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Reports: Tracking Sent Email Messages – Messages Sent and Delivery Status

September 10th, 2012

The number one type of Support request we receive involves tracking sent email messages and seeing what happened to them.  Most of these questions could be answered by the users themselves if they were aware of the rich sent email reporting tools available to them.

LuxSci provides detailed searchable, downloadable reports on email messages sent from WebMail and SMTP and includes real-time delivery tracking information so you can see exactly what has been delivered, what is still queued, what has failed — and why.

What email was actually sent and when?

Under “Account > My Reports > Sent Email“, users can see what messages were sent from WebMail and from SMTP (e.g. email programs like Outlook, Thunderbird, and Mac Mail). For every message successfully uploaded to LuxSci’s servers for sending, this lists:

  • Date and time
  • Number of recipients
  • Message size
  • Message subject
  • Actual recipient email email addresses
  • Sending program IP address (for messages sent from SMTP)
  • and more … including links to track delivery (see below)
These reports are searchable and downloadable for offline analysis. Daily and monthly summary sending reports are also available so that the volume of sending can be easily gauged.
Account administrators can also access searchable, downloadable aggregate reports of sent email messages across all account users under “Account > Account Administration > [Reports Tab] > Sent Email“.
If you are ever unsure if a message was actually sent, check here and search by recipient or subject if needed.  If it was sent, but the recipient has not gotten it yet — you need the “Delivery Status” reports (below).

Did the email actually get delivered?  If not, why not?

Beyond knowing what was sent, it is usually very important to know for sure if the message was successfully delivered to the recipient’s email server or not.  And if not, why?

LuxSci tracks this for every message and every recipient of that message.  The “Delivery Status” reports (located in the same “Sent Email” reports area) includes:

  • When a message was sent
  • Who sent it
  • To whom it was sent
  • The current delivery status (e.g. Delivered, Still In Queue, Failed, etc.)
  • Detailed information:
    • If it was delivered, what tracking and success information did the recipient’s server provide?
    • If it failed, why did the message fail?  What error happened?
    • If it is still in queue trying to send, is there any reason why it has not yet been delivered (e.g. any temporary problem going on?)
The Delivery Status area is also searchable and provides downloadable reports (e.g. so you can get a list of all recipient email addresses that are failing).  Additionally,  You can access daily and monthly summary reports detailing the numbers of successful, failed, etc. deliveries.

Automatic Notices of Email Delivery Status 

If email delivery status is important to you and you find yourself checking your reports all the time or wishing that you could somehow automate receipt and processing of this data, you are in luck.

LuxSci provides automated emailed “delivery status digests” in two flavors:

  • Delivery status updates for all messages sent
  • Delivery status updates for only messages that fail to be delivered
These can be sent in different frequencies (from once/hour to once/week) and to any email address(es) that you choose.  The reports include an easy-to-read HTML summary and an attached CSV file that you can pull into Excel or process with automated tools.
These automated email “digests” of delivery status can be configured and sent:
  • For messages sent by a specific user (configured under “Email > My Email Tools > Outbound Email”)
  • For messages sent by any user in a specific domain
  • For messages sent by any user in the account

So, whatever level and type of report you need, it is there for you.

Of course, even if messages are successfully sent and successfully “delivered to the recipient’s servers”, sometimes they still go missing.  That is the nature of email — see Where’s the Email? The Case of Missing or Disappearing Messages.

 

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2012 at 9:22 am and is filed under Business Solutions, Email Marketing.