> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rescueconsole.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Send an email > Sends one email now, from your organization's sending address. **This sends real email to real people, and it cannot be undone.** Once the email service accepts a message it is on its way, and nothing can recall it. There is no test mode. Who it goes to: `person_id` sends to that person's email on file; `recipient_address` sends to that address, and wins when you send both. `cc` and `bcc` add up to 20 copies each. What it says: either `template_key`, naming an active template, or both `subject` and `body_text`. A template is filled from the person, from the animal or adoption application in `related_entity_type` and `related_entity_id`, and from your organization's name; what you send in `variables` wins over the records. If any merge field is left unfilled, nothing is sent and the answer is 400. Merge fields are written `{{first_name}}`. Filled from your records: `first_name`, `last_name`, `full_name`, `email`, `phone` (the person), `animal_name`, `animal_species`, `animal_breed`, `animal_sex`, `animal_id` (the animal's Pet ID) and `org_name`. Anything else, such as `org_email`, `org_phone` or `org_website`, is filled only from the `variables` you send. The message goes out as plain text, and replies to it arrive in your organization's default inbox. What stops it, checked in this order, before anything is sent: 1. The address is suppressed. An address that hard-bounced is suppressed for every organization and cannot be released; one that complained or unsubscribed is suppressed for your organization only. See Suppressions. 2. The person in `person_id` has opted out of email altogether, or out of this message's `category`. See Contact preferences. An address sent without a `person_id` is not checked against anybody's preferences. A stopped message still answers 201, with `status` `suppressed` and the reason in `payload_metadata.reason`. A copy to a suppressed address is dropped and the rest of the message still goes; the dropped addresses are in `payload_metadata.copies_suppressed`. Read `status` on the answer: `sent` means the email service accepted it, `failed` means it did not, which is also the answer while your organization cannot send email, for example while its own domain waits to be verified (each attempt and why it failed is in `payload_metadata.failover_attempts`), and `suppressed` means it was stopped. Every one is written to the message log. Needs **write** on Communications. ## OpenAPI ````yaml /api-reference/openapi.json post /api/communications/send openapi: 3.1.0 info: title: RescueConsole API version: '2026-09-19' description: >- Your own organization's records, from your own software. There is no sandbox: every request goes to your live organization. servers: - url: https://{organization}.rescueconsole.com description: Your own organization's address, the one you sign in at. variables: organization: default: your-rescue description: >- The first part of the address you sign in at. A key only works at the address of the organization it was made in. security: - apiKey: [] tags: - name: Animals description: The animals in your care, and the ones you have placed. - name: Animal notes description: Notes written on an animal's record. - name: Animal weights description: An animal's weight readings, one per weighing. - name: Animal medical records description: >- Vaccines, treatments, procedures, tests, exams and other medical records on one animal. - name: Animal placements description: The people an animal came from or has been placed with, over time. - name: Animal nutrition description: 'What an animal eats: its feeding list and its diet.' - name: Animal relationships description: Siblings, parents, offspring and bonded pairs. - name: Animal tags description: Your own short labels on an animal. - name: Breeds description: The breed or kind lists your intake form offers for each species. - name: Litters description: Litters, and the animals born into them. - name: Locations and housing description: >- The places animals are housed at each of your locations: campuses, buildings, rooms and cages, the tunnels that join cages into one space, and who is in each. - name: Foster homes description: >- The people who foster for you, what each home can take, and the animals offered to and placed with them. - name: Intakes description: >- How each animal arrived: the route in, who brought it, why it was given up and the state it came in. - name: Medical due description: >- Medical work that is outstanding across all your animals, and one medical record added to many animals at once. - name: Transports description: >- Transport runs: a chain of drives, each leg with its own driver, that moves animals from one place to another. - name: Animal calendar description: >- The dated things in animal care on one calendar: medical work due, adoptions, foster placements starting and ending, arrivals, and meet and greets. - name: Animal reports description: >- The operations report: intakes, outcomes, live release rate and the animals in your care, each figure with its own definition. - name: Adoption applications description: >- Applications to adopt or foster, from first draft to a decision, and the adoption contract signed on an approved one. - name: Adoptions description: >- Animals that went home, what each adopter owes and has paid, and closing or reversing the adoption. - name: Signed contracts description: >- Contracts signed on an adoption, a foster placement or an intake, each kept exactly as it read when it was signed. - name: Contract templates description: >- The contracts your organization has people sign, with the merge fields that fill them in. - name: Reconciliations description: >- A payment processor's settlement lines, matched against the adoption payments you recorded. - name: Animal custom fields description: >- The extra fields your organization adds to animals, housing units and adoption applications. - name: Age groups description: >- What counts as a baby, an adult or a senior, per species, which fee rules and discounts read. - name: Animal statuses description: >- Your organization's status vocabulary for animal records, and what kind of status each one is. - name: Application stages description: >- The steps an adoption or foster application moves through before it is decided, in your organization's words. - name: Behaviour attributes description: >- The catalogue of behavioural traits, and where a trait with each name may be shown beyond the record. - name: Cage card templates description: >- The layouts your organization prints for the kennel door: paper, fields, photo and QR code. - name: Adoption fee schedules description: >- The rules that suggest an animal's adoption fee, and the discounts laid over them. - name: Medical catalogue description: >- The diagnoses, tests, vaccines, treatments, procedures, conditions and medications your medical records pick from. - name: People description: >- The people your organization deals with: adopters, donors, volunteers, fosters and everybody else. - name: Person notes description: Notes written on a person's record. - name: Person contacts description: >- A person's phone numbers and email addresses, one of each kind marked primary. - name: Person addresses description: A person's addresses, one of them primary. - name: Person tags description: Free-text labels on a person, added and removed one at a time. - name: People duplicates description: People who look like the same person entered twice, and merging them. - name: People custom fields description: The fields a person's record carries beyond the standard ones. - name: Organizations description: >- The outside organizations your rescue deals with: veterinary practices, partner rescues, shelters, suppliers, employers and agencies. - name: Organization locations description: An organization's places, one of them the main one. - name: Affiliations description: >- Who works at, volunteers for or otherwise belongs to an organization, now or in the past. - name: Forms description: >- The forms your organization publishes, such as an adoption application or a volunteer sign-up, and the questions on them. - name: Submissions description: >- What people sent through your forms, and what your team does with each one. - name: Tasks description: >- To-dos, on a record or for the whole organization, narrowed to the records your key may read. - name: Calendar description: >- The dated work across your organization in one list, narrowed to the areas your key may read. - name: Activity description: >- What was created, changed and deleted in your organization, narrowed to the areas your key may read. - name: Shift schedules description: >- Schedules: the occasions shifts are grouped under, such as an adoption day or Saturday kennel cover. - name: Shift windows description: >- Shifts: a stretch of time at a place, with the volunteer roles it needs and how many of each (the address calls a shift a window). - name: Shift bookings description: >- Sign-ups: a person taking a role on a shift, giving it up, and the hours they worked. - name: Volunteers description: >- The people who volunteer: where each stands, what they have done, and where they would rather work. - name: Volunteer roles description: >- The jobs a volunteer can sign up for, such as Dog walker or Adoption counselor. - name: Volunteer qualifications description: 'Approvals: who may take which role, and at which location.' - name: Shift policies description: The rules you set for sign-ups and cancellations. - name: Shift calendar description: Schedules and shifts as calendar items for a date range. - name: Shift custom fields description: Your own fields on schedules, shifts and sign-ups. - name: Events description: >- The occasions your rescue hosts: adoption days, fundraisers, clinics and the rest. - name: Events calendar description: Your events between two days, as calendar entries. - name: Campaigns description: >- Appeals you raise money for, each with its goal and what it has raised so far. - name: Donations description: 'Gifts of money: how much, from whom, and what they were given to.' - name: Donors description: The people who have given, with what each has given in all. - name: Wish list description: The things your rescue needs, and the deliveries that met them. - name: Fundraising custom fields description: Your organization's own fields on donations and campaigns. - name: Message templates description: >- Saved wording your organization sends again and again, with merge fields filled from your records. - name: Sending description: >- Everything here sends real email from your organization, and none of it can be unsent. - name: Message log description: >- The email your organization has sent or tried to send, and what became of each message. - name: Conversations description: >- The email conversations in your organization's inboxes, and the records each one is about. - name: Inboxes description: >- The addresses your organization receives email at, and who may read each one. - name: Contact preferences description: >- Whether a person has asked not to be emailed, altogether or about one kind of message. - name: Suppressions description: >- Addresses no email goes to, because mail to them bounced or their owner asked not to be written to. - name: Sender and deliverability description: Who your organization's email goes out as, and how much of it arrives. - name: Registry flags description: >- Safety flags your organization files about a person or an animal, which other organizations using RescueConsole can see once the flag is vetted and shared. - name: Registry reviews description: >- Another organization's vote on a flag it did not file, which decides whether the flag becomes active or disputed. - name: Registry search description: >- The lookup by microchip number that anybody may make, with or without a key. paths: /api/communications/send: post: tags: - Sending summary: Send an email description: >- Sends one email now, from your organization's sending address. **This sends real email to real people, and it cannot be undone.** Once the email service accepts a message it is on its way, and nothing can recall it. There is no test mode. Who it goes to: `person_id` sends to that person's email on file; `recipient_address` sends to that address, and wins when you send both. `cc` and `bcc` add up to 20 copies each. What it says: either `template_key`, naming an active template, or both `subject` and `body_text`. A template is filled from the person, from the animal or adoption application in `related_entity_type` and `related_entity_id`, and from your organization's name; what you send in `variables` wins over the records. If any merge field is left unfilled, nothing is sent and the answer is 400. Merge fields are written `{{first_name}}`. Filled from your records: `first_name`, `last_name`, `full_name`, `email`, `phone` (the person), `animal_name`, `animal_species`, `animal_breed`, `animal_sex`, `animal_id` (the animal's Pet ID) and `org_name`. Anything else, such as `org_email`, `org_phone` or `org_website`, is filled only from the `variables` you send. The message goes out as plain text, and replies to it arrive in your organization's default inbox. What stops it, checked in this order, before anything is sent: 1. The address is suppressed. An address that hard-bounced is suppressed for every organization and cannot be released; one that complained or unsubscribed is suppressed for your organization only. See Suppressions. 2. The person in `person_id` has opted out of email altogether, or out of this message's `category`. See Contact preferences. An address sent without a `person_id` is not checked against anybody's preferences. A stopped message still answers 201, with `status` `suppressed` and the reason in `payload_metadata.reason`. A copy to a suppressed address is dropped and the rest of the message still goes; the dropped addresses are in `payload_metadata.copies_suppressed`. Read `status` on the answer: `sent` means the email service accepted it, `failed` means it did not, which is also the answer while your organization cannot send email, for example while its own domain waits to be verified (each attempt and why it failed is in `payload_metadata.failover_attempts`), and `suppressed` means it was stopped. Every one is written to the message log. Needs **write** on Communications. operationId: sendMessage requestBody: required: true content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/MessageSend' example: person_id: 6d1f3a52-0b7e-4c1a-9d2f-5e8b7c4a1f20 template_key: adoption_meet_greet related_entity_type: animal related_entity_id: a3c9e1f4-2d6b-4f8a-b1c7-9e0d5f3a2b61 category: adoptions cc: - fosters@contoso.com responses: '201': description: >- The log entry for this message. Read its `status`: 201 does not by itself mean the email was sent. content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/MessageLogEntry' '400': $ref: '#/components/responses/Problem' description: >- The body is refused, the person or template does not exist, or a merge field was left unfilled. Nothing was sent. '401': $ref: '#/components/responses/Problem' '403': $ref: '#/components/responses/Problem' '409': $ref: '#/components/responses/Problem' description: The template is not active. Nothing was sent. components: schemas: MessageSend: type: object properties: person_id: type: string description: >- A person on file. The message goes to their email unless you also send `recipient_address`. recipient_address: type: string description: >- The address to send to. It wins over the person's email when you send both. format: email template_key: type: string description: >- The key of an active template. Send this, or both `subject` and `body_text`. subject: type: string body_text: type: string description: The body, as plain text. variables: type: object additionalProperties: true description: >- Values for the template's merge fields, by name. They win over the records. category: type: string description: What kind of message this is, checked against the person's opt-outs. default: general related_entity_type: type: string description: >- The record the message is about. An animal or an adoption_application fills the animal merge fields. Kept on the log entry. related_entity_id: type: string cc: type: array items: type: string format: email description: Copies, 20 at most. maxItems: 20 bcc: type: array items: type: string format: email description: Blind copies, 20 at most. maxItems: 20 description: Send `person_id` or `recipient_address`, or both. MessageLogEntry: type: object required: - id - recipient_address - direction - channel - category - status - created_at - updated_at properties: id: type: string tenant_id: type: string description: Your organization's ID. template_id: type: - string - 'null' description: The template it was sent from. person_id: type: - string - 'null' description: The person it was to, when it was sent to a person on file. recipient_address: type: string description: >- Who it was to. For a message sent from a conversation to several people, their addresses separated by commas. direction: type: string enum: - outbound - inbound channel: type: string enum: - email category: type: string description: >- The kind of message, as the sender named it. general unless the sender said otherwise; inbox_new and inbox_reply for messages sent from a conversation. provider: type: - string - 'null' description: The email service that handled it. Null when it never reached one. provider_message_id: type: - string - 'null' description: The email service's own ID for the message. status: type: string description: >- suppressed: stopped before sending. sent: the email service accepted it and no delivery report has come back yet. delivered or bounced: what the delivery report said. failed: the email service did not accept it, or reported that it could not deliver it. received: a message that came in. A status never moves back. enum: - queued - sent - delivered - failed - bounced - received - suppressed subject: type: - string - 'null' description: The subject as sent. The log keeps the subject, not the body. related_entity_type: type: - string - 'null' description: >- The record it was about. email_thread for a message sent from a conversation, with the conversation's ID in related_entity_id. related_entity_id: type: - string - 'null' payload_metadata: type: object properties: reason: type: string description: 'Why it was stopped: address_suppressed or recipient_opted_out.' suppression_scope: type: string description: >- platform when the address is suppressed for every organization, tenant when only for yours. enum: - platform - tenant suppression_reason: type: string description: Why the address is suppressed. failover_attempts: type: array items: type: object properties: tier: type: integer provider: type: string success: type: boolean error: type: string description: Why that attempt failed. provider_message_id: type: string attempted_at: type: string format: date-time description: Each attempt to hand the message to an email service, in order. cc: type: array items: type: string bcc: type: array items: type: string copies_suppressed: type: array items: type: string description: Copies that were dropped because their address is suppressed. thread_id: type: string description: For a message sent from a conversation. error: type: string description: >- For a message sent from a conversation that the email service refused: why. description: Detail about what happened. Only the keys that apply are present. additionalProperties: true created_at: type: string format: date-time updated_at: type: string format: date-time responses: Problem: description: What is wrong, in one sentence you can show to a person. content: application/json: schema: type: object required: - error properties: error: type: string example: error: house_trained must be 1, 0 or null (not assessed) securitySchemes: apiKey: type: http scheme: bearer description: An API key from Settings, API keys. It starts with rc_live_. ````