Overview#
A platform administrator needs to onboard 150 new analysts from a regional police force. She generates invitation links, each with a seven-day expiry, and sends them via the platform's automated email using a pre-approved onboarding template that includes the force's branding and operational guidance. She can see at a glance how many links have been clicked, how many accounts have been created, and which invitations are still pending. The Invitation domain provides the short URL generation, click tracking, template management, and email delivery infrastructure that make this workflow work at scale.
Short URLs and email templates are operational tools: they appear in communications to real users and need to reflect the sending organisation's identity, not generic platform defaults. Tenant-scoped templates allow each organisation to maintain its own messaging while sharing the underlying delivery infrastructure.
Key Features#
- Short URL creation with click tracking and timestamp recording
- URL expiration support for time-limited invitation links
- Type categorisation for different link purposes: invitation, general, and campaign
- Admin and user views for short URL management
- Email template management with tenant-scoped isolation
- Variable substitution support with placeholder tracking for personalised content
- Dual format templates: HTML and plain text for compatibility across email clients
- Active or inactive toggle for templates without deletion, preserving the audit trail
- Test email sending for delivery verification before production use
- Role-based access control with admin-only management operations
Use Cases#
- Generating short invitation URLs with click tracking for user onboarding campaigns across agencies or departments
- Managing tenant-specific email templates for automated communications that reflect local branding and procedures
- Testing email delivery configurations before sending to a full user population to catch formatting and deliverability issues
- Tracking invitation link engagement through click analytics to identify pending invitations that need follow-up
Industry Context#
Government platform operators onboard users from multiple agencies under different administrative domains, each requiring distinct email branding. Law enforcement forces use time-limited invitation links for officer onboarding during platform rollouts. Financial services regulatory bodies manage analyst onboarding campaigns with click tracking for compliance audit purposes. Defence organisations set short expiry windows on invitation links to reduce the risk of interception and misuse. Multi-agency emergency management platforms generate bulk invitations for mutual aid activations where rapid onboarding is operationally necessary.
Integration#
The Invitation domain integrates with User for invitation management, Tenant for multi-tenant template scoping, Notification for email delivery tracking, and Authentication for the invitation acceptance flow. Short URL records and click events are stored in PostgreSQL with organisation-scoped isolation.
Open Standards#
- GraphQL (June 2018 specification): All invitation management operations, short URL administration, and email template CRUD are exposed through a GraphQL API, with queries and mutations defined using the Strawberry framework.
- OAuth 2.0 (RFC 6749): The email delivery layer authenticates to Microsoft Identity Platform using the client credentials grant flow, exchanging application credentials for a bearer token to call the Microsoft Graph API.
- SMTP (RFC 5321) / MIME (RFC 2045): Invitation and sharing notification emails are composed as multipart messages with both HTML and plain-text bodies, delivered via SMTP-based infrastructure through Microsoft Graph's sendMail endpoint.
- HTML Living Standard (W3C): Email templates are stored and rendered as HTML with inline CSS, and the dual-format template model (HTML plus plain text) follows interoperability guidance for transactional email.
- JSON (RFC 8259): All payloads exchanged with the short URL service, click-tracking metadata, and email template variable lists are serialised as JSON.
- UUID (RFC 4122): Every invitation, participant, and email template record is identified by a version-4 UUID, ensuring globally unique identifiers without coordination.
- HTTPS / TLS (RFC 2818): All outbound service-to-service calls, short URL creation, Microsoft Identity Platform token requests, and Microsoft Graph sendMail, are made exclusively over HTTPS.
Last Reviewed: 2026-02-05 Last Updated: 2026-04-14