • The message starts with !reply, and

  • The message is posted in a thread

Our current filter logic looks like this:

Field Condition Value
Text Starts with !reply
thread_ts Exists (blank)

 

This ensures that only intentional replies using !reply in a thread get processed.

Since applying this change:

  • No more accidental email sends from emoji or file messages ✅

  • All reply messages are cleanly parsed and delivered via Gmail ✅

  • System is stable and production-ready ✅

Appreciate the support and regex tip — that helped us finish strong! 💪

Wow! Awesome work here, ​@Neuphoria! 🎉 So pleased to see Jammer was able to help point you in the right direction. And really appreciate you following up here to share details of how you solved it. 🤗 This will be so useful for others that might be running into similar issues.

Seems like you’re all set for now, but do reach back out if there’s anything else you need help with. In the meantime, happy Zapping! ⚡️

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