Getting an Email When It's Opened
When a client opens a document you shared, FlowEdge emails you. It is the same information the app already shows you — the point is that you do not have to go and look for it.
What You Get
One email, the first time a shared document is opened. It tells you:
- which document was opened, and which client it belongs to
- when it was opened
- a link straight to the document in FlowEdge
That is all it contains. It does not include the document itself, and it never goes to anyone but you.
💡 Tip
The email arrives at the one moment a follow-up is genuinely well timed — while your document is still in front of someone. A short, low-pressure note then tends to work better than a chaser sent into silence a week later.
Why Only Once
You get the email on the first open and never again for that document.
This is deliberate. A proposal that is being taken seriously often gets opened five or ten times as it is passed around, discussed, and reread. An email for each one would turn a genuinely useful signal into noise you learn to swipe away — and the tenth notification would be the least informative of the lot.
The later opens are not lost. They are counted in the app, and you can see them any time as “Opened 3 times · last 2 hours ago” — see Knowing When It’s Read.
When It Does Not Arrive
Some things deliberately never trigger the email:
- Your own preview. The Preview button in the share dialog opens the same page without recording anything, so you can check your work without emailing yourself a false alarm.
- Opens while the link is revoked. Nobody can see the document, so nothing is recorded and nothing is sent.
- A second open within two minutes of the previous one — that is counted as the same visit, so a refresh or a double-click does not register.
- Any open after the first one. See above.
- Documents you never shared. The tracking only exists for documents with a share link.
What It Can and Cannot Tell You
The email is a signal. It is not an audit log, and three limits are worth knowing before you lean on it.
It does not say who opened the document. FlowEdge stores no IP address, browser, device, or location — by design. It knows a document was opened; it cannot tell your client from their colleague, or from you opening the live link instead of using Preview.
A link preview or a security scanner can register an open. Some email and chat apps fetch a link to build a preview card. Some corporate email systems open every link in every message to check it is safe. If one of those loads the page fully, it counts as an open — and because you only get one email per document, it can arrive slightly before a human actually reads it.
Treat it as a reason to follow up, not as proof. It is a good reason to pick up the phone. It is not evidence that a specific person read a specific thing at a specific time, and it should not be used as though it were.
⚠️ Important
Let the email decide the timing of your follow-up, not its tone. “Just checking this reached you” works whether or not it has been opened. Telling a client you know exactly when they opened your proposal rarely lands well — and, given the limits above, you might be wrong.
Turning It Off
✅ How
Go to Settings, find the Notifications card, and switch off “Email me when a shared document is opened”. It takes effect immediately, and it does not affect anything else FlowEdge sends you. Switch it back on the same way.
Turning the email off does not turn off the tracking. Opens are still counted, and the app still shows them — you just stop being emailed about the first one.
Next Steps
- See the full picture of what is counted in Knowing When It’s Read.
- Record the outcome in Deal Status.
- Adjust your other settings in Preferences.