Distribution-list notification

The right people learn about the document the moment it's published — automatically, with the link to the approved PDF.

A document that's published but unknown is almost as bad as a document that's unpublished. For policy revisions, new SOPs, and any document where "I didn't see it" is not an acceptable answer, the distribution-list email is the mechanism that closes the awareness gap. docs365.ai sends the email automatically — configured once per document type, triggered by every publication, delivered to the right audience with the link to the approved PDF.

Stage 3 · Publish Business: Set at onboarding Enterprise: Self-service Premium: Self-service Diamond: Self-service

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At a glance

What you get

Distribution email is more than a mailing list. Four properties turn it into a reliable awareness mechanism — each one addressing a way that manual announcements tend to fail.

Auto email on publication

The moment a document publishes, the distribution email goes out — no author action required.

Audience per document type

SOPs, policies, security memos — each document type has its own pre-configured distribution list.

Link to the approved PDF

The email contains the document name, protocol code, and a direct link to the PDF in the public area.

Template-driven content

Email subject and body come from a per-document-type template — consistent, branded, customizable.

How it works

From publication to awareness

Distribution lists are configured per document type during implementation — SOPs go to the production team, policies go to the whole workforce, security documents go to the security working group. From then on, every publication sends automatically; individual documents can override the default when needed.

Distribution list configured per document type

SOPs → production team; customer policies → sales and support; security policies → all workforce. Set once, during onboarding.

Document is published

Final approval completes, the PDF lands in the public area — all in the same atomic transition.

Email generates from template

The system assembles the email from the per-document-type template: subject, body, link, signature.

Recipients receive and click through

The email goes out immediately; recipients click the link and see the current approved document in SharePoint.

Before / after

What changes when this is on

Manual publication announcements fail in predictable ways — the author forgets, the wrong list gets used, the link points to a draft, the announcement goes out days after publication. Automatic distribution prevents each of them by design.

Without it

With intranet.ai

✗ "I didn't know that policy was updated" — the most common compliance-adjacent complaint

✓ Every publication triggers an email to the right audience automatically

✗ Author sends the announcement manually — forgets half the time, uses the wrong list the other half

✓ The system sends from a pre-configured list — no opportunity for forgetting or wrong-list errors

✗ Announcement emails go out a week after publication, creating a gap where nobody knows

✓ The email goes out in the same transaction as publication; zero gap

✗ Email content varies by author — some terse, some verbose, some missing the link

✓ A per-type template enforces consistent content; the link is always there, correct

Availability

Plan availability

Distribution-list email is included on every DMS plan. Configuration of the lists happens during onboarding on **Business**, with self-service admin on **Enterprise** and above.

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enterprise

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✓ Set at onboarding

✓ Self-service

Distribution-list email is included on all DMS plans. On Business the lists are configured at onboarding; Enterprise and above include self-service admin so you can update lists and templates yourself.

Keep exploring

Related features

Distribution email is the lighter-weight cousin of read-receipts. These three features define the complete awareness layer — from publication trigger to tracked acknowledgment.

Stage 3 · Publish

PDF publication

Word becomes immutable PDF the moment approval completes — automatically, without a human deciding.

Stage 3 · Publish

Read-receipts

Confirm exactly who has read each policy — acknowledgment tracked, evidence captured.

Stage 4 · Govern

Audit log

Every action, every approval, every version — captured against a named user, accessible in 30 seconds.

Deep dive

Read the full narrative

For the buyer who wants the full detail — compliance context, edge cases, adjacent workflows.

The right people learn about the document the moment it’s published.

Publication to the public area makes a document available. Distribution makes sure the people who need to know about it actually know. For policy revisions, new SOPs, and any document where “I didn’t see it” is not an acceptable answer, distribution-list email is the mechanism.

How it works

For each document type, a distribution list is configured — a Microsoft 365 distribution group, a SharePoint group, or a custom set of recipients. When a document of that type is approved and published, an email goes out automatically to everyone on the list. The email contains:

The document name.
Its protocol code.
A short message (customized per document type or per publication).
A link to the published PDF in the public area.

Recipients click the link and see the current approved document. No hunting through the library, no “where did this end up?”, no missed announcements.

Configured per document type

Different document types go to different audiences. SOPs for the production department go to production-line managers. Customer-facing policies go to the sales and support teams. Security policies go to the whole workforce. The distribution list for each document type is set once during implementation; the email sends automatically from then on.

Individual documents can override the default — a specific policy that needs to reach only the executive team, for example, skips the default distribution and uses a one-off list.

When to use distribution email vs. read-receipts

Distribution-list email is fire-and-forget. It tells recipients “this document was just published; here’s the link.” It doesn’t track who read it.

For documents where acknowledgment matters — “did everyone on the clinical team read the new hand-hygiene policy?”, “do all workforce members understand the updated HIPAA guidance?” — the sister read-receipts product adds the acknowledgment-tracking layer. Read-receipts is a separate product in the intranet.ai family, included in the full-lifecycle bundle.

Most customers use distribution email for routine publications and read-receipts for policies that require documented acknowledgment.

Email content is template-driven

The email subject, body, and signature use a template per document type — so every HR policy announcement reads consistently, every production SOP update reads consistently, etc. Customizing the email copy for the base product requires a small configuration change. Fully-custom email copy (per-document branding, varied layouts, conditional content) is available as a quoted customization at project scope.

What this feature prevents

“I didn’t know that policy was updated.” The most common compliance-adjacent complaint, eliminated by automatic distribution.
Manual publication announcements — the document author no longer has to remember to email the team every time they publish a new version.
Delayed awareness. People hear about the new document the moment it goes live, not a week later when somebody happens to mention it.

PDF publication — the publication event that triggers distribution.
Read-receipts — acknowledgment tracking for documents that need it.

Lifecycle stage: Publish →

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The active document lifecycle on SharePoint Online

Why passive document management fails — and what an explicit four-stage lifecycle looks like in practice inside a Microsoft 365 tenant.

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Read the full guide

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