Unlock the Power of Netlify Functions: Send Emails with React and SendGrid
Simplifying Complex Tasks with Netlify Functions
In today’s world of modern web development, creating complex single-page applications is easier than ever, thanks to popular JavaScript frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue. Moreover, with platforms like Netlify, you can host your applications in just a few steps. However, what if you want to perform tasks that require server-side functionality, such as sending emails or accessing secret API credentials? This is where Netlify Functions come into play.
What are Netlify Functions?
Netlify Functions are simple, serverless functions that can be declared in JavaScript, TypeScript, or Go and deployed with your frontend code to Netlify. These functions can be invoked by making a request to an endpoint, allowing you to perform tasks that would otherwise require a server.
Event-Driven Netlify Functions
But that’s not all. Netlify Functions can also be triggered by specific events, such as form submissions. This allows you to create event-driven functions that can respond to certain events without requiring a manual invocation. In this article, we’ll explore how to create an event-driven Netlify Function that sends an email in response to a form submission using SendGrid.
Creating a React App with a Contact Form
To get started, let’s create a simple React app using create-react-app. We’ll add a contact form to our app and configure Netlify to manage form submissions. We’ll also add a bit of styling to make our form look visually appealing.
Setting Up SendGrid
To send emails, we’ll need an API key from SendGrid. We’ll sign up for SendGrid, verify our sender identity, and get an API key. We’ll then create a .env file to store our API key and sender email address.
Adding a Netlify Function for Sending Emails
Next, we’ll create a Netlify Function that sends an automated email response whenever a client submits a form. We’ll name our function submission-created.js and configure it to send an email using SendGrid.
Testing Our App
Finally, we’ll test our app by submitting the form and verifying that an email is sent to our inbox. We can then deploy our app to Netlify using netlify-cli or the continuous deployment feature via GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket.
Conclusion
With Netlify Functions, you can easily provide a full-stack experience in a Jamstack application without requiring a server. By leveraging event-driven functions and third-party SMTP servers like SendGrid, you can create powerful, serverless applications that can perform complex tasks with ease.