# How built-in app connections work

Connect an app to a SendBeam workspace once, then let it keep your contacts or your deliverability figures up to date on its own.

A connection links one app to one SendBeam workspace directly, with nothing in between: you
approve access once in the app, and SendBeam does the rest on its own. It is the shortest route
when SendBeam connects to the app itself. For anything else, an automation tool such as
[the n8n node](https://sendbeam.io/docs/n8n) or the [API](https://sendbeam.io/docs/api) does the same job.

## What a connection is

Each connection belongs to the workspace you are in when you make it, so a business that runs
several sites connects each app to the site it belongs to. SendBeam keeps the app's sign-in
for you, encrypted, and uses only the access the app granted. Connections are listed under
**Settings → Connections**, each with whether it is working and when it last
synced.

## Connecting an app

1. Open **Settings → Connections** and choose the app.
2. You are sent to the app to sign in and approve access, then brought back to SendBeam.
3. If the app holds more than one place your people could be (an Airtable base and table, for
  example), choose it under **Where to import from** on the connection's page.
  Changes save as you go.

Only workspace admins can connect, change or disconnect an app; everyone else can see what is connected and whether it works.

## How people arrive

Most apps do not record whether someone agreed to receive your email, so SendBeam does not
assume it. Under **Sync settings** on the connection's page, choose:

- **Arrive unsubscribed** (the default): people come in as contacts you can see and segment, but are not mailed until they subscribe.
- **Arrive subscribed: I have permission to email these people**: choose it only when they did agree.

Your [suppression list](https://sendbeam.io/docs/contacts/suppressions) always wins: an address that
unsubscribed, bounced or complained is never made a subscriber by a connection. Your plan's
contact limit applies as for any import.

## Keeping it in step

After the first import, SendBeam checks the app again every 15 minutes and brings in what is
new, so people added there turn up here without anyone exporting anything.
**Sync now** on the connection's page runs it at once, and
**Import into a list…** takes you to Contacts → Import to bring the people in onto a list.

## Airtable

Choose the **base** and the **table** that hold your people. Each
record with an email address becomes a contact, with a first and last name where the table has
them (or a full name split in two). SendBeam only reads your base: it never changes a record.
Step-by-step routes through an automation tool are in the
[Airtable guide](https://sendbeam.io/docs/integrations/airtable).

## Google Postmaster Tools

This connection brings in nothing about your contacts. It reads what Gmail reports about mail
from your sending domains, and shows it on **Deliverability** — see
[the Postmaster Tools deliverability report](https://sendbeam.io/docs/analytics/deliverability).

## Disconnecting

**Disconnect** on the connection's page (or in its **⋯** menu on
the list) stops the sync and removes the sign-in SendBeam held. Contacts already imported stay
in your workspace. You can also revoke SendBeam's access from the app's own settings; the
connection then shows as needing to be reconnected.

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Source: https://sendbeam.io/docs/integrations/connections