Email Bounces (Parents not Receiving Emails)
Email is a key function in EdSmart, and the primary way we communicate with parents to advise them of new online forms they need to complete, indeed our email notifications are critical if your school does not have our SMS text notifications enabled.
So it's of course very important to ensure that the emails are being delivered. Unfortunately, there are all sorts of ways email delivery can be affected - and we separate these into 'soft' and 'hard' bounces - a bounce being where we experience a problem delivering an email and the recipient's email server 'bounces' the message back to us.
EdSmart gives you a way to keep an eye on these issues via our Email Bounce Log. Click on your user name at the top right, and click Email Bounce Log from the menu.
If we have recorded any hard bounces or spam reports in the last 120 days they will be displayed, with information from the email provider about the bounce and a button to reactivate the email address, if that's an option.
Here's a summary of different types of email bounces:
Soft bounces - temporary issues, for example, the recipient's mail server may be offline temporarily, or their mailbox may be full. We don't worry so much about these, our mail system will continue to endeavour to deliver the message every so often until either we see a 'success' receipt, or it fails completely.
Hard bounces - distinct problems where the recipient's server tells us there is no way the message can be delivered. The most common reason is a bad email address - the email address does not exist.
Spam reports - the recipient's mail server rejects the message because it is considered spam.
ISP block - email is blocked by this Internet Service Provider due to content or blacklisting.
DNS error - issue with the Domain Name (what follows after the @). Check that the domain of the email address is correct, for example, gmail.com.au is not a real domain.
In the case of hard bounces, spam reports, ISP Blocks and DNS errors, you should endeavour to resolve the problem with the recipient.
To remain compliant with ISPs, our email provider disables sending to email addresses with Hard Bounces or Spam Complaints until they are manually reactivated upon request from the school or parent.
If you wish to have an email address reactivated and cannot do it via the UI, please contact support and list the address(es).
If a Slip indicates a parent receives an email, and they are not on this Bounce Log, then messages are successfully being delivered to that address. Have them check for emails from forms@edsmart.com in their Spam/Junk folder or check with the ISP that hosts the mailbox. Additionally, some organisations have content filters on their email system, and emails from forms@edsmart.com would need to be whitelisted.