Problem

In the user assignment tab of a task, there is currently only one option to send emails: Notify assigned users.

In the approval workflow, the "approved" email is often used as a way to document that a task has been approved. If this email gets lost (e.g. not received, deleted, or filtered), there is no convenient way to reproduce or verify this communication except via the system log, which is not user-friendly and not suitable for auditing purposes.

This leads to a lack of transparency and traceability of communication, especially in customer-facing or compliance-relevant workflows.

Solution

Introduce a centralized Email Audit that logs all outgoing emails in a persistent and user-accessible way.

Core functionality

• Every outgoing email is stored in full, including:
  • Recipients
  • Subject
  • Body (fully rendered with all variables resolved)
  • Attachments
  • Timestamp and triggering event (e.g. workflow action)

UI Integration

• Provide a dedicated email history view:
  • System-wide view for administrators (as a new menu-entry "E-mail history" in "Preferences" after "System Log")
  • Task-specific view for project managers (as new tab in task like "Users" etc.)
• Each entry represents a previously sent email and includes metadata and preview capabilities.

Benefits

• Full transparency of communication history
• Improved auditability (who received what, and when)
• Reliable recovery mechanism for lost emails
• Eliminates the need for workflow-specific or hardcoded resend logic
• Avoids inconsistencies caused by re-evaluating dynamic data at resend time

Considerations

• Data retention / GDPR compliance: Define retention policies and access restrictions
  • Any sensitive info like password reset links, passwords etc. should be sanitized in the stored email content.
• Storage impact: Especially for emails with attachments
• Data consistency: Emails reflect the original state, even if task/user data has changed since