Must Read Tracking
Open Intranet ships a Must Read workflow that lets editors flag a content item as required reading, lets readers acknowledge it with a single click, and lets administrators see exactly who has and who hasn’t read each item — and email a reminder to the laggards.
How it works
Section titled “How it works”There are three roles in the workflow.
The editor publishes a piece of content and decides it is required reading. On the edit form, the TOOLS tab has a single toggle — Must Read — that turns the feature on for that content item.
The reader opens the content like any other article. Because Must Read is on, an extra Mark as read button appears in the article footer, next to Add to Bookmarks. Clicking it stores an acknowledgement against that user and that content item, and the button immediately flips to Mark as unread so the reader can change their mind.
The administrator sees a Must Read Report tab on the dashboard at /admin/dashboard/must-read-report. It lists every content item with Must Read enabled and how many users have clicked the button. Drilling into any row opens a per-item page with two side-by-side lists: users who have acknowledged the content, and users who haven’t yet. From the bottom of the per-item page, a Send a reminder email button opens a bulk-email form pre-scoped to the not-yet-read audience — the administrator picks recipients, writes a subject and body, and sends. Reminders are a manual, on-demand action.
Under the hood, three pieces of Drupal configuration make this work: a boolean field (field_mark_as_must_read) on the News article content type, a Drupal read flag that records each acknowledgement, and a pair of Views displays — the report and the bulk-email form (the latter powered by the Views Send module).
Enabling Must Read on a content item
Section titled “Enabling Must Read on a content item”- Edit a News article (
/node/{nid}/edit). - Switch to the TOOLS tab.
- Toggle Must Read on.
- Click Save.
The toggle’s description matches what is shipped in the recipe verbatim:
Selecting this field will add a “Mark as read” button to this content. This allows you to track on the dashboard who has read the article and who hasn’t.
The toggle currently lives on the News article form. The underlying read flag is also enabled on book, document, event, knowledge_base_page, page and webform content types, so the flag mechanism is available there too — adding a Must Read toggle to one of those content types is just a matter of placing the boolean field on the form.
Marking content as read
Section titled “Marking content as read”When a Must Read article is opened by an authenticated user, a Mark as read button appears in the article footer next to Add to Bookmarks:
Clicking it sends an AJAX request and the button immediately flips to Mark as unread, indicating the read flag is now stored for that user:
A user can toggle their own state at any time. Each click writes (or removes) one row in the flagging table.
The Must Read report
Section titled “The Must Read report”Administrators with the View Must Read Report Details permission see a Must Read Report tab on the dashboard at /admin/dashboard/must-read-report.
The list shows three columns:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Node title | Linked title of the content item |
| Read by (number of users) | Count of users who have flagged the item as read |
| Details | Link to the per-item breakdown |
Only content where Must Read is on (field_mark_as_must_read = 1) is listed.
Detailed read status for one item
Section titled “Detailed read status for one item”Click Details (or visit /admin/dashboard/must-read-report/details?entity_id={nid}) to see a per-item breakdown:
The page has two sections:
- Users who marked the content as read — Username, Created (when the read flag was added) and a view user link.
- Users who haven’t marked the content as read yet — Username, Roles, Member for and a view user link. This list automatically excludes everyone already in the “read” list.
A Send a reminder email button at the bottom takes you to the bulk-email form prefilled with the not-yet-read audience.
Sending a reminder
Section titled “Sending a reminder”Clicking Send a reminder email opens a two-step bulk email form at /admin/dashboard/must-read-report/details/send-email?entity_id={nid}:
- Pick recipients — tick the users you want to email (use the header checkbox to select all), then click Next.
- Compose the message — fill in Sender’s name, Sender’s email, the Subject and Message, and choose a text format. You can use Drupal tokens in both the subject and the body.
Other options on the form:
- Send the message directly using the Batch API — sends in chunks rather than one big request, recommended for large recipient lists.
- Send a copy of the message to the sender — sends an audit copy to the sender’s address.
- Remember these values for the next time a mass mail is sent — pre-fills the form on the next reminder.
- Additional email options — set message priority (low, normal, high, etc.) and other headers.
A Back to list link returns you to the report list. The form is provided by the Views Send module and sends each reminder on demand the moment you submit it.
Permissions
Section titled “Permissions”| Action | Permission |
|---|---|
| Toggle Must Read on a piece of content | Standard edit permission for that content type (e.g. Content editor role) |
| Click Mark as read / Mark as unread | Any authenticated user — provided by the read flag |
| See the Must Read Report and per-item details | View Must Read Report Details |
| Send a reminder email | View Must Read Report Details plus permission to use the Views Send bulk action on the underlying view |