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CommunicationsRequire Acknowledgement

Require Acknowledgement

Email can tell you a message was sent. It can’t prove the other side received and read it. Require acknowledgement closes that gap: the recipient confirms receipt with a single click, and TrueGrade records who confirmed and when. When a client or vendor later says “we never got that,” the acknowledgement is your answer.

Turning It On

Acknowledgement is an option on a new message. When you compose, open Delivery options and check Require acknowledgement.

Doing so does two things automatically:

  • It includes a secure portal link in the email — that’s the link the recipient clicks to confirm. Because the link is what makes acknowledgement possible, the “Send via TrueGrade portal link” option turns on and stays on while acknowledgement is required.
  • It keeps the thread open until the recipient acknowledges, so an unconfirmed message doesn’t quietly fall off your radar.

Acknowledgement works whether or not the recipient has a TrueGrade account. The confirmation link is a secure, tokenized portal link — the recipient clicks it and confirms without signing in or creating anything.

What Counts as an Acknowledgement

There are two ways a thread becomes acknowledged, and TrueGrade records which one applied:

  • Confirmed via secure link — the recipient clicked the one-click confirmation link. This is the on-the-record, recipient-driven confirmation.
  • Marked as received — an authorized member of your organization confirmed it manually (for example, the client acknowledged by phone). This is an override for when confirmation happened outside TrueGrade, and it is recorded as a manual mark rather than a recipient click, so the distinction stays clear in the record.

The confirmation link is secure, single-use, and time-limited:

  • It is one-time-use — once it does its job it can’t be reused.
  • It expires automatically after a period, so a stale link left in an old email can’t be clicked later.
  • Reissuing a link replaces any earlier one — there is only ever one live link per thread.

For security, TrueGrade stores only a fingerprint of the link, never the link itself. That’s why there is no “look up the original link” — instead, when you need the link again you reissue a fresh one, which is shown to you once at that moment.

Tracking and Managing an Acknowledgement

Open the thread to see its acknowledgement status in the header. The status reads in plain language — for example, awaiting acknowledgement, link sent, or acknowledged with the date and how it was confirmed. From there you have these controls:

  • Resend link — revokes the current link, mints a fresh one, and re-emails it to the recipient. Use this if the first email went to spam or the recipient can’t find it.
  • Get a copyable link — mints a fresh link and shows it to you once, without sending an email, so you can hand it over another way (paste it into a text, read it out, or send it from your own email). The link is displayed a single time; reissue if you need it again.
  • Mark received — manually record the acknowledgement, with an optional note (such as “confirmed by phone on Tuesday”). Use this when the recipient confirmed outside TrueGrade.
  • Cancel requirement — drop the acknowledgement requirement entirely when it’s no longer needed. A reason is required, and it’s kept on the record.
  • Void conversation — set the whole thread aside when it was a mistake (a test message, or sent to the wrong person). A reason is required. Voiding stays available even after a thread has been acknowledged.

If the acknowledgement email can’t be delivered, TrueGrade tells you plainly rather than pretending it worked. When this happens:

  • Sending shows a warning that the link email didn’t land, and the thread still needs acknowledgement.
  • The thread’s status shows link email not delivered.
  • Use Resend link to try again, or Get a copyable link to hand the link over a different way.

A delivery failure never silently marks a thread as done. An unconfirmed thread stays open and visible until it is genuinely acknowledged, cancelled, or voided.

How This Supports Compliance

Because every acknowledgement records who confirmed, when, and how, a required-and- confirmed message becomes a piece of evidence, not just a sent email. Tied to a project, these confirmations build a defensible history: proof that a client approved a change, that a subcontractor received a compliance request, or that a document was delivered on a specific date. When responsibility for a delay or a dispute is in question, the acknowledgement record settles what was communicated and when.

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