Simpplr Employee Newsletter

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Whitelisting IP addresses
• App setup
• Usage
• Newsletter managers and permissions

  • Individual Newsletter manager role

  • Themes & categories

  • Delete confirmation for draft Newsletters

• Reusable templates
• Creating a newsletter
  • Translating newsletter content
  • Drag-and-drop editor
  • General blocks
  • Smart content blocks
  • Additional filters for Content smart blocks

  • Control Visibility of Country information

  • Auto-save changes

  • Share employee milestone events in Newsletters

  • Content date display options

• Preview your newsletter
• Sending/scheduling your newsletter
  • Details
  • Distribution

  • Support for special characters in Newsletter sender names

  • Restrict Newsletter “From” address access

  • Confirm and test the newsletter
  • Newsletter test experience
  • Why it's important to test the Newsletter
• Enhanced analytics
• Categories
• Recipient fields
• Newsletter end user experience and notifications
• Multi-channel distribution
• Control Newsletter excerpts
• Archive a newsletter

• Sender filter on Newsletter listing screen

• Manage redirection warning with domain whitelisting

• Generative AI for Newsletter subject and preview text

Overview

The Simpplr Employee Newsletter is a newsletter creation and management platform available as a paid add-on. It is an add-on product to the core Simpplr intranet and will require an additional license to use. 

This article covers the how-to setup steps and distribution methods for the Employee Newsletter. For best practices on newsletter frequency and engagement, click here. 

Whitelisting IP addresses

The Simpplr Employee Newsletter service uses Amazon AWS SES (Simple Email Service) with dedicated IP addresses for sending newsletter emails. These static and dedicated IP addresses are exclusively used by our Newsletter service for legitimate communication, and they adhere to industry standards for secure email delivery. Using dedicated IP addresses offers several advantages, including:

1. Improved deliverability
2. Sender reputation control
3. Reduced impact from other senders
4. Predictable performance
5. Compliance requirements

It's a secure practice to whitelist these AWS SES dedicated IP addresses. Our dedicated IP addresses are static, and their integrity is maintained with robust security measures. 

Whitelisting the newsletter IP addresses:

• Does not expose your system to vulnerabilities.
• Does not grant external access to your system.
• Ensures a consistent flow of Newsletter emails.

App setup

In order to set up the send from address or addresses, App managers need to configure the DNS for each address. As of the Ida release, there is an option in the Manage > Application > Setup menu for Newsletter where this can be configured. For more info on this, click here. 

Google Workspace setup

There will be an additional app setup step for those using Google Workspace as their email delivery system. Your Google admin user will need to bypass spam filters and hide warnings for messages from senders or domains in selected lists. To do this:

1. Head to your admin settings in Google Workspace.
2. Check the box next to "Bypass spam filters and hide warnings for messages from senders or domains in selected lists."
   

Usage

Once enabled for an organization, the newsletter will be accessed by heading to your user menu and selecting Newsletter.

Newsletter managers and permissions 

App managers will have the option to distribute Newsletter privileges to any site owners/managers they'd like in Manage > Application > Privileges.

If Newsletter control is given to certain sites, the owners and managers of that site will have the ability to create and distribute newsletters only to the members of that site. If the user owns or manages multiple sites, they will not be able to create a newsletter for any of those unless the site is added to the list in Manage > Application > Privileges or the site owner/manager is added individually as a newsletter manager in Manage > Roles.

Individual Newsletter manager role

You're also able to create a new platform role with Newsletter manager permissions. As the App manager:

1. Head to Manage > Roles > Add new role. 
2. Title your role Newsletter manager or something similar, then scroll down and check the box for Manage newsletter.
   
3. Scroll down and click Save.
4. Now head to Manage > Users to assign the new role to any individual user(s) you'd like, either by editing an existing user's information or assigning the role when adding a new user.
   

When an individual user is given newsletter permissions in Manage > Roles > Add new role, they have the ability to create and distribute newsletters to all audiences, the entire org or any site. They will NOT be able to manage audiences outside of distributing newsletters unless they also have a separate audience management permission.

Themes & categories

Newsletter themes & Templates and Categories are visible to all users by default and not driven by access privileges. App managers and users granted newsletter access by name (Grant newsletter control to people) can view and access all newsletters, no matter who created them or who the recipients are.

Drafts are accessible to all newsletter users (including Site owners/managers) until recipients are defined. The selected recipient(s) is what defines who can view and access a newsletter. When a draft’s recipients are set to All org or Audience, only App managers and those granted newsletter control via name (Grant newsletter control top people) can access these drafts.

Site owners/managers with newsletter access can see drafts with no defined recipients or where the recipients are members of a site(s) they own or manage that has been added to the Grant newsletter control to site owners/managers list.

Simply put, newsletter access does not overwrite existing access or permissions set by an App manager.

Delete confirmation for draft Newsletters

Users with appropriate permissions can delete a newsletter in draft state. Any user attempting to delete the newsletter will see a confirmation prompt and be asked to confirm the action. Since deletion of drafts cannot be undone, this feature provides an additional safeguard against accidental loss.

List

Once on the Newsletter landing page, you will notice an improved user interface from the legacy offering. Updates include better filtering options, an easier to read table, and more intuitive column sorting.

For organizations that have upgraded to Employee newsletter from the legacy offering, you’ll also see an option to View past newsletters in the top left corner. This will take you to a read-only version of the core newsletter UI where you can view analytics for any newsletter sent in the previous system. Newsletters scheduled to be sent out in the core system will be sent out as scheduled, but no changes will be able to be made.

Components and flow

The Employee Newsletter is a template-based newsletter builder. To start building a newsletter, you must create a new template or select an existing template from which to start assembling a newsletter. Once the template is selected, you can drag and drop various standard newsletter components into a content editor. Once satisfied with the look and content, you can preview, save as a draft, or move on to schedule and send the newsletter.

Creating templates & themes

There are three options to create a new template.

From the list page, you can:

•  click on the Templates & themes tab and then click New
•  click the caret next to New and select Template
•  click New template to begin creating a template

Once you've started, you will be taken to the template editor. From there you can adjust standard settings for:

• Name: Each template must be named. The name of the template will not be visible to employees. To add or edit the name, click the upper left header (for new templates it will default to New template) and add a name.
  
• General blocks
• Smart blocks

Minimal templates

Designed to mirror the look and feel of standard emails sent from platforms like Outlook or Gmail, the minimal template removes traditional design elements such as headers, footers, colored backgrounds, and borders—resulting in a clean, distraction-free layout. This format is particularly effective for leadership messages, HR updates, or other sensitive communications, helping content feel more direct, personal, and impactful. The minimal design reflects the tone and style typically used by executives, making the message appear more authentic and reader-focused.

The minimal template cannot be modified or changed.

Creating and Choosing a Theme

Themes allow you to customize the branding for your newsletter, including the header and what social media links to include at the bottom of the newsletter.

You'll be given the option to select your org's intranet branding or a custom color. You can navigate to the link "templates & themes" to create a new theme specific to this newsletter template. This will take you to the Templates & themes tab.

When choosing the Match app branding option within a theme, the newsletter will adopt the branding associated with the segment the recipient belongs to.

To get started in creating a new theme:

1. Select Themes, then New theme.
2. You'll be taken to the theme editor, where you'll find two tabs; Navigation and Settings. In the Navigation tab, you'll see options to customize the Header, Social media and Mobile promotion.
   • Header: Layout will allow you to place your company logo anywhere on the header, or upload a custom image if you wish. We recommend using an 800 x 100px (minimum) image size. Note there is no height maximum, and the banner will scale to meet your image's size requirements, but we recommend keeping your image height to around 100px to have a better looking banner.
   • Header color: This changes the header color. By default, this will match your app branding (or segment branding if segments are enabled for your org), but you can change it to Primary color, Light, Dark, or a Custom color.
   • Logo: choose to use the application/org logo, or upload a custom logo.
   • Navigation links: Choose to show the links at the top of the header to help users easily navigate the newsletter. These can be toggled on or off.
   • Social media: Choose whether or not to include your org's social media links in the footer of the template. If you choose to include these, you'll be asked to enter the full URL for each platform.
   • Mobile promotion: Here you can enable or disable the Simpplr mobile app promotion links from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
3. In the Settings tab:

•  
  •  
    • Primary color: This determines button colors throughout the newsletter
    • Background: Choose what color background to make your template.
    • Page width: This will adjust the width of the newsletter to its background. mages will be scaled to fit automatically.
    • Block spacing: This allows you to change the default spacing between blocks for the template. Choose a smaller value to automatically have blocks appear closer together, a larger value to have them appear further apart.

When you've finished customizing your theme. Click Save at the top of the editor. The theme will be saved to your running list. Head back to the Template editor and assign your newly created theme to it.

When you've finished customizing your template, click Save. Now when you create your newsletter, you can assign it the template you just cerated.

Creating a newsletter

To create a newsletter, on the newsletter list page click new when on the Newsletters tab, or use the caret on the New button to select New newsletter.

Once you have selected to create a new newsletter, they will need to select a template from which to start. Any of your pre-made templates will show as options, or you can create a new one.

Translating newsletter content

Multilingual support enables you to deliver newsletters in multiple languages from a single send. When configured, recipients automatically receive the version that aligns with the language specified in their Simpplr profile. This ensures consistent, localized communication at scale, helping orgs reach and engage a global workforce more effectively, without duplicating effort or compromising message consistency.

To enable translations:

1. From the top of your newsletter editor, select from the language dropdown and choose the language you'd like to view automatic translations for. If no language is selected here, the newsletter will be sent to all recipients in its original language.
2. Once in that language, you can choose to manually translate the version before sending.

Drag-and-drop editor

You can use the drag-and-drop editor to create a newsletter. You can choose from any number and configuration of general blocks and smart blocks. You can move the blocks around, preview, and change/add columns before proceeding to schedule it to be sent. Or you can save it as a draft for collaborators to look over.

General blocks

General blocks are the basic building blocks of any newsletter. They encompass any user-entered content such as free text, images, embedded outside content, etc. Once dragged onto the editor, it will show the given options for the block on the control panel located on the right side of the screen. To later adjust the options for the given block, simply click on it and the control panel will now show again.

• Button: Buttons are links that show up as buttons in a newsletter. They have two options for style and appearance. The button block also allows you to select alignment as well as standard controls in-editor such as remove, split into columns, and remove/add margin. Buttons require the user to add a fully qualified URL for the link.

• Divider: The divider block can be dragged anywhere on the newsletter to create a light grey divider line to break up content. It has standard controls in-editor such as remove, split into columns, and remove/add margin.

• Embed: The embed block allows you to add public content from outside their intranet and show a rich preview of the content in their newsletter. It can be used for any URL. If the URL points to a public blog or article the basics of said page will be displayed or if a link to a video on a site like YouTube is added it will show the video thumbnail with a play icon. Once clicked it will open a new browser tab with the content. If the embed is not for a video, you can choose the format to be a large showcase item or as a standard item. All embeds have standard controls in-editor such as remove, split into columns, and remove/add margin.

• Image: The image block allows you to add an image anywhere in your newsletter. You can either upload a new image from their computer or take advantage of integration to search Unsplash to find the perfect royalty-free image right from your newsletter editor. Once chosen or uploaded, you can change the size of the image while maintaining the aspect ratio by using your mouse to adjust the size by clicking on one of the corners and dragging it to the desired size. Optionally the image can also be made a link by clicking the checkbox and adding a URL. The image has standard settings to adjust alignment as well as in-editor such as remove, split into columns, and remove/add margin. Note that all images in your newsletter will be accessible to anyone with the image URL.

• Image sizing: Images will be displayed at your specified dimensions, except on mobile where we ensure that image widths are never wider than the device’s screen.
   

  The safest rule is always to make images the same width as the email (Page width setting) in a landscape/16:9 ratio. With smart blocks, the page width and block spacing settings in the theme can affect the image size, the column layout they use and the appearance setting.

  Max upload file size is 5MB. Simpplr takes the image as given and does not do anything to optimize the image; therefore, it’s recommended images are optimized before uploading.

• Text: The text box allows newsletter creators the freedom to add text where they need to. It can be as simple as adding a heading, an introduction paragraph, or as much as is needed to convey the message they need. Once text is added, a user can highlight and stylize the text as needed. Style options include font size (normal, title, heading 1/2/3/4, subtitle), bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, font color, alignment, bulleted lists, numbered lists, and hyperlinks. Text blocks also have standard controls in-editor such as remove, split into columns, and remove/add margin.
• Spacer: This adds space between blocks. You can set this to Small, Medium or Large spaces.
• Video: This block is available for those who have purchased the Simpplr Native Video add-on. Here you can add videos directly to your newsletter. 

Smart blocks

Smart blocks dynamically add intranet content to a newsletter at send time for each recipient. This allows newsletter creators to add content and make sure it is fresh and relevant when the newsletter is eventually sent.

• Content: The content block is the most dynamic block in the newsletter. It allows you to either manually choose content from their intranet to send in the newsletter, or use the popular or latest options in the control panel to have content added only when sent. If choosing the dynamic content, you can further specify content types to include, the source of the content, the number of items to display, and the appearance of each item ranging from a large showcase item to a list item. Dynamic content will be based on and tailored to the user. The content block also has standard controls in-editor such as remove, split into columns, and remove/add margin.
  

• Custom content summary: When adding a smart content block to a newsletter you’ll be able to show the excerpt of the text for each of the page or album using the Show excerpt checkbox. If you do not fill out the Custom summary field, it will display the first few lines from the content body.

  Based on the layout of the content block, it will limit the text as below:

  • showcase view:  max 150 characters 
  • list view: max 100 characters 
  • layout view: max 70 characters (when you choose to split into two columns)
• People: The people block allows you to include intranet user profiles in a newsletter. You can select as many profiles as they like with the built-in search and then decide how to display the profiles from large cards, to a list, to avatars only. In addition, standard alignment options are available as well as standard controls in-editor such as remove, split into columns, and remove/add margin.
• Recognition: The recognition block allows you to attach recognition activity from across the company, or from certain locations/departments. You can select a type of activity from Simpplr's Recognition feature. For more information on Recognition, check out this article. 

• Sites: The sites block allows you to quickly link to your intranet sites. You can choose to add featured sites or choose specific sites to include. You have control over the number of sites displayed as well as, their appearance (cards or list), alignment options, and standard controls in-editor such as remove, split into columns, and remove/add margin.

• Surveys: The surveys smart block allows you to include active surveys (part of the Employee listening suite of products) in your newsletter, giving recipients an easy way to participate in ongoing surveys. Note that a survey manager must first check a box when creating a survey that will allow the survey to appear in the newsletter smart block list. Without this permission, you will not be able to choose just any survey. In addition, you cannot send a newsletter that contains a closed survey or one that has yet to begin. The newsletter can only be sent to recipients when it contains an active newsletter. For example, if the survey participation window is set to begin on Oct. 1 at 9 AM, you cannot send the newsletter until that time. You can schedule it to go out at that exact time, but it cannot be sent on Oct. 1 at 8 AM.

Control Visibility of Country information

You can now manage whether country details appear on the People card in newsletters. This setting is aligned with the global Display-country option.

• If Display-country is turned off, the country field will no longer be shown on People cards in newsletters.

• Previously, whenever any address-related field was enabled, country information was automatically displayed. With this update, country visibility is strictly controlled by the Display-country setting.

How to update this setting:

1. Go to Manage application.

2. Navigate to People > Provision & Sync Users.

3. Locate the Display-country option.

4. Switch it on or off based on your preference.

This ensures consistent control of country information across the platform.

Auto-save changes made to newsletter

Customers have frequently expressed concerns over losing progress while creating newsletters due to system crashes or extended periods of inactivity without saving. To address these concerns, newsletters will now auto-save every 60 seconds, eliminating the fear of losing hard work and the need for frequent manual saving.

Under any situation if autosave fails, reattempt would be made. If autosave still fails, then user would be prompted to save the changes or they can pause editing.

In situation of auto-save failure, the creator would get this warning:

To avoid clutter in the audit log, only the latest save would be captured. An auto-save would be similar to manual save.

Auto-save would trigger only when user has done some editing post last auto-save. If user stopped editing, the auto-save will not happen and it would show the time duration from last auto-save. All the changes have already been saved and are secure.

Preview your newsletter

While the Employee newsletter has a fully functioning text editor, it can be helpful to preview how the newsletter might look in someone's mailbox. In addition to a standard preview mode, the Employee newsletter can now preview what the newsletter will look like on a mobile device.

Sending/Scheduling a newsletter

Once happy with a newsletter draft, click Next to proceed to the scheduling and sending of the newsletter.

Details

• Confirm the newsletter name.
• Choose a subject line. This is what the user will see as the subject line in their inbox
• Optionally, customize the email preview text that recipients see in their inboxes. This preview text appears alongside the subject line in recipients' inboxes. Here you can optimize the text to align with their newsletter’s purpose, increasing the likelihood of engagement.
• Choose a category for organization. More on newsletter categories below.
• Select an email address to send from.

• Optionally, choose a custom reply-to address. Use this if you expect users to reply to the newsletter email and would like those replies to be sent to a specified email. By default, any replies will be sent to the from address you specified above.

  Note that Simpplr does not control the auto-reply behavior of your email service (Gmail, Outlook, etc.). The email service vendor handles automatic replies, and whether or not it sends an auto-reply to the sender address or the address in the "reply-to" field. Setting up a custom reply-to address does not guarantee that automatic replies will appear in the reply-to email address.

Support for special characters in Newsletter sender names

Newsletter managers can utilize the following special characters in the "sender name" field:

! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) - _ = + { } ' | " " / ? . , < >

Note: Some symbols will be accepted in pairs.

Newsletter creators are advised to exercise caution when using these characters to avoid triggering spam filters.

Subject line personalization with recipient merge fields

You can insert recipient names directly into subject lines to make messages feel personal and engaging. Also, add fallback text to ensure subject lines display smoothly if recipient data is missing.
 

Recipients

Choose either everyone in the organization, a prebuilt Simpplr audience, or members of a specified site to receive the newsletter. You can choose multiple audiences or sites to send to. Note that if you create a specific, one-time audience for newsletter distribution, then delete that audience, the newsletter's metrics will not be affected. 

Note that if you're sending a newsletter to a private site, or if there's content contained in the newsletter from a site not all recipients have access to, you will see a warning message displayed when choosing recipients. 

Choose a From address and a Reply to address. To set up your sender address, head to Manage > Application > Email. The custom Reply to address is optional. If nothing is chosen, all replies to the email will be sent to the From address. Otherwise, entering a custom email address here will ensure all replies to the newsletter get sent to that email.

Note that Simpplr does not control the auto-reply behavior of your email service (Gmail, Outlook, etc.). The email service vendor handles automatic replies, and whether or not it sends an auto-reply to the sender address or the address in the "reply-to" field. Setting up a custom reply-to address does not guarantee that automatic replies will appear in the reply-to email address.

You cannot select, nor would Simpplr recommend a "no reply" option. This could harm user engagement. We recommend using an email address that recipients can reply to and managing incoming emails with filters that can automatically remove unnecessary incoming emails. 

Please note that when a recipient sets up an automatic reply, the destination of that reply - whether it goes to the ‘from’ address or the ‘reply-to’ address - is determined by the recipient’s email client configuration.

Simpplr has no control over this behavior. While some email clients may send replies to the ‘reply-to’ address if it’s set, many default to sending automatic replies to the ‘from’ address.
 

Speak with your IT team to understand more about your email configuration. In Outlook/Exchange, administrators can set up rules or forwarding mechanisms.

Best practice is to set the “from” address to a generic email (e.g., “no-reply@company.com” or “newsletter@company.com”) that isn’t linked to a specific user. This way, even if automatic replies are sent to the 'from' address, they won’t clutter a user's personal inbox.

Distribution

You can choose to send the newsletter via email, an SMS (text) message with a link to read the newsletter in a browser, send to Microsoft Teams, or Slack.

You can choose one or more of any of these, depending on your org's needs. More on multi-channel distribution below.

The SMS will be sent to users in the recipient list that have a valid mobile phone number listed in their profile. A link will be sent out so that the employee can view the newsletter, if logged into Simpplr. Note that SMS delivery does not honor app-wide notification settings, meaning if you distribute a newsletter to SMS, users will receive it regardless of app-wide settings.

In addition to users being notified via email, they'll receive an in-app notification, where they can click directly to go to the newsletter in the platform. Learn more about configuring notifications for newsletters.

If a newsletter fails to send for any reason, the sender must manually resend the newsletter. Simpplr will not automatically resend newsletters.

Newsletters cannot be taken back and edited once distributed. 

Confirm and test the newsletter

The final step before sending the newsletter is to confirm the details.

Here, you can also click See how this looks in your inbox to send a test version of the newsletter to your own inbox or any number of other specified email addresses. Simply input whatever email addresses you'd like here, separated by commas.

Newsletter test experience

The experience of sending test newsletters has been redesigned to improve speed and usability. The option to send a test newsletter is now easier to find, setting up recipients requires less effort, and users can select recipients directly from the system instead of manually entering email addresses. This update streamlines the testing workflow and makes sending test newsletters faster and more reliable.

Here are the few enhancements we have made with test Newsletters: 

• Improved visibility of the test newsletter option. 

  

• Previously used email combinations now appear as suggestions when sending test newsletters.

  

• When sending a test newsletter, you can now choose recipients from your user list instead of entering email addresses manually.

   

Restrict Newsletter “From” address access

Newsletter “From” address permissions allow App managers and Admins to control exactly who can send newsletters using specific email addresses.

Instead of giving all senders access to every sending address, this feature makes it possible to assign individual email addresses to specific people. This helps prevent misuse, strengthens governance, and ensures messages go out only from approved senders.

Who this is for

This feature is intended for Newsletter managers, App managers, and Admins who manage newsletter sending permissions.

What this feature does

You can now:

• Control who can send newsletters from each email address.
• Assign individual users to specific “From” addresses.
• Prevent unapproved users from sending emails from restricted addresses.

If a user does not have permission to use an address, that address will not appear as an option when they try to send a newsletter.

Where to manage sender permissions

This setting is available in:

Manage application > Setup > Newsletter > Sender address

The existing Sender address field has been updated to allow you to assign people to each sending address.

How sender access works

When you configure sender permissions, the following rules apply:

• By default, All is selected.
• When All is selected, any new newsletter sender is automatically added.
• All users who are allowed to send newsletters (App managers, Admins, etc.) appear in the list.
• If you remove a user from an address, they will no longer see that address as an option when sending newsletters.

Note: This feature is available only in ABAC-enabled environments.

This feature gives you fine-grained control over newsletter sender identities. You decide exactly who can send messages from each address, ensuring better security, consistency, and compliance across your organization.

Why it's important to test the Newsletter?

It is important to always confirm and test your Newsletter before sending it to ensure formatting, links, and recipients are correct. Learn more about why is sending a test newsletter important.

If you plan on sending your test to multiple email addresses, they must be input separated by a comma, with no space in between. If you include spaces after the commas, you won't be able to send the test. 
For example, john.smith@good.co,susan.rockford@good.co,jim.daily@good.co. 

Send or schedule

Finally, choose to send the newsletter to all recipients now or schedule it for a future date/time. You can also save the newsletter as a draft by selecting Not yet and then saving it. This may be useful to give others time to review or edit the newsletter as needed. 

What does 'On Hold' mean? 

Sometimes there's an unknown error happening on the backend when you send out your newsletter. The sender will receive a message stating that the newsletter is 'On Hold'. It means there is an issue causing it to not be sent. Simpplr recommends waiting approximately 30 minutes, then trying to send the newsletter again. If you receive this same error, or need more urgent assistance, contact our Support team. 

Disclaimer on images from Simpplr appearing in your Outlook inbox:

Note that customers in the past have reported issues with images in emails from Simpplr not appearing in Outlook inboxes. While we cannot guarantee a solution to this problem, and this issue stems from many different org/domain setups on the customer's Outlook side, we have seen success by passing along this help article from Microsoft on blocking/unblocking automatic image downloads in Outlook.

Analytics

Employee newsletter analytics have been updated for individual sent newsletters. All aggregate analytics for newsletters under the content tab have been retained and individual sent newsletter analytics have been completely re-imagined.

Recipients, opens, and clicks are still tracked but now there is reporting around what devices opened the newsletter, how the clicks break down by content type, as well as what the exact click count per link in the newsletter is. In addition to the analytics overview, there is also a heatmap view that allows you to view the newsletter with the click data overlaid onto the screen.

The click-through rate is calculated by:

The number of recipients who have clicked at least one link ÷ total recipients x 100 = percentage of recipients who have clicked on at least one link in the newsletter

As of the 24.03 release, all unique clicks on different elements across the newsletter are tracked. By understanding which elements in a newsletter generate more unique clicks, you can better gauge the effectiveness of the content, headlines and calls to action. This data-driven approach enables you to refine comms strategies, leading to higher engagement rates.

Users are also able to download a CSV file containing metrics on opens and bounces. Bounces occur when the newsletter email was not successfully delivered to the recipients inbox. There can be a lot of reasons that an email can bounce, such as the recipient email address doesn’t exist, the recipient’s inbox is full or server outages.

All engagement from in-app notifications where users clicked the notifications are tracked as well. Sources will be tracked separately. Because open rates are tracked as unique, the same user can open the newsletter form multiple sources, and the open rate percentage will only be counted once per user. 

What do these metrics mean?

Recipients: This tracks the total number of users the newsletter was sent to

Open rate: This tracks the percentage and number of users who opened the newsletter

Click-through rate: This metric tracks the percentage of users who clicked at least one element after opening the newsletter, in addition to how many total clicks were made.

Opens by type: This metric tracks the source used to first open the newsletter by user. It will count the same user more than once if that user opens the newsletter form both email and SMS. That's why in the above image, you see 12 total opens by type and 10 recipients. This is telling us that the same recipient opened the newsletter from multiple sources.

Unique clicks by type: This metric represents the number of individual recipients who have clicked on a specific element within the newsletter. It counts each person only once, regardless of how many times they clicked on the same element.

The total time spent on the Intranet is calculated as the sum of the time spent by all users who clicked on that element.
Time spent is recorded when a user clicks a newsletter link and lands on a Simpplr page. The system tracks how long the user stays on that page and associates the time with the clicked link (element).
Currently, the maximum recorded time per user per link is capped at 30 minutes.

Example: If a user clicks a content link and stays on the page for 2 hours, only 30 minutes is recorded.
However, if the user clicks multiple links, up to 30 minutes is recorded for each link clicked.

Activity dashboard

To address the challenge of newsletter performance monitoring, we've introduced a new newsletter analytics activity dashboard. Newsletter managers often struggle to understand how their content resonates with their audience over time. Previously, newsletter managers did not have access to detailed or continuous metrics, making it difficult to refine their strategies effectively. This dashboard addresses the need for ongoing performance tracking and data analysis. It tracks:

•  
  • Hero metrics such as: Newsletters sent + Comparison, average open rate + Comparison (open emails/sent emails) and average clickthrough rate + Comparison (unique clicks/sent emails)
  • A chart showing performance over time
  • A sent newsletters table that provides:
    • Dimensions:
      •  
        • Newsletter name
        • Date sent
        • Recipients (Count of recipients)
    • Metrics
      • Open rate
      • Clickthrough rate
  • Features
    • Show more button (load 25 more newsletters)

• Due to our analytics rendering engine, you may notice up to a 1% variance between the data shown in the individual Newsletter analytics (Analytics & Heatmap tabs) and the actual data seen in the CSV download or on the Activity Dashboard

Categories

Categories can be added to newsletters. When creating a newsletter, you can select a category, or add a new category, under Details. Note that once a newsletter is assigned a category and sent, its category cannot be changed.

The Categories tab lists all newsletter categories.

Click a category to view its analytics.

Recipient fields

Recipient fields allow you to tailor text fields to the recipient using Simpplr data. By adding the Name recipient field, for example, users who receive the newsletter will see their Simpplr name populating the field. You can choose to populate the user's first name, last name, or both.

To add a recipient field to newsletter text, click Recipient fields in the toolbar. Or, you can input < to open the list of available recipient fields. 

Newsletter archive

To access an archive of all newsletters that have been sent to you, go to your User menu > Newsletters.

Your newsletter archive is searchable, and searches can be filtered when looking for specific newsletters.

Newsletter end user experience and notifications

For your users, the newsletter will be sent via email by default. They have the option to view it in their email, or open it in a browser. By choosing View in browser at the top of the email, the user will be taken to the intranet to view the newsletter. 

If you are the sender of the newsletter, when viewing it in a browser, you'll be given the extra option to cycle through past sent newsletters.

Email view:

Browser view:

Notifications

Users can be notified of new newsletters via in-app or mobile push notifications. This will ensure users receive timely updates about new newsletters without solely relying on email alerts. This real-time approach addresses the need for immediate awareness and action. It also allows those responsible for managing communication to ensure newsletters reach their intended audience effectively by meeting users where they're at.

Similar to all in-app notifications, newsletter in-app notifications cannot be configured. Users will receive them regardless of profile settings. However, with push notifications, if enabled at the app level, users can decide if they want to be notified via mobile from their profile settings. Check out our article on notifications for more details on configuring notifications.

Multi-channel distribution

Newsletters can be sent across several distribution channels. You can also select the distribution channel when configuring a newsletter, then share it to a channel or send it directly to a user. You can select from the following distribution channels:

• SMS (Note that SMS delivery does not honor app-wide notification settings, meaning if you distribute a newsletter to SMS, users will receive it regardless of app-wide settings)
• Email
• Microsoft Teams 
• Slack

For example, let’s use Microsoft Teams. Once you've sent a newsletter, you can share it to a Teams channel with an optional custom message from the newsletter listing page. Recipients can click on the link to the newsletter once it has been posted in Teams.

First ensure the Teams integration is connected to your profile by:

1. Clicking on View profile > Contact > Messaging and making sure Microsoft Teams is connected.
   

If Microsoft Teams is enabled to your org and connected at the user level, there are two ways you can share a newsletter to Teams:

1. While creating a newsletter, under distribution, click Share to Microsoft Teams. Select the applicable team and channel.
2. If a newsletter has already been sent, you can share it with Microsoft Teams by going to Manage > Newsletters and clicking the ellipsis > Edit on your selected Newsletter. Click Next, then select Share to Microsoft Teams. A modal will open, prompting you to select the Team and Channel and add an optional message before sharing. (This can only be done with Microsoft Teams, not SMS or email).
   

The same can be said about Slack distribution. Your org's Slack must be connected at the application level, and your own Simpplr account must be connected to your Slack account. When distributing a newsletter to Slack, you'll see the options to DM (direct message) to an individual Slack user(s) or to a Slack channel in your org. You can only distribute to channels you have access to in Slack. No Slack permissions are overwritten by Employee Newsletter or Simpplr permissions.

You can also head to Manage > Newsletters to see a full list of all sent newsletters (and those in Draft status). click the ellipsis (...) to open the Share to Slack menu. From this modal, you can only send to Slack channels, not individual recipients.

However, you can add a personalized message to boost engagement, then that message will display once the newsletter link is sent to Slack.

Multi-channel distribution analytics

You can filter any newsletter metrics by distribution channel in Newsletter analytics, then further refine by department and location. More on Newsletter analytics above.

Recognition block

The Recognition block lets you filter what kind of Recognition content is pulled into the Newsletter. Latest will pull in the most recent recognition content. Select recognition lets you specify which award types, locations, and departments to pull in. Then you can filter by source and recognition type.

Layout blocks

There are seven pre-designed layout blocks that make it easy to create newsletter layouts. Layout blocks group content items together. With these layout blocks, you can quickly create a good looking newsletter. Just click on the desired layout block to drag and drop it onto your design.

Control Newsletter excerpts

When adding a page to a newsletter, you can control how much of the content’s summary appears in the newsletter using the Excerpt setting. This helps you decide whether readers see a short preview, a detailed description, or no summary at all.

Excerpt settings affect how your content is presented on newsletter cards and directly influence how clearly users understand what they are about to open.

No excerpt

Select this option if you do not want any summary text to appear in the newsletter. Only the title and image (if available) will be displayed.

Use this when the title alone is enough or when you want a clean, minimal layout without additional text.

Short excerpt

Select this option to display a short version of the content summary.

This is useful when you want to give readers just enough context without taking up too much space in the newsletter layout.

Full excerpt

Select this option to display the full summary text of the content page in the newsletter.

This allows you to:

• Provide more background on the page
• Clearly explain the purpose of the content
• Help readers decide if the content is relevant before clicking

Using the full excerpt is recommended when the page contains important information, announcements, or instructions that benefit from explanation.

What happens if no summary is added to the page?

If a content page does not have a summary written by the creator, the system automatically pulls the first 80 characters of the page content and uses it as the excerpt instead.

This ensures that the newsletter always shows meaningful preview text, even if a summary was not explicitly set.

Best practice

For better engagement and fewer misclicks, use Full excerpt for:

• Policy updates
• Internal announcements
• Process changes
• Training material
• Important documents or links

Use Short excerpt for lighter content, and No excerpt only when a preview is unnecessary.

Archive a newsletter 

You can archive an out-of-date newsletter by going to Manage > Newsletters and clicking on the ellipsis next to the newsletter in question. Archived newsletters still contribute to newsletter analytics.

Archived newsletters still contribute to newsletter analytics. Archived newsletters will be removed from recipients’ newsletters page, but newsletters that have already been distributed will still be accessible and cannot be recalled.

To view archived newsletters pages, click Filters and View archived newsletters. Here you can un-archive newsletters. They’ll return the newsletter listing page and be visible to users as if they were never archived.

Sender filter on newsletter listing screen

A Sender filter is available the newsletter listing page. This feature was introduced based on customer feedback to make it easier to locate newsletters by their “From” address.

Users can filter newsletters based on the sender’s email address. This is especially useful when different types of newsletters are sent from dedicated addresses. For example, CEO Updates might be sent from one address, while Weekly Newsletters are sent from another.

Advantages

• Faster and easier access to specific newsletters.

• Better organization when multiple teams or leaders send newsletters from different addresses.

• Reduces time spent searching for newsletters in a large listing.

How to use

1. Go to the Newsletter listing screen.

2. Use the Sender filter dropdown to select the desired “From” address.

3. The list will update to show only newsletters sent from that address.

Manage redirection warning with domain whitelisting

This enhancement is extension of 'redirection warning' capability introduced in 25.09, because of which a user would get warning when they redirect to any external link (outside intranet), from newsletter. With this release, admins would be able to manage redirection warning for external links, added to Newsletter. Not only would they be able to enable/disable this warning from system settings, but they can also whitelist certain domains which they trust and don’t want users to see any warning when they click in Newsletter.

The warning visible to users when they click on an external link (not from intranet) in Newsletter

However, often admins trust some web sources like Medium.com and Techcrunch.com and don’t want users to see any warning when they click on any link from these sources. For this, admin would have to navigate to following screen and add the domains to whitelist.

Application settings > Application > Setup > Newsletter > Redirection warning

As default, this setting would be enabled for all customers except for those which has already asked to disable it.

Content date display options

Admins can now control which date appears on Newsletter content cards. A new setting, Content date display, is available when you navigate to Manage application > Setup > Newsletter Admins can choose to display:

• Edited date
• Created date
• No date

For example: 

• Without date:
  

• With last edited date

Newsletter cards now clearly indicate which date is being shown. By default, the Newsletter continues to display the last edited date.

Share employee milestone events in Newsletters

The Share employee milestone events feature in Newsletters makes it easy for creators to include employee birthdays, work anniversaries, and new hires directly within newsletters.

Previously, newsletter creators had to manually gather this information from the intranet or HR. The “People” smart block automatically provides milestone event data, simplifying the process and saving time.

The People smart block includes three additional tabs, one for each type of milestone event:

• Birthday
• Work anniversary
• New hires

Each tab helps creators quickly select and add employees celebrating these milestones.

A date filter is available within each tab, allowing you to choose a specific date range, past or upcoming, to display the relevant individuals and milestones.

How It works

1. Open the Newsletter editor.
2. Add or edit a People smart block.
3. Select one of the new milestone tabs: Birthday, Work anniversary, or New hires.
4. Use the date filter to set the desired time frame.
5. Add the selected employees to your newsletter.

This enhancement makes it quick and effortless to highlight team celebrations and milestones in your communications.

Note that only one milestone event type can be displayed per “People” block.
To include multiple milestone types, such as birthdays and new hires, you will need to add separate “People” blocks.
Custom filters are not available for these three new milestone tabs. Newsletter creators and managers who want to highlight employee milestones directly in newsletters can use this.

Generative AI for newsletter subject and preview text

Generative AI capabilities help users easily create or improve subject lines and preview text for newsletters. 

The AI analyzes the newsletter’s content and any existing subject or preview text to generate relevant and meaningful suggestions that fit your tone and style.

What you can do with this

• Tone options: Choose from multiple tone options to match your message style.

• Personalization: AI suggestions can include both first and last names.

• Multi-language support: In manual translation mode, users can request AI-generated suggestions in their preferred language.

• Character limit: AI-generated text is limited to 140 characters, excluding personalization tags.

• Refinement options: Multiple options are available to fine-tune the AI’s suggestions based on your input.

Data used for AI generation

The AI uses the following data to create suggestions:

• Newsletter name

• Text content within the newsletter

• Any manually entered subject or preview text

Settings and controls

• Feature visibility: Administrators can control the visibility of this feature from Manage application > Newsletter.

• Usage limit: To ensure fair use, each user can generate up to 10 AI suggestions per hour per field. After reaching the limit, AI generation will pause for one hour.

• Safety measures: Built-in safeguards ensure that AI-generated text remains appropriate, accurate, and aligned with company standards.

Newsletter creators and managers who want to create engaging and well-written subject lines and preview text with the help of AI can use this feature.