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Introducing Actions in the Inbox, powered by schemas

May 15, 2013
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Labels: Gmail APIs

29 comments :

Nick Kusters said...

The validator says the types shouldn't have the propery action and when I e-mail it to myself in the head section of a html email, it doesn't work either...

May 16, 2013 at 3:14 AM
Liam Proven said...

The plural of "schema" is "schemata".

May 16, 2013 at 5:49 AM
Claudio Cherubino said...

@Nick: the validator is still in alpha and not all the new things we introduced are already supported. Please bear with us a little more while we add them.

How are you sending those emails? Emails have to be signed (DKIM or SPF) so that Gmail is sure you are the real sender. If you are using Gmail SMTP, Apps Script or App Engine, they will take care of that for you.

May 16, 2013 at 7:15 AM
Ach said...

It would be nice and more effective to allow more than one action.

May 16, 2013 at 7:53 AM
Aaron Severs said...

This is awesome... however, I tried the exact sample code for ReviewAction here: https://developers.google.com/gmail/schemas/reference/review-action

and sent it through Gmail SMTP with myself as the from address, but still was not able to get it to work. There is a notice on that page that this is an API preview. Has it not been rolled out yet for testing? Thanks!

May 16, 2013 at 11:30 AM
Claudio Cherubino said...

We are rolling out the new features starting from now and over the next few weeks. Some actions (for instance ReviewAction) are not publicly available yet.

May 16, 2013 at 11:40 AM
Yang Lau said...

How do gmail handle ajax cross domain issue with this POST?

May 16, 2013 at 8:25 PM
Claudio Cherubino said...

Requests are not client-side calls, instead Gmail sends server-to-server RPC requests to the third-parties, so there's not cross domain issue

May 16, 2013 at 8:57 PM
erjjones said...

Does the script tags have to go in the header or can we put them in the body?

May 17, 2013 at 6:52 AM
Claudio Cherubino said...

Anywhere in the body will also work

May 17, 2013 at 7:23 AM
yp said...

This is very cool. Can Gmail support feedback within the email after the actions are executed? e.g. Show "Thanks for rating!", "Sorry, please try again." depending on whether the action was successful.

May 17, 2013 at 11:20 AM
Alexander Y. said...

Do you support contexts other than schema.org?

E.g. my app needs actions that are not available from schema.org. What do I do?

May 17, 2013 at 2:03 PM
Alexander Y. said...

Claudio,

What is a good place to post questions on Schemas in Gmail?

I could not find directions from the Overview page (https://developers.google.com/gmail/schemas/overview). Please instruct.

May 17, 2013 at 2:09 PM
Claudio Cherubino said...

@yp: we currently only use the HTTP response code and show the corresponding generic message, but we are also considering your feature request. As usual, it is really important to us to provide the best user experience and showing whatever message comes from a third-party might not always the best approach.

@Alexander: we plan to add more actions but they will eventually have to be part of schema.org. Happy to hear about the use cases you have in mind.

Talking about that, the best place to ask technical questions about this technology is Stack Overflow:

https://developers.google.com/gmail/schemas/support

May 17, 2013 at 5:22 PM
Alexander Y. said...

@Claudio: Examples of actions we need:
- Send only text (without rating as in Review Action) back to the app. Have custom app-specific title for the action.
- TwoClick Action :) - display drop-down allowing to select an item and send the selection back to the server. E.g. "Assign to: John Doe, Jane Smith, Mary Jane"

May 17, 2013 at 5:33 PM
Claudio Cherubino said...

You can configure the fields you need in a Review Action and make the text comment required and exclude the rating. The action title is not configurable for Review Actions in order to provide a consistent UX.

We are definitely considering more complex actions such as the two-click action you describe or a multiple answers question. It is too early to make any promises but we hear you.
Thanks so much for your feedback!

May 17, 2013 at 5:38 PM
syawalisme said...

cool!

May 18, 2013 at 1:20 PM
Cyril said...

@Claudio Cherubino: The developers.google.com documentation about GMail (http://developers.google.com/gmail) also mention "Reservations" but I can't make it work. It looks like only the "Actions" are currently working. Can you please confirm these features are enabled and can be tested exactly as "Actions" are? Thank you very much.

May 19, 2013 at 1:01 PM
Claudio Cherubino said...

The only structured data type that currently has support in Gmail with a specific card is Flight. Other types (and actions) will be added in the future and Reservation is part of our plans.

May 19, 2013 at 1:03 PM
Cyril said...

@Claudio Cherubino: Thank you for the blazingly fast response. I also tried "Flight" by simply "copying/pasting" the example in the documentation but can't make it work. I'm sure the email is signed and sent to myself as "Actions" are correctly working. Does the flight need to be an existing flight?

May 20, 2013 at 2:45 AM
Claudio Cherubino said...

We perform some checks on the flight data, but even with real data I can't get the flight card to show up with the sample markup in the docs. I'll investigate the issue and let you know.

May 20, 2013 at 7:18 PM
swifty said...

Thanks for your quick answers claudio, an additionnal one: will te rollout of this feature available in all gmail distribution (for example the french one)

And even a dummier question: can I keep and feed gmail with marked email from the web or apps interface (just by pasting in the message instead of using SMTP or IMAP)

May 21, 2013 at 8:05 AM
Claudio Cherubino said...

The new features are being rolled out to all Gmail and Google Apps users.

You can't use the Gmail interface to send emails with markup. Probably, the easiest way to do so is to use Apps Script, I'm writing a small guide showing how to do that and I hope to publish it soon.

May 21, 2013 at 10:15 AM
Cyril said...

I've tested the FlightReservation and Go-To schema again and it looks like they are not working yet. Any plan on activating these features?

June 3, 2013 at 7:56 AM
Claudio Cherubino said...

Both FlightReservation and Go-To actions have rolled out completely. How are you testing them? The easiest way to get a Go-To action working is by following our Apps Script tutorial: https://developers.google.com/gmail/schemas/apps-script-tutorial

June 5, 2013 at 1:52 PM
Alexander Y. said...

@Claudio, the example here gives @context without protocol, while the AppScript sample referenced in your comment does this:

"@context": "http://schema.org"

Which one is correct? Both?

June 5, 2013 at 2:07 PM
Claudio Cherubino said...

The correct one is "http://schema.org", but we currently support both. Please use the one with protocol when possible

June 7, 2013 at 1:37 PM
Isaac said...

Hi,

Is there a way to test the hotel reservation schema.

Thanks.

June 14, 2013 at 6:14 PM
Claudio Cherubino said...

You can test hotel reservations by sending emails with markup to yourself and then searching for them on Google Search. There's no Gmail-specific card for the moment.

June 19, 2013 at 10:34 AM

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