Share email preview

[StéphanieHr]

Hi there 🐝

For a few months now, I have been sharing preview of emails with my supervisors by using the 'Copy shareable link' button. This was super useful! But they just told me that they now have to log in to be able to preview the email. Have other users noticed that change? -- It is a loss, because it means that we are not able anymore to share preview links with folks who don't have access to Hubspot. 

If anyone has tips / ideas around that, feel free to share!

Merci 🙂 
Stéphanie

[ECadeddu]

This is a terrible thing, instead of moving forward Hubspot goes backward. Might choose other providers only for this, for me that needs approval for multiple people across teans, slows down my job immensely. I'm forced to do screenshots of entire emails.

[lcoburn]

Public URLs for email drafts did not work when we first started using HubSpot, but did start working when we fully set up the Settings > Website > Domains and URLs section of our account.  I believe that the key is setting up a subdomain for Maketing Email (Web Version) under the Primary Domains section.  I'm 95% sure that the ability to have preview links to email drafts started appearing after enabling that piece. 

Once enabled, when you are building an email, you can choose Actions > Preview.  On the Preview page, there is a button that says "Copy shareable link".  The link that the button generates works in an Incognito browser when not logged into HubSpot.  See attached screenshots.

[PLippens]

There is a way of doing this:

• Edit your email
• in the upper right corner click 'preview'
• in the upper right corner click 'copy shareable link'

This link does not require you to login. Enjoy 🙂 

(Edit: We've got a custom email tracking domain connected. Not sure if that is a must-have to get this to work)

[RhysJames]

think the custom email tracking domain is key, that shareable link still prompts people I share it with to log in. 

My link has hs-sites.com in it, does yours?

[PLippens]

I've got the custom tracking domain connected so apparantly that's needed to make this work.

[RhysJames]

Just googled this as was having trouble understanding the logic of needing to log in to see a preview. This really needs to change as it is super frustrating. Most of our internal stakeholders have no need for an account and I'm not going to set them up with one. Sharing the email manually is clunky. When will this get attention Hubspot?

[heynancyee]

This is also causing major issues for me and is frustrating since competitors offer public shareable links. I've also learned that forwarding HubSpot emails with any layout other than 1 column breaks the formatting which makes it even more imperative that I have the ability to send my stakeholders the email directly vs. forwarding. A link is much more seamless too, especially when going through rounds of approvals. 

Please please provide a feasible solution to this issue @hubspot

[katiekiss]

Same thing everyone has said in earlier comments... just adding so that the developers know this is a big issue. It is very hard to share emails with people outside the immediate marketing team.

[RJoyce9]

^^Second all of the others that are dealing with the frustrating updates. I'm a year late - but still inconvenienced. Please bring back the public shareable link. It is so helpful when trying to get approvals from the many different departments a corporate communications team works with on the day-to-day. Maybe just put up a disclaimer? The manual forwards are clunky and not the same aesthetic. Our team can't add every person that requests comms to our HubSpot account...that is a real security issue.

[NatalieC]

We'd be grateful if it would be reverted back. It's how we get approvals via our compliance system before anything can be sent out. Since we're a bank, we have very strict compliance protocols to follow. So while I do understand the security aspect, it doesn't make sense.

Our compliance system captures the link and stores it in the system so we know if it was approved before it's sent out to customers. It's also the tool we use internally to share and update emails before submitting them through the compliance system for approval. This is a necessary part of our workflow before emails can be sent out.

[OMcLaughlin]

I agree.  We found the ability to share previews very useful.  To limit it behind a login seems a very backward step and cannot see any real security concerns in sharing a simple preview.

[PamCotton]

Hello @NatalieC, thank you for your feedback I would recommend to please upvote this idea here shared by @rjonesSolaria.

Upvoting here will alert our Product Team to the popularity of this request. Doing so will also auto-notify you if/when this functionality becomes available within HubSpot.

Thank you!

Pam

[BPaulette]

This is so frustrating.......  😡

[rjonesSolaria]

I know this has been answered but manually forwarding the email can mess up the layout, directly sending a test from hubspot can be put in junk.

Here's the link to the Idea to have them reimplement this feature:
https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Bring-back-public-preview-links/idi-p/390729

[natsumimori]

Thanks for sharing @rjonesSolaria !

[natsumimori · Accepted solution]

Hi @StéphanieHr ,

Thank you for reaching out to the HubSpot Community!

You're right- there's a new restriction where we cannot share the preview links anymore with non-HubSpot users. I understand this might be an inconvenient transition for some of the users, however, we believe this will give an additional layer of security to protect our users and their data. 

If adding your supervisors as users in your HubSpot account isn't ideal, I'd recommend sending a test email to yourself and then manually forward it to your supervisors for review.

Hope this helps!

[ROHara04]

Need to find a solution so we can share completed email links with external clients.

[ChandlerW]

Terrible update. In no way does this make things more secure. Now I have to give access to outside stakeholders to our portal in a way that I DO NOT want them in the system.

[GSingh0308]

How is this more secure? How is this different from sending a test email or forwarding the test email like you suggested? This is just dumb

[PVassallo]

Hi there

Replying a year later, can you please explain why this has not been resolved? A preview link is a basic service of a mailing system, a service offered by your competitors no less. The company I work for uses Hubspot, and this preview link is an essential part of the workflow as this is sent to external parties for approval before an email campaign is launched. I do not wish to move the company off of Hubspot, but this will be the end result if this basic but crucial email service is not made available.

We require this to be rectified immediately. Kindly advise what Hubspot is doing to address this issue.

PS: To preempt the inevitable reply, a forwarded test email as a preview link is not a satisfactory solution for external parties, would you send a forwarded test email to a client?