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Scanning Delivery
Status and Updating ACT!
Since
e-BLAST! has it's own high performance SMTP Email
server, it can keep track of what happens in the delivery of
your emails and can update your database with this
information. This is a huge time saver.
SMTP Server Conversations
When two
Email servers have a conversation, it goes something like:
"Hi there; SMTP.YourDomain.com here, I have a message
for Bill.Smith@ReceivingDomain.com"
The
receiving computer will respond with one of the following
types of responses:
"OK
- I'm Willing to accept the message - send it to me", or
"Error
Code: ### Sorry - Bill.Smith@yourdomain.com isn't a valid
account on this server, etc...."
In the
first case, successful messages are logged in the SMTP
Express log file located in the ..\SMTP Express\logfiles
folder.
In the
second case, they are moved to the "..\SMTPExpress\failed"
folder.
e-BLAST! can scan both logfiles and failed messages,
to update your ACT! database with the delivery status of
your emails.
Note: Some servers will accept everything,
regardless of whether the address is valid on that domain or
not, and will send an undeliverable bounce-back message by
email to the "From" address. To update your
database with these items, you will have to do the updating
manually or use FortuneFlow's e-Scribe, which makes updating
your database with subscribe/un-subscribe requests and
undeliverable bounce-backs a breeze.
Scanning
and Updating Delivery Status
To scan
and update the delivery status of your emails from the e-BLAST!
menu, select:
[Delivery
Status] [Scan Delivery Status and Update ACT!]
Select
the folder to scan, click the "Scan Files" button
and the table will be filled with the data pertaining to the
delivery of your messages. The label in the top right
of the dialog tells you how many files are in the folder to
be scanned.
For
failed messages and messages scanned before they either
failed or were delivered, the data will include:
Error
Code, Description, Email Address, Subject and Date/Time
For
messages that were successfully delivered to the receiving
server, which are read from the logfile(s), the table will
contain:
Delivery
Code, Description, Email Address, Date/Time
Sorting
Columns
You can
sort each column alternately in ascending or descending
order by simply clicking on the column header for the column
you want to sort.
Deleting
and/or Updating Records in ACT!
The top
button is a toggle button that controls either updating ACT!
with the failed items in the delivery status logging field
(set on the General Tab of the e-BLAST!'s user
preferences dialog), or to delete records from ACT! with
invalid email addresses or domains, and to log all other
failures in the delivery status logging field..
You can
delete records from the table by selecting them with your
mouse on the left side of the table and dragging your mouse
up or down, or by pressing and holding down the [SHIFT] key
and pressing the [Up Arrow] or [Down Arrow], or [Page Up] or
[Page Down] keys to expand the range of records in the table
you want to delete. when the records you don't want to
process are highlighted, press the delete key. This
will prevent re-processing of old records, or deleting of
contacts for those records, when you proceed to update the
database with the update method toggle button (top button)
set to "Delete Records w/Invalid Addr. or Domain, Log
Other Events"
If the
update method toggle is to "Delete Records w/Invalid
Addr. or Domain, Log Other Events", e-BLAST!
will only delete records with an absolutely bad email
address or invalid domain. All other record keeping,
such as successful delivery, a full mailbox or other failure
will be logged in the Delivery Status Logging Field.
Delivery
Statuses Logged
Depending
on which folder was scanned, the delivery status logging
field will be updated with one of the following:
Invalid
Email Addresses and Domains: "Invalid Email"
Mailbox Full, Unknown Error, other errors: "Retry
Failed Email"
Delivery Status Delivered: "Delivered"
Scanned from the Holding Folder: "Holding"
Scanned from the Pickup Folder: "Pickup"
Looking Up Failed Addresses in ACT!
e-BLAST!
Makes it as simple as two clicks to lookup the contacts with failed
email addresses! Simply right click your mouse on the scan
table. A pop-up menu will then allow you to lookup all of the
contacts in the scan table, or only the contacts selected in the
table (Select records by dragging your mouse down the range of
records you want to lookup, or holding down the [SHIFT] key and
using the [UP ARROW] and [DOWN ARROW] or [PAGE UP] and [PAGE DOWN]
keys.). This makes it quick and easy to make follow-up calls,
or to resend the failed items via your Alternate Server..
Exporting a Report
e-BLAST!
will export a report of
scanned items that you can import into your favorite
spreadsheet or word processor to print out for keeping a
hardcopy record of the day's activities.
Resetting
the Delivery Status Logging Field
The
"Reset Delivery Status Logging Field" button does
just that, it goes through your database and resets the
value of the delivery status logging field for all
records. This is good to do in cases where you have
old data you want to exclude from your lookup after you scan
and complete the update for the latest merge.
Selecting
a Field to Log the Subject of Emails
You can
choose a field to log the subject of failed emails in, as a
way of differentiating one failed email from another.
This can use lots of space in your database and takes longer
to do, especially on large databases. The best
practice is to scan your database and update between merges,
whenever possible, and to do your follow-ups on failed
emails often to keep your database up to date.
Updating
the Database
Click the
Update Database Button and e-BLAST! will update the
database. (It is important to have an alternate email
address field setup as per directions for Setting Up e-BLAST!
or this process will go very slowly!)
e-BLAST! will update your records according to your
selection for Updating or deleting records and displays it's
progress with a status bar and text that let's you know
where it's at in the process.
Empty
the Folder
Now you
can click the Empty Folder button to delete the items
scanned, then click the Exit button to exit the
routine. This is much faster than using Windows
explorer, but it doesn't save a copy in your recycle bin, so
if you want to keep a copy, don't delete them this way - use
Windows Explorer to move them where you wan to keep them.
e-BLAST!
makes it easy to keep your database current with who has a
valid email address and who doesn't.
©
Copyright 1999 - 2004, FortuneFlow, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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