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News posts and the daily digest

News (called blog internally) is the platform's announcement feed: posts with a title, rich-text body, an importance level, a category, and an optional link to a deal and/or document. Posts appear in the news list and detail views, and — most importantly — feed the daily digest email that goes out to subscribed contacts each morning.

What a news post is

A post is stored in the blog table and indexed for search. Its fields: title, body, publish date, importance, category, sticky flag, and optional related deal (relatedTo = arrangement, relatedID = the deal) and document. When a post links to a deal, the detail and list views resolve the supplier logo, deal period, and any linked document (with preview/download) from that deal.

Sticky posts pin to the top of the list, but only while still recent — a post is "sticky-valid" only within the site's sticky window (default 14 days), re-evaluated nightly.

Posts are created three ways: 1. By hand, in the news editor (see Writing a news post). 2. On document approval — approving a document in an upload-wizard folder marked for digest auto-creates a post linked to the deal, with importance derived from the document's filename prefix. 3. On deal sign-off — on one site only, a fully signed deal auto-posts a "deal is now LIVE" announcement.

Importance levels

Importance is a number that sets the email subject line and controls who is notified:

Value Meaning
1 Very important trading information
2 Important
3 Price list changes
4 Promotions & offers
5 Minor adjustments

Importance 1 posts bypass interest-area filtering — everyone eligible sees them, regardless of category preferences.

The daily digest

The digest is a once-a-day email newsletter of that day's posts, built by a scheduled task. Key behavior:

  • Who receives it — contacts whose sendDigest flag is on (set via their company-manager role or contact record), excluding supplier-type companies and expired/left companies.
  • When — it sends the previous day's news Tuesday–Saturday, sends Saturday's news on Monday, and never sends on Sunday.
  • Tailored vs full — contacts with tailoredDigest on get a personalized set filtered to their interest areas (plus all importance-1 posts); everyone else gets the full day's list.
  • Per-recipient permissions — the digest filters each recipient's posts by the post's view permissions against that contact's roles, so recipients only receive news they are allowed to see.

There is also an instant email path: a deal-linked post with an importance level emails the deal's notifyees immediately (separate from the daily digest).

The public "view in browser" page

The digest email's "view in browser" link points to blog.viewDigest, which is public/whitelisted (no login) — it renders the digest email HTML for a given date so email recipients (often not authenticated) can open it. It takes a date, contact, and campaign so it can personalize and track opens.

Who can see and manage posts

  • View is open by default (a post with no ACL is viewable), but non-member users are restricted to the public news category. Posts can carry their own view/edit/delete/admin ACL; deal-linked posts inherit the deal's permissions on creation.
  • Edit defaults to the post's creator and superusers (with the admin role required); delete and admin default to superusers. See the permissions matrix.

Why does the news feed change unexpectedly

  • A post dropped from the top — its sticky window expired (it is no longer sticky-valid), so it fell back into date order.
  • Posts appeared without anyone writing them — document approvals and deal sign-offs auto-create news posts.
  • Two users see different news — view permissions are per-user, and non-members are limited to the public category.
  • A digest didn't arrive — it was Sunday (never sent), the recipient lacks sendDigest, or (tailored recipients) nothing matched their interest areas that day.

What news is not

  • Not deal notes/comments — those attach to a deal or supplier; news posts are site-wide announcements (though a post can link to a deal).
  • Not notifications — the in-app notification system is separate; news reaches people mainly through the digest email.