You can use your existing document files — such as PDFs, Word documents, Excel sheets, and Powerpoint decks – and distribute them to employees.

Upload and attach one or more files up to 100 MB to an article campaign so that your users can download or view the attachment. Every uploaded file is scanned to ensure it is safe for users to access and is stored securely in our AWS S3 server.

The attachment can only be viewed or downloaded by a user with access to your community. If you mark the article as shareable, external users can see the article but the attached files can still only be accessed by signed-in members.

Depending on the device (iOS, Android, web browser), a user may be restricted to viewing the attachment in a web view or may need to download the file and then open the file in a native viewer. Due to the variance of devices and browsers, there is no option to completely stop downloads from occurring across all access points.

Plan on using this block again? Learn how to create a custom block.

Security Note: We securely host the file, and we do expire download links after they have been used, or after 5 minutes of the page loading. If a link has expired, users will receive an XML or Access Denied error. Refreshing the original campaign view in the member experience will reset the download.

However, if the file is downloaded, users are able to transfer the downloaded file to other users. We are only able to control the access to the file hosted by us, we cannot control what the user does with a file after download.

Attachment Download Metrics

Metrics on attachment download history can be viewed in the Campaign Performance [New Studio Campaigns] report. The Campaign Performance [New Studio Campaigns] report displays the number of unique attachment downloads for the selected campaign period.

Supported File Types

• DOC and DOCX (Microsoft Word)
• PDF (Adobe)
• XLS and XLSX (Microsoft Excel)
• PPT and PPTX(Microsoft PowerPoint)
• ICS (Calendar) 
  • Note: ICS files will open in the user’s local calendar app. Tapping or clicking an ICS file does not prompt the user to download Outlook.

How to Create an Attachment Block

1. Sign in to Studio.
2. Click Create.
   
   
   
   
3. You can start with a blank campaign, choose a template to edit, or add an attachment block to an existing campaign. (For an overview of all campaign creation options, please refer to Create a New Campaign.)
4. For this example, we'll start with a blank campaign.
   
   
   
   
5. Click + Add block to choose from a selection of content blocks.
   
   
   
   
6. Select the attachment block and click Select Blocks.
   
   
   
   
7. On the Design page, hover over the block and choose the Edit icon.
   
   
   
   
8. On the Content panel, click Upload to select and upload your file. (Valid file extensions for upload: DOC,DOCX, PDF, XLSX, PPT, PPTX, and ICS.) Or, choose an asset from the Library.
   
   
   
   
9. The file preview appears - the file name, virus scan status, type, and size. On the Content panel you can also choose to override the file name with a new name. Click Apply.
   
   
   
   
10. From the Design panel, you can edit the appearance of your attachment block.
    
    
    
    
11. On the Design page, you can now edit the campaign Cover, as well as view the Preview for your desired channel/s and send a test campaign.
    
    Cover
    
    
    
    Preview
    
    
    
    Note: Attempting to download an attachment from the preview email will result in an error. The download will no longer result in an error once the campaign has been published.
    
    
12. Complete your campaign, including all of the Deliver settings.
13. Click Review in the bottom right corner to review your campaign summary and projected delivery.
14. Then schedule and click Publish to publish the campaign, or Content Creators can save the campaign as a draft for review by selecting the Save icon at the top right.
    
    

What Members See

From the web and mobile app experience, users can access the attachment. Depending on the device (iOS, Android, web browser), a user may be restricted from viewing the attachment in a web view or may need to download the file and then open the file in a native viewer.

Web Experience

Attachment blocks appear under a content card in one of the feed views in the web experience.

Clicking on the content card will immediately open a new view. In this view, you can download the attachment, bookmark the attachment, and add likes. You can also interact with the comments and share the attachment (if these features are enabled in Deliver).

Mobile App

Attachment blocks also appear under a content card in one of the feed views in the mobile app experience.

Tapping on the content card will open a new view. In this view, you can download the attachment, bookmark the attachment, and add likes. You can also interact with the comments and share the attachment (if these features are enabled in Deliver).

Email

Attachment blocks will appear directly in your email and you will be able to download the attachment by clicking the Download button.