Salesforce Apex SingleEmailMessage with Template to User not contact

Question

I am trying to send an email in Apex with the SingleEmailMessage() function using an existing Template and connecting it with a custom object record.

mail = new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage();
mail.setTemplateId('00Xb0000000iwks');
mail.setTargetObjectId(a.CAccount__r.OwnerId);  //lookup on account
mail.setToAddresses(new List<String>{a.CAccount__r.Owner.Email}); //email from account owner
mail.setTreatTargetObjectAsRecipient(false);
mail.setSaveAsActivity(false);
mail.setWhatId(a.Id);                        
this.mails.add(mail);    

Here i want to fill the template data with the custom object record "a". But i get the following error:

WhatId is not available for sending emails to UserIds.

Nowhere could i find an explicit answer that an Email in Apex can only be sent with a contact object in setTargetObjectId(). What I want to refrain from doing is to temporarily create a contact for the sole purpose of sending an email !?

Answer 1

// Pick a dummy Contact Contact c = [select id, Email from Contact where email <> null limit 1]; // Construct the list of emails we want to send List<Messaging.SingleEmailMessage> lstMsgs = new List<Messaging.SingleEmailMessage>(); Messaging.SingleEmailMessage msg = new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage(); msg.setTemplateId( [select id from EmailTemplate where DeveloperName='My_Email_Template'].id ); msg.setWhatId( [select id from Account limit 1].id ); msg.setTargetObjectId(c.id); msg.setToAddresses(new List<String>{'random_address@opfocus.com'}); lstMsgs.add(msg); // Send the emails in a transaction, then roll it back Savepoint sp = Database.setSavepoint(); Messaging.sendEmail(lstMsgs); Database.rollback(sp); // For each SingleEmailMessage that was just populated by the sendEmail() method, copy its // contents to a new SingleEmailMessage. Then send those new messages. List<Messaging.SingleEmailMessage> lstMsgsToSend = new List<Messaging.SingleEmailMessage>(); for (Messaging.SingleEmailMessage email : lstMsgs) { Messaging.SingleEmailMessage emailToSend = new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage(); emailToSend.setToAddresses(email.getToAddresses()); emailToSend.setPlainTextBody(email.getPlainTextBody()); emailToSend.setHTMLBody(email.getHTMLBody()); emailToSend.setSubject(email.getSubject()); lstMsgsToSend.add(emailToSend); } Messaging.sendEmail(lstMsgsToSend);

It actually works fine - with only the difference that i created a dummy contact of my own instead of using an existing one - because there might be none available or accidentally send out an email to the selected dummy - so better use the following:

Contact dummyContact = new Contact();
dummyContact.LastName = 'DummmyContact';
dummyContact.Email = 'dummmycontact@dummmycontact.com';

Hope this helps!

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