How to send a proposal and know when it is opened

You spend two days on a proposal, attach it to an email and press send. After that you know nothing: whether it was opened, whether the client is reading the old version because you fixed a number an hour later, whether it has been forwarded to someone you never met. Sending the proposal as a link instead of an attachment changes all three.

What goes wrong with an attachment

• It cannot be corrected. A copy is already in the client's inbox. If you find a typo or change a price, you send a second file and hope they delete the first.
• It cannot be recalled. Once it is sent, it is out. You cannot close it, and you cannot limit it to the people it was written for.
• It is silent. An email tells you nothing about whether the document was opened. A missing reply can mean “not read” or “read and thinking”, and you cannot tell which.

Send a live link instead

With shareHub you upload the proposal (PDF, Word, Excel, HTML or Markdown) and send a link. The client reads it in the browser, with no download. When you change the content, the link stays the same and shows the new version, so nobody holds a stale copy. The details are on the live documents page, and how updates work has the step by step.

Decide who may open it

A proposal is written for specific people. Choose email code and list the client's address, or a whole domain such as *@client.com. The reader enters their address and receives a six-digit code, so forwarding the link to a stranger does not open it. If you cannot list addresses, a PIN is simpler but proves less; public, PIN or email code compares the three.

See whether it was opened

The dashboard shows whether the current version has been viewed, with the first and latest view times and a total. Automated email scanners are not counted as readers, and when you publish a new version the status starts again, so an old view never marks your latest proposal as seen. A view tells you the document was opened. It does not prove it was read, which is why it is a good moment to call, not a verdict. What “viewed” really means explains the limits.

Give it an end date

Every link has an end date: 90 days unless you choose otherwise, 365 at most. A quote that is valid for 30 days can simply stop working after 30 days, and you can extend it from the dashboard if the deal is still alive. If the client says no, or you sent it to the wrong person, you can close the link immediately.

A short routine

1. Upload the proposal and set access to email code with the client's address.
2. Set an end date that matches the validity of the offer.
3. Send the link in your usual email.
4. Check the dashboard the next day, and call once the first view appears.
5. Fix anything you spot in the same link, never in a second file.