Inspection Automated Emails

nSpec can automatically send emails to keep stakeholders in the loop on inspection activity — finished reports, status changes, and key updates. These emails go to the recipients you've set up on the project's distribution list. This article explains what kinds of emails nSpec sends, how to configure who receives them, and how to troubleshoot when emails don't arrive.

How Automated Emails Work

When something happens on an inspection that should notify someone — for example, a finalized report is generated — nSpec checks the project's distribution list and sends a message to each email tagged with the matching distribution type. Recipients don't need an nSpec account to receive these messages; they just need a working inbox.

Distribution Types

nSpec uses per-email tags on the distribution list to control who gets which kind of email. The tag names come from your tenant's configuration — most tenants have categories like:

• Submitted — Recipients who get notified when an inspection is submitted
• Distribution — Recipients who receive the finalized report when it's distributed
• Collaboration — Recipients who receive collaboration messages and notifications about inspection activity

In the project edit form's Distribution List section, each recipient is added once as an email card, and then you toggle the tags on that card to control which message types they receive. The same email can have one tag, several tags, or all of them.

Setting Up Automated Emails

Automated emails are configured per project. You don't enable them globally — they fire automatically based on which recipients you list and which tags they have.

1. Open the sidebar and click Projects
2. Open the project's edit form
3. Scroll to the Distribution List section
4. Click + Add Email to open the email picker, choose a recipient, and add them to the list
5. Each new email appears as a card with the available tags shown as toggleable buttons
6. Click each tag button to toggle whether that recipient receives that category of email — selected tags show a checkmark and a highlighted background
7. Repeat for every recipient you want to add
8. Click Save on the project

See Distribution Lists for the full distribution list workflow.

When Emails Are Sent

The most common automated email triggers:

Trigger	Recipients	What's in the email
Inspection submitted	Submitted list recipients	Notification that an inspection has been submitted, with a link to view it
Report distributed	Distribution list recipients	The finalized PDF report (or a link to it) once it's been generated and approved
Collaboration message posted	Collaboration list recipients	Notification that a new message has been posted on an inspection item

Email Frequency

Automated emails fire once per event. nSpec doesn't send daily summaries or digests by default — each notification is its own message. If you have recipients who don't want a flood of individual emails, give them a more selective tag combination so they only get the most important categories.

Best Practices

• Set up the distribution list when you create the project — easier than backfilling after several inspections have run without notifications
• Use specific tag combinations — give each recipient only the categories they actually need
• Coordinate with the client on who should receive what before you finalize the list
• Test with one recipient first — submit a test inspection and confirm they got the email before adding everyone
• Keep the list current — when team members change, update the distribution list so emails don't go to people who left the project
• Verify email addresses are spelled correctly — nSpec doesn't validate that an email actually exists, so a typo means messages bounce silently

Troubleshooting

Recipients aren't getting emails

Solutions:

• Open the project edit form and verify the recipient's email card has the correct tag(s) toggled on — a card with no tags will not receive any automated emails
• Double-check the email address for typos
• Ask the recipient to check their spam/junk folder — automated emails sometimes get caught
• Confirm an email-triggering event actually happened (an inspection submission, a report distribution, etc.)
• Try adding your own email to the list as a test recipient and triggering the same event

Recipients are complaining about too many emails

Solutions:

• Review their tag assignment — they may have all available tags toggled on when they only need one
• Toggle off the tags they don't need on their email card

I don't see the Distribution List section

Solutions:

• Make sure you opened the Edit Project modal, not just the project view
• Scroll down within the modal — the distribution list is usually below the basic project fields

The wrong people are getting emails

Solutions:

• Open the project's distribution list and check each email card to confirm which tags are toggled on
• Toggle off the tags that shouldn't be active for each recipient and save the project

Related Articles

• Distribution Lists
• Managing Projects in nSpec
• Working with Inspections in nSpec
• Managing Collaborators

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