Send Email Based on Drop Down Selection

Running a single contact form for several departments? Convert Forms can send every submission straight to the inbox of the team the user selects, so each enquiry reaches the people who can help it, automatically and with no manual forwarding on your part.

Method 1: Email Address in the Dropdown Value

This is the fastest approach: store each department's address directly in the dropdown, then point a single Email Task at the field.

In a dropdown (or radio) field, every option has a label the user sees and a value that gets submitted. Put the department name in the label and the matching email address in the value.

1. Edit your form and add a Dropdown field. Let's call it department.

2. In the field's Choices section, set each option's label to the department name and its value to the matching email address:

   Label	Value
   Sales Department	[email protected]
   Support Department	[email protected]
   Billing Department	[email protected]

   

3. Open the Tasks panel and create a new Email Task. Set the Trigger to New Submission and the Action to Send an Email.

4. In the To option, select the dropdown field's Smart Tag: {field.department}

   

5. Fill in the Subject and Body, give the task a title, enable it, and click Save. Save the form.

Now every submission is emailed to the address behind the selected option, and you can add or change departments later just by editing the dropdown, with no need to touch the task.

Method 2: One Task per Department with Conditional Logic

This approach keeps every email address out of your form's HTML. The dropdown stores only a harmless key, and the real addresses live inside your tasks, where visitors can't see them. The trade-off is a little more setup: one Email Task per department.

1. Edit your form and add a Dropdown field named department. This time, set each option's value to a plain key rather than an email address:

   Label	Value
   Sales Department	sales
   Support Department	support
   Billing Department	billing

2. Open the Tasks panel and create an Email Task for the first department:

   • Set the Trigger to New Submission and the Action to Send an Email.
   • In the To option, type the real address, e.g. [email protected].

   • Scroll to Conditional Logic, switch on Run this task when certain conditions are met, and add a condition: the department field is sales. For how conditions work, see Conditional Logic in the Tasks guide.

   

   Next is to set up the Conditional Logic section:

   

3. Repeat for each remaining department, changing only the To address and the condition value (support, billing, and so on).

4. Give each task a title, enable it, and click Save. Save the form.

Now the matching task fires only when its department is selected, and the addresses never appear in the page.

Avoid duplicating the email body. Since every department task sends the same message, don't paste the body into each one, or you'll have several copies to keep in sync. Keep the message in one place and load it into each task's Body with a shared template. See Create Reusable Email Templates.

Tips

• Show the chosen department in the email. In Method 1, {field.department} outputs the option's value, which is the email address. To print the friendly department name in your subject or body instead, use the label Smart Tag {field.department.selected.label}. In Method 2 the value is already readable (e.g. sales), and the same tag gives you the full label (Sales Department).
• Need different content per department, not just a different recipient? Method 2 already gives you a separate task per department, so simply write a different Body in each one. See Send Different Emails to Different Recipients.

Troubleshooting

• The email bounces or goes nowhere. Check that each dropdown option's value is a valid email address and that the To option references the correct field name.
• The wrong task runs, or none of them do. Make sure each task's condition matches the dropdown value exactly (the key, not the label) and that Conditional Logic is enabled on every task.
• The email shows a key or address instead of the department name. Use {field.department.selected.label} wherever you want the human-readable label. Learn more in Smart Tags.