Email delivery failure

[Koichi_Tsuji]

My app capture the email address of the user who entered into the forms. (The app itself does not require sign-in, so public app)

Once we get the new form, my client is sending email back to the applicant who filled in the form. We are using Appsheet (on the separate app) to generate and send the email to those who filled in the form.

Occasionally, we found email address is wrongly put, due to typo or possibly the email address is dead.

When we send mail to address which is NOT alive, then email is bounce back.

However, when we use appsheet workflow to send email, is it possible to find out if the mail delivery is success or failed?

In the audit log, we can see each transaction, triggering workflow, but it always indicate ‘success’. In this context, the success means the mail leaves from appsheet server, but we are not sure if the email is actually & successfully being delivered to the recipients.

Any possible way to find it out?

[Phil]

See topic “Determining Whether Email Was Delivered” in this article https://help.appsheet.com/articles/961729-sending-email-from-a-workflow-rule-or-scheduled-report

[Koichi_Tsuji]

Thank you, Phil, sharing link to the article. I found EmailStatus property finally.

In the meantime, my client is sending hundreds of mails, so it is not practical to ask them to open up the audit history record one by one, per sending workflow.

Is it possible that we receive the alert and notification once we turn on Audit History Alert? when the email deliver is failed ?

We are on business plan.

[1minManager]

Not sure if this will work in your senario…

Set the reply address of the workflow to a Gmail account. Then use Zapier to parse any received emails. So something like if the email subject contains “invalid” or “does not exist” then forward to X@you.com otherwise Y@you.com

Simon@1minManager.com

[Koichi_Tsuji]

Hi Simon, thanks for your suggestion, I may try this option, but for the time being, would seek a solutions within appsheet s available features.

[Phil]

Sorry for the delay in replying. I needed to consult with the developer who implemented the feature to understand how it works. I have now done that.

Unfortunately, given the current design, it is not easy to generate an alert when an email delivery error occurs. We implemented the current Mandrill email status feature as follows:

1. When we send the email to Mandrill, we capture the Mandrill generated Id for the email and write that Mandrill Id to the Audit History.
2. When you view the Audit History record in the Editor, we call Mandrill to fetch the Mandrill deliver status using the Mandrill ID stored in the Audit History.

We did it this way, because people rarely view the Audit History. As a result, retrieving the Mandrill email status at viewing time is easy and efficient.

Unfortunately, this means we do not know the Mandrill status in the vast majority of cases. Consequently, we do not have the information needed to generate an alert when an email is un-deliverable.

We are investigating allowing you to configure your own Mandrill account. That might make it easier for you to retrieve the Mandrill delivery status yourself.

It is possible, to enhance AppSheet to retrieve the Mandrill email status for all email messages sent through Mandrill. If we did that, we could generate alerts when an email was un-deliverable. Such a feature is probably not too hard to implement, but it is far from trivial.

You might want to submit your idea as a new feature request. That will allow others to say how value them would find it.

[Koichi_Tsuji]

Dear Phil, thank you very much for your valuable comment. Understood, we need to open up audit history one by one to see the email delivery status, and currently it is not possible to get alert when the delivery is failed. It is what it is.

The best solution as app creator would be appsheet native function would pick up alert and display on the audit history when the email delivery is failed on the Mandrill rather than app creator sets up something outside appsheet.

I just hope and keep my fingers crossed your team achieves this!

If this solution does not get through, then set up Mandrill account outside appsheet is off course welcome and awaited.

[Henry_Scott]

Did anybody log a Feature Request for being able to Track Bounced Emails from MANDRIL in Appsheet?

[Koichi_Tsuji]

Hi there, since my post here last year, basically there is no update, nor I did not take any further action fyg.

[Henry_Scott]

Maybe if Appsheet gives us the ability to define a “Bounce Email” address like they do with the CC and BCC and ReplyTo ones supplied in a Workflow, then when an EMail is Bouncing in Mandrill, then Mandrill will send the detail back to the “Bounce Email” address supplied in the Workflow as supposed to the Appsheet Log of the App

[Phil]

Both of your suggests are excellent.

Henry’s last suggestion about using the Mandrill webhook mechanism to track bounced messages seems especially promising. It would not be cheap to implement, but it certainly looks possible. It is not currently scheduled however.

Feel free to lobby for these enhancements.

[Henry_Scott]

Bounced Email Tracking Feature Requests

Need functionality in an EMail Workflow to stipulate the “Bounce Address” that Mandrill must send the Bounce message to Searching the Log files are not optimal to manage Bounced Emails. Mandrill is the transactional email API for Mailchimp users so should be possible to get the Bounced Email into the Appsheet App UX in a View Also See this thread for the discussion .Email delivery failure

As we have a CC or BCC how about a “Bounced Email Address” that Mandril can send to

[Koichi_Tsuji]

@Phil

Phil san, any thought?

[Phil]

Hi Koichi-san,

To be honest, it is probably not a good time to spend effort on this given the complexity of the change.
We anticipate the need to move to another email provider as the result of the Google acquisition.
I am loath to invest more in Mandrill with that on the horizon.

[Koichi_Tsuji]

Sure Phil san, I m with you.

[Henry_Scott]

@Phil with the last comments in March 2020 on this subject, any further developments/changes now that Appsheet is part of the Google stable?

[GreenFlux]

As a work around you could build a one-time email verification workflow. When an email address is entered/changed it sends them a link to a Google form that they have to click and submit.

When a new form response is received, the matching email is marked as verified. And if the email address is ever changed, the [EmailVerified] column is reset to FALSE and another form link is sent.

You can construct a pre-filled link to the Google form and include the email address to test, so the form can be public and the address doesn’t have to be a Gmail.