Find and read official letters¶
An official letter is a formal communication with named recipients, an approval and issue history, and separate delivery evidence. Use it to understand what your organization said, who it addressed, whether it was issued, and what has been recorded about sending it. Issuing a letter, delivering it, starting follow-up work and filing it into Records are separate events.
Availability: This guide follows the intended Official Letters reading journey in the inspected Final Screens. The backend provides the reads and attachment-view entry described here. The inspected frontend still displays sample letters and static controls; connected use and environment delivery have not been verified. Some screen examples need correction, described below. See Write and prepare an official letter for drafting and initial submission, and Approve, issue and close an official letter for lifecycle confirmations and workflow outcomes. Deliver a letter and record evidence explains queue/evidence confirmations, email/manual methods and recovery. Send an official letter to Records explains the selected file, confirmation, asynchronous registration and filing/recovery limits.
Before you start¶
Open the correct organization workspace and ensure that your administrator has granted official-letter viewing access. Being named as a recipient, preparing a letter, or holding a job title does not by itself establish your access. Managing letters requires additional permission. A classification or accessibility label describes the letter; do not treat it as proof that only the named recipients can inspect it.
My letters means letters associated with you as the original preparing user. It does not mean letters addressed to you, everything prepared by your department, or every letter bearing your name in its sign-off. Work queues group letters by their current stage and can include work prepared by other people. Neither view is the memo-specific Communication or Manage view described in the memo guide.
Find a letter¶
- In WorkOS, open Correspondence, then Official letters.
- Choose My letters to follow letters you prepared across their stages. Choose Work queues to work through a particular stage; the inspected populated queue shows Drafts.
- Compare the subject or issued reference, recipients, letter status, delivery status and preparation or issue context. A recipient summary may show only some names. Open the letter for the full saved recipient list.
- Select Open beside the required letter. The narrower design uses Open letter.
- Confirm the selected letter's subject, reference when issued, organization and recipients before relying on its content or taking an action.
The backend has separate lists for drafts, letters awaiting approval, approved, issued, rejected, recalled and archived letters. Its additional dispatched list includes issued letters with a recorded delivery attempt, including queued or failed attempts. Inclusion there is not a delivery receipt. My letters is ordered by preparation time, not by the most recent delivery update.
The current reads do not provide search or page controls. Some loading/error and narrower design examples still show search, pages or an Updated column; those examples are awaiting reconciliation. Do not rely on them as available features. A list count describes that returned view, not your organization's throughput, all outstanding obligations or the number of recipients reached.
If My letters is empty, first confirm that you are in the correct workspace and using the account that originally prepared the letter. A clear queue means no letters were returned for that stage. It does not mean every other stage is clear. A failed load is different from an empty list: choose Try again when offered, and ask for support if it continues to fail. If access is unavailable, use Back to correspondence and ask your administrator to review access.
Read the letter and its context¶
The intended desktop detail places letter information and attachments beside a central paper view, with actions and History alongside it. The narrower design rearranges this information. Read the letter body together with its context rather than relying on a status badge alone.
| Part | What to check |
|---|---|
| Subject and reference | Confirm the communication you intended to open. The official reference is assigned when the letter is issued; a saved draft can have no official reference. A business reference is a separate authored value. |
| Organization and letterhead | Check the displayed organization and contact details. The current service composes letterhead from current organization information; this view is not proof of the exact stationery used at an earlier issue time. |
| To and Cc | Review all named primary and copy recipients. Saved contact details and a recipient's appearance here do not prove successful delivery or access to your workspace. |
| Body | Read the complete message. Plain text and supported rich text are distinct formats. A typed closing or sign-off is not evidence of a captured digital signature. |
| Classification and authority context | Use these to understand the communication's purpose and organizational context. They do not replace your organization's authorization or handling rules. |
| Approval and follow-up context | Distinguish a configured process from a workflow that actually started, and a started workflow from completed work. |
| Files and related material | Check the relevant attachments and any available linked context. A link to a record is different from confirmation that this letter has been filed as a record. |
The design includes a records filing policy and approval/workflow names, but showing the correct saved choices still needs implementation work. Until that is complete, ask the responsible correspondence staff to confirm those details before relying on them.
Understand letter status¶
| Letter status | Meaning and limits |
|---|---|
| Draft | Saved preparation that can still be edited. It has not been issued. |
| Awaiting approval | Submitted with approval required. Submission alone does not prove that a linked approval workflow has started or finished. |
| Approved | Ready for a separate issue action. When approval is not required, submission can reach this state without a manual approval decision. |
| Issued | The official reference and issue time have been recorded. Delivery can still be unqueued, pending, failed or successful. |
| Rejected | The letter was rejected during approval or after approval, before issue. The current lifecycle does not return it to an editable draft. The Edit draft button in the inspected rejected design needs correction. |
| Recalled | An issued letter has been recalled. This does not retrieve copies already received, erase delivery history or prove that every linked process stopped immediately. |
| Archived | The letter has been archived. It may have been archived before issue; this label alone does not prove approval, delivery, Records filing or a completed retention obligation. |
The design sometimes replaces the letter badge with Queued, Delivered, Failed or Returned. Those describe delivery. Check the letter's own stage separately. A returned delivery is not a reviewer returning a draft for editing.
Read delivery evidence carefully¶
Delivery attempts record a chosen method and their own progress. Delivery information can include the attempt number, request and dispatch times, outcome, reference, requesting person, notes and later evidence. Evidence can include its outcome, reference, recording person, recording time and a count of supporting files. A file count alone does not let you open those files.
| Delivery wording | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Not scheduled | No delivery attempt appears in the returned summary. Issue may already have happened. |
| Queued | A delivery attempt has been requested. It is not proof of sending or receipt. |
| In progress | Progress has been recorded for the attempt. Completion remains separate. |
| Dispatched | Sending progress has been recorded. Recipient acknowledgment remains a separate question. |
| Partially dispatched | Delivery work has mixed progress. Do not translate this into a percentage of recipients reached. |
| Delivered | A delivered outcome is recorded. Check the attempt, method and evidence before deciding what it proves. |
| Failed or Returned | The attempt needs attention. Review the recorded reason and refer it to the responsible correspondence staff. |
Current summary limitation: the browse/detail delivery badge is selected from one attempt according to its recorded delivery or dispatch time. It does not combine every attempt's state. A delivered badge can therefore coexist with another failed or queued attempt. Newer queued attempts may not replace an older timed result in that summary. The number of successful attempts counts attempts marked delivered, not unique recipients or confirmed readers.
For a business decision, review the individual attempts and evidence available to authorized staff. Do not infer “all recipients reached,” acknowledgment, contractual service, or complete dispatch from a summary badge or one event in History. The inspected detail screens need clearer access to this attempt-level information. This guide does not invent a delivery tab or click path that the inspected design has not established.
Read History, workflow and Records context¶
History combines recorded letter events such as preparation, approval, issue, delivery, recall, workflow updates and Records-promotion updates. Read the event meaning and time. A status recorded for a delivery event describes delivery progress; it need not be the letter's lifecycle status. The history is not a full content-version comparison, recipient-read log or independent guarantee of everything that happened outside Zerohive.
Readable people information is resolved from current staff records where available. A missing name can appear as Person unavailable; it does not prove that the underlying event is missing. Current names and roles are not immutable evidence of the person's details at the time of the event.
A parent letter and earlier ancestors provide reference context. They do not constitute a complete email-style conversation, replies inbox or list of all descendants. Related references are separate links and may contain saved descriptions that differ from the target's current state. Opening the linked target requires its own supported navigation and access; seeing its reference does not grant permission.
Similarly, a configured follow-up process is different from a saved workflow link. A request to send a letter to Records is different from a completed promotion with a record reference. Consult workflow execution and Records for those responsibilities. The detail designs still need a complete way to present related letters and delivery evidence.
Open an attachment¶
- Open the selected official letter and find Attachments.
- Select the filename link, or Open beside the file in the narrower layout.
- Check the filename in the viewer and confirm that you opened the correct document.
- Use the available page and viewing controls to read it. The intended viewer is read-only; it does not offer signing, replacement, deletion or editing.
- Select Close or Close viewer to return to the letter.
The viewer shows when the viewing session ends. If it expires, close it and reopen the file from the letter. If it cannot open the attachment, return to the letter and try again. If the problem continues, choose another relevant file or ask support to investigate. Provide the organization, letter reference or subject, filename and approximate failure time through your approved support channel.
No attachments means the letter has no files in the returned attachment list; it is not a file-service error. Conversely, a listed file does not prove that its bytes can currently be retrieved or rendered. The sample PDF's pages and controls do not promise identical rendering for every file type. Full session expiry, revocation and provider recovery still need shared-document verification.
Before making a management decision¶
Refresh the selected letter when its state may have changed. Reading access does not imply that you can edit, approve, issue or arrange delivery. The available actions depend on management permission and current letter/operations state, and the server must validate an action again when it is submitted.
An archived letter can still receive delivery evidence or qualify for Records promotion under the current operations rules. Do not interpret the design's “read-only” archive description as a guarantee that all related evidence is permanently frozen. When a previous action has an uncertain outcome, inspect the current letter, history and relevant attempt before starting another action; a read failure alone does not prove that an earlier change failed.
This draft establishes no fixed retention period, guaranteed delivery time, price, compliance certification or recipient acknowledgment promise. Those claims require their own applicable policy and evidence. For executives and managers, use these views to investigate recorded work and unresolved delivery, with the limits above, rather than treating a list count or green badge as a complete performance measure.