Email preview tracking

Content-related email notifications allow users to stay informed about the content within their digital workplace. These notifications contain a tracking pixel that records when the email has been previewed. A count of these previews can be found on the article's information box and activity page. This information can be used to understand better how workplace users are consuming content.

The tracking pixel is not visible in the email notification. However, if users do not load images within their emails, no preview will be recorded when they view the notification email.

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Ensure the tracking pixel can record previews

For the tracking pixel to be able to report previews:

Email clients such as Microsoft Outlook may block images from unrecognized email senders. While users can do this individually with Microsoft Outlook (Home > Junk > Junk Email Options), consider having this applied for all users of an organization as a Group Policy or with an Azure PowerShell applet (this will need to be done by an organization's IT administrator). In addition to allowing the tracking pixel to function as intended, doing this will reduce the likelihood of emails being placed in junk mail folders.

Reporting of previews

The tracking pixel is only present in the following notification types:

  • Instant Subscription notifications
  • @mentions

And for these content types:

  • Blog articles
  • Wiki articles
  • Calendar events
  • Forum posts
  • Folder files

When a user opens an email, if images are loaded, a preview of that article will be recorded. 

  • Activity page: The Activity page for blog articles, wiki articles, calendar events, forum topics, and files report details regarding who and when content was previewed.
  • Analytics: This preview information is not currently available in Workplace Analytics or Data Feeds.

The tracking pixel is unique to each initial recipient of a notification email that contains content. As a result, forwarding the email can result in additional views being attributed to the original recipient of the forwarded email. Similarly, viewing an email multiple times will result in additional previews being logged.