Write and prepare a memo¶

A memo records a formal communication, who it comes from, who should receive it and any supporting files. Prepare its content and circulation carefully before submitting it: the current service allows content changes only while the memo is a draft.

Availability: This guide follows the intended three-step journey in the inspected Final Screens. New-memo creation and submission have service connections, but deployed operation remains unverified. Saving or submitting an existing draft still needs an interface connection fix; those controls remain unfinished. New file uploads and the separate Audience note are unfinished: their current controls keep local selections or text and prevent saving until those entries are cleared. A design preview cannot save or send a memo.

Prepare before opening the form¶

Use the correct organization's WorkOS workspace and an account authorized to manage memos. Prepare a clear title and message, the responsible position or organizational unit, the people or department audience, and any supporting files. Reading and managing memos require appropriate access; being named as a sender or recipient does not itself grant management authority.

Decide whether this memo needs approval and which published approval process should handle it. Decide separately whether publication should request follow-up work. An approval route determines a process; a name in a sample screen does not establish who will make the actual decision.

If a source position, organizational unit or workflow option is missing, ask the relevant administrator to check the organization's current structure or published processes. Do not substitute an unrelated option just to get through the form. Staff information, organization structure and workflow choices can be unavailable independently of the memo service.

Step 1: Write the memo¶

1. Open Correspondence → Memos → Manage, then choose Write memo.
2. Enter a concise title and the memo message. The title is required and accepts up to 200 characters. The message must contain actual content; formatting with no readable text is insufficient.
3. Add a business reference if the memo relates to another matter. This is different from the memo's own reference, which the system assigns when the draft is created.
4. Check From and Position and unit. The source must identify a position or organizational unit. The system checks this against the organization's structure; an incompatible sender selection can be rejected.
5. Choose plain text or rich text. The design uses Plain and Rich choices on the larger layout and a Content style selector on the inspected narrower layout.
6. Review any classification and approval information, then choose Continue to reach recipients and files.

Rich text supports common text formatting, headings, lists and links. Unsupported or unsafe markup is removed when saved, so check the saved content before submission. Pasting a complex document does not guarantee that its layout, images or tables will be preserved. Plain text is for an unformatted message.

The form also shows Purpose, classification and Who can receive this? These need careful interpretation. Classification is descriptive metadata; it is not proof of a separate security restriction. An external-recipient label does not establish an external email delivery channel for memos. The current publication path resolves internal user identities and department audiences. Do not use that label as a promise that an outside address will receive the memo.

Some field rules still need alignment between the form and storage. Keep business references and purpose descriptions concise; the service currently has inconsistent length limits at different stages. If a valid-looking value is rejected, shorten it where that preserves its meaning or ask support for help. The required/optional presentation of the approval route also needs to follow the approval setting consistently.

Step 2: Choose recipients and files¶

1. In Choose recipients and files, use Add recipients to select the intended people or audience.
2. Review every selected entry. At least one recipient entry is required to save a draft, and publication later requires a resolvable recipient set.
3. The intended flow lets you add optional supporting files through the upload control. The current interface only selects local filenames; it does not upload them. Remove those local selections before saving or sending. New attachments require a supported upload flow that this editor does not yet provide.
4. Check filenames and remove any file that does not belong with the memo. Then choose Continue.

A named person and a department audience are different choices. Department audiences are resolved against current active staff information when the memo is published. Membership may change between draft preparation and publication. Publication saves the resolved recipients, so later department changes do not automatically circulate an old memo to new members. Selecting the same person directly and through an audience does not create two delivery entries for them.

The design's “people or teams” wording should not be taken to support every possible group. The inspected service resolves audiences using department names; it does not establish arbitrary team or pooled-queue membership. An audience with no matching active people prevents publication and needs administrator investigation.

The Audience note shown in the design cannot currently be saved as a separate memo note. The current interface prevents saving or sending while that field contains text. Put essential instructions in the memo's message and clear Audience note before saving; seeing the note on the form does not mean it has been stored.

The supporting-file guidance in these screens still needs correction. Its “nine supporting files,” “ten files including the main file” and “25 MB each” statements are not verified memo-specific limits. A memo has a written body and optional attachments; it does not have the separate main-file model implied by that copy. Follow the connected upload service's accepted policy and your organization's available storage when that interface is implemented. This draft does not promise unlimited uploads or support for every file type.

For an existing draft, removing an attachment removes its association with that memo. It does not establish that the underlying stored file has been deleted. File storage, upload expiry and cleanup belong to the shared document services.

Step 3: Review and send¶

1. Check the memo preview: title, message, sender, related reference and selected recipients.
2. Check the actual attachment list. The current design's sample summary and attachment list disagree, so do not rely on its sample file count.
3. Review Approval required and the selected approval route. A route is required when approval is enabled.
4. If appropriate, enable Start workflow after publishing and select the operational workflow. This requests follow-up work after publication; it does not mean that work has already started or completed.
5. Choose Send only when the draft is ready to leave editing. Check the resulting status before taking the next action.

When approval is required, submission moves the memo to Awaiting approval and requests the configured approval process. Its workflow reference can appear later because startup is asynchronous. When approval is not required, submission makes the memo Approved. In both cases, publication remains a separate action: Send does not itself publish the memo to its recipients.

The inspected new-memo desktop sequence does not expose a consistent Save draft action. The edit sequence and the narrower first-step screen do show it. Use Save draft where it is available to keep the memo editable, and verify that the saved memo appears in Manage. Moving between steps or seeing a preview is not evidence that anything was saved. Do not assume automatic saving or that Start from scratch preserves entered work.

Change an existing draft¶

Open the draft from Manage, choose Edit draft, make the changes and use Save draft. Recheck the saved sender, recipients, message and files. A successful draft save should retain the memo's existing identity and reference.

The current service accepts updates only in Draft. Once submitted, there is no supported edit-and-resubmit path for the same rejected, approved, published, recalled or archived memo. If a replacement communication is necessary, agree the next step with the responsible correspondence staff; this guide does not imply a Copy, Reopen or Unarchive action exists.

Recover safely when saving or sending fails¶

For support, provide the organization, memo reference if available, action attempted and approximate time through an approved channel. Avoid sending confidential content, upload tokens or viewing links. Continue with Approve, publish, recall and archive a memo for the next stages, or Find and read memos for recipient access.