We are in 7.9. Is there a way that I can provide a direct link to one of the Re

Yes, the a!recordLink function takes in the dashboard (view) as a parameter:
forum.appian.com/.../SAIL_Components.html

Ideas on how to display this a!recordLink in an email notification? Doesn't seem to be working when I map it into the email template.

@chasityd True, the above pointer helps you only when you are on a SAIL interface, as the a!recordLink() results in a SAIL component.

One of the ways to obtain the link is:
Step - 1: Use urlforrecord() function and obtain the url.
Step - 2(optional): If you want to direct the user to the 'Summary' dashboard of the record by default, the value obtained in Step - 1 should be sufficient. If you want to redirect the user to a dashboard other than 'Summary', use the Text functions and modify the url(obtained in Step - 1) in such a way that the identifier of the desired dashboard view is used in the link rather than the identifier of 'Summary' dashboard view.

For instance, link to 'Summary' dashboard view might look like this: https://xyz.com/suite/tempo/records/type/xyz/view/summary and this will be obtained by default when you perform Step - 1. Here 'summary' in the url represents an unique identifier of 'Summary' dashboard.

For instance, link to a dashboard view other than 'Summary' might look like this: https://xyz.com/suite/tempo/records/type/xyz/view/_YsHLXA where _YsHLXA(differs from view to view) represents an unique identifier created for an each dashboard view by Appian.

The above approach is being suggested as per the observations in my experience, so let's see if any other Appian practitioners comes up with a better approach(as well as flaws in the above).

Hope that gives you some leads!!

Using urlforrecord and replacing summary by additional views unique identifier seems to right approach as of now until we have a function which does the same.

Here is how you can replace summary with other additional views unique identifier which should be maintained in a constant and get a link to dashboard views.

substitute(
urlforrecord(cons!COMMON_RECORD_TYPE_APPLICATIONS,1314),"summary","_-Uj1Vg")

Thank you all for the comments and help! Having something out of the box would be wonderful, but for the meantime I will use "substitute" function on the urlforrecord.