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Send a document to someone outside ABMS

On a workflow step that your company has set up for it, you can send the document to an e-mail address outside ABMS. Click Send externally in the button bar, enter the receiver’s e-mail address, a subject and a message, and click Send. The receiver gets an e-mail with a personal link to a form, valid for 14 days. They fill in the section without logging in and return it to you. The returned form comes back to you as the next step, and you approve or reject it like a document you received, unless the module is set up to publish the document as soon as the form is returned. Which modules and steps can be sent externally is your company’s own setup.

  • You must own the current step of the document. Only the owner of the current step can change it.
  • The step must be set up to be filled in by someone outside the company. If you do not see Send externally, the step is not set up for it; ask your user administrator, who can contact Antenor about the module’s workflow.
  • Have the receiver’s e-mail address ready. You can send to several people at once only from the first step of the document; at later steps you can send to one person.
  1. Open the document in edit mode. A new document opens in edit mode directly; for a document you have received, click the green button first (see Approve or reject a document you received).
  2. Click the button with the tooltip Send externally in the button bar. The dialog Send to external mail address opens.
  3. Under Receiver email, type the e-mail address. Addresses you have saved before are suggested as you type. At the first step you can enter several addresses, separated by commas or semicolons.
  4. Fill in Email subject and Message for external user. All three fields are required and stay red until they are filled in.
  5. Optionally tick Remember email to have the address suggested next time.
  6. Click Send.

Each receiver gets an e-mail with your subject and message and a personal link. The document shows on your dashboard in Documents sent for approval; choose External there to see the e-mail address under Sent to and the days until the link is deactivated under Days left. See The dashboard.

On the document, the External tab lists each receiver with Email, Status, Last Sent Date and Expiration Date. The status is Waiting for response while the link is active, Responded when the form has been returned, and No response (Expired) when the link expired without an answer.

  • The link opens the form for the section you sent, without logging in. A language menu with flags switches the form between English and Norwegian; see Choose the language for people outside ABMS.
  • They fill in the fields of the section. They can add attachments with Add attachment or by dragging files onto the form, up to 20 MB per file, and remove them again.
  • Save and continue later saves their work. The page then says the link stays active for 14 days from when they received it, with a Link to form they can use to come back.
  • Return completed form to sender sends the form back to you. It is disabled until the required fields are filled in. They then see a page thanking them for processing the document, and the link stops working.
  • They see only the form. They do not see comments, the button bar or anything else in ABMS.
  • One receiver. Unless the module publishes directly (next point), the returned form becomes the next step of the document, and you own it. Open the document and approve or reject it as described in Approve or reject a document you received. Whether you get an e-mail when the form is returned depends on how the step is set up.
  • Published directly. In some modules, the setup publishes the document as soon as the form is returned. Then there is no step for you to approve. Everyone who follows the document then gets an e-mail; see Follow a document.
  • Several receivers. Each receiver works on their own copy of the document, created when they first open the link. Each copy comes back and goes through the workflow on its own.
  • Rejecting. If you reject a returned form, the same link becomes active again for 14 more days, and the receiver gets an e-mail about the rejection. They can then open the form with the same link and return it again.
Section titled “The external person did not get the link, or cannot open it”

Check these on the document’s External tab:

  1. The e-mail address. Check the address under Email: the link went to exactly that address.
  2. The status. Waiting for response: the link was sent and is active. No response (Expired): the 14 days have passed and the link no longer opens the form. Responded: the form has already been returned; the link no longer opens it, and the returned form is with you (or the document has been published).
  3. The age of the link. The link is valid for 14 days from the day you sent it. After that the receiver sees a message that the link has expired.
  4. Sending again. At the first step of the document you sent from, you can send the link again from the External tab; see “Sending again” below.
  5. The step. If Send externally is not in the button bar at all, the step is not set up for sending externally; ask your user administrator, who can contact Antenor about the module’s workflow.

The link is valid for 14 days from the day you send it. This cannot be changed. Once a day, links past their date are deactivated, and the receiver can no longer open the form; they see a message that the link has expired. When you sent to several receivers, a copy that a receiver opened but did not return is deleted when the link expires.

  • Sending again. At the first step of the document you sent from (not a receiver’s copy), the External tab lets you send the link again. With one receiver, use Send again on the row. With several, tick the receivers and click Send again to selected, or click Send to new people with nobody ticked to add receivers. A confirmation says “Sent successfully!”. After sending again, check Expiration Date on the External tab to see how long the link is valid.
  • Deleting. Once a document has been sent externally, the trash is not shown on it, so it cannot be deleted from the button bar. See Delete or archive a document.
  • Only one receiver allowed. If you enter several addresses at a later step, you get the message “Only one receiver is allowed”.