No autoresponders?

[linux_lad]

I can't find the autoresponder in the new system. Do we no longer have them?

[don5408]

"I can't find the autoresponder in the new system. Do we no longer have them?"

Good question. At first glance I thought that perhaps "mail robots" were what we formerly knew as "autoresponders" however looking a little further I see that's not *exactly* the case. Unlike an autoresponder which one can add to or remove from an existing email address the robots seem to be more for separate autorespond only addresses.

Perhaps someone who has had more than five minutes experience with the software can clue us in to all the possibilities, in the meantime I plan on playing around with it a bit. ;-)

Don

[Eury]

I too am confused about autoresponders.
It's a pain because I really relied on this feature as it saved me a hell of a lot of time.
And I don't understand what mail robots are or what they do.
There really should be a thorough help section for the new email system explaining everything. It's not fair to expect that everyone knows about the new features.

Especially since I really don't know a lot.

If anyone has figured out if you can set up an autoresponder please reply.

Eury
misabel.com

[don5408]

"I don't understand what mail robots are or what they do...If anyone has figured out if you can set up an autoresponder please reply."

Hi. First of all let me say that while it's taking a little bit of getting used to as one does have to poke around and fend for themselves to some degree (some help documentation would be nice) the new email system does offer a number of new options and while it's still early it's starting to grow on me.

As far as autoresponding to email don't be alarmed at the fact that you don't see any reference to "autoresponders", while the terminology is different in this package you should still have all of the same options you had in the past plus some new ones.

First of all there is a more or less identical equivalent to the old autoresponder feature, it's called "vacation messages". As far as the name I guess that's based on the fact that a common practice would likely be to use the mail robots (which are autoresponder only email addresses we'll discuss later) for most day to day autoreply use with the "vacation messages" only being used in specific circumstances such as sending "I'll be away from my PC from xx/xx/xx to xx/xx/xx..." notes while one is on vacation.

That being said there is no reason I'm aware of that one couldn't use "vacation messages" 52 weeks a year if they wish, if the old autoresponder setup was ideal for your needs exactly as is you can just use the vacation feature, other than the name this essentially is the same option formerly known as autoresponders under the old setup.

To add or remove a vacation message just go into QMailAdmin > Click on Email Accounts > Click the the Modify User button next to the email address you wish to add your autoresponder to > Tick the radio button next to "Enable Vacation" > Type the Subject line and text body of your "vacation autoresponder" > Click the Modify User button.

From this point on as long as you leave the "Enable Vacation" button ticked anyone who sends email to that email address will recieve your automatic response, and their email will be found in your Inbox, just as was the case with an autoresponder in the old system. You can change the content of your message or disable it being sent out at any time via the Modify User section.

Now while if you were happy with the old autoresponders and just want to keep the status quo the above should do that note that there is another autoresponse feature available in this new email system you may want to consider using, which are the Mail Robots.

Mail Robots are "dummy" autoresponder-only email addresses. Rather than setting these up as actual email addresses these act as incoming only email addresses with the only outgoing email being the autoresponse. When a user emails one of your mail robot email addresses they are sent a specific canned response, and their email is forwarded to an "actual" email address you specify.

One of the advantages to using mail robots rather than autoresponders is that one can avoid some of the pitfalls of the old autoresponder setup, such as having the folks you correspond with back and forth getting the same message over and over (which can get old fast) and creating the occasional "mail loop".

Although it requires one who has been using autoresponders in the old email system for some time to rethink their email configuration a bit I can see cases in which the mail robots may well be a superior option. One can either setup various email addresses sending different canned responses which pass the sender's email to one central email address or if preferred one can have each mail robot forward email to different email addresses, either way this may be a better setup in situations in which one wishes correspondants to get a automated response to their initial email only.

Say for example you want to setup a general "contact us" email address on a website. You want to have a canned message sent immediately acknowedging receipt of and thanking the sender for their email to be followed up by a personal response at a later date...however if further back and forth correspondance is needed you don't necessarily want the user to get the same autoreply over and over each time they email. What you could do would be something like this:

Create a contactme@mydomain mail robot, having it send a canned reply ("thank you for your email, yadda yadda yadda, I'll respond to your message at the earliest possible opportunity") and then forward the original email to an actual email account (ex: me@mydomain). While the initial email invokes an autoresponse from contactme@mydomain when you actually reply to the email personally your response will come from me@mydomain, and if there is to be any followup email from the sender it should end up going directly to me@mydomain bypassing the mail robot and the canned response.

To create a Mail Robot go into QMailAdmin > Click on New Mail Robot > After Mail Robot Name type the email address you wish to use (keep in mind that this will not be an actual email account which you can send and receive email through, it's just a "dummy" account which sends an autoresponse and then forwards the mail to a "real" email account) > After "Send Copy To" type the email address you wish to have the email forwarded to > Type the Subject line and text body of your autoresponse > Click the Add button.

The bottom line is that if you want to setup an email address for back and forth correspondance in which the user gets the same automatic response each time they email (as was the case with the autoresponders on the old system) you can keep it simple and just setup a "vacation message", however if you want to setup a configuration where correspondants just get an canned reply to their initial email only setting up a mail robot address which passes the senders email along to a regular email addy sans an autoresponse would likely be a better option.

Note that these are just some observations based on a few hours playing with the features of the new system, feel free to experiment with them for yourself as you may well come up with even better ideas and other ways in which to make the software best meet your particular needs.

Hope that helps, enjoy!
Don

[ogoy]

Wow don, Thanks a LOT.

I haven't had time to poke around the new system, so this info will be nice to know beforehand.

Maybe YOU should write a faq/help section for the new email system :)

[Scotth]

Originally posted by ogoy
Maybe YOU should write a faq/help section for the new email system :)
That's a good idea, and this is where he should post it.

http://www.hostrocket.info/

Scott

[don5408]

"Wow don, Thanks a LOT."

You're welcome, hope it's of some help. The changeover may not have gone as smoothly as we all may have liked (at least for those of us who didn't end up receiving any advance notice, anyway) however IMHO when all is said and done and the dust settles I think that the new system will end up being a nice step up from what we had. Lack of communication aside I for one would like to give HR a big thumbs up on the improvements.

"Maybe YOU should write a faq/help section for the new email system"

LOL, well maybe I will, however either way I think I'll hold off until I have a little more than a half hour or so using the new email system under my belt. ;-)

Best wishes
Don

[David Copeland]

Short vacation replies pop, but I have not seen longer ones pop.

Has anyone tried longer text?

[don5408]

"Short vacation replies pop, but I have not seen longer ones pop. Has anyone tried longer text?"

Hi. It does appear that there is a limit to the length of autoresponses (both mail robots and vacation messages), in testing I found that long messages are truncated at about 5kb of text.

Most of my regular autoresponders are relatively short (2-3 brief paragraphs...maybe 80 words, 500 bytes or so tops) so I hadn't noticed any issues however as a test I created both a mail robot and a vacation message containing the Gettysburg Address (approx 1.5kb) pasted five times. While emailing both addresses the autoresponses were sent, however in both cases the email was truncated in exactly the same spot about 1/3 of the way into the 4th copy, or after almost exactly 5kb of text.

PS: While it doesn't appear to be related to the length of the message I have been noting some quirky/buggy behavior in QMailAdmin with editing email addresses which have a vacation message enabled. After adding a vacation message (regardless of the length) when I click "Modify User" more often than not I'm forwarded to a blank page.

In these instances the vacation message HAS been set and working as designed, however after enabling a vacation message any attempt to edit the settings for that email address is greeted with a blank page...in other words I can enable vacation messages however subsequently disabling them is impossible without deleting and recreating the email account.

I don't know if this issue is universal or if I alone am encountering this, in any case it's no biggie for me as I'm leaning towards mail robots more and more as a primary autoresponse option. Either way if it persists I'll submit a TT about it as soon as the trouble ticket logjam gets cleared up.

Best wishes
Don

[David Copeland]

1) We are on Server 25. Is the mail on a different server for all HR clients?

2) In the Modify Email panel, I click on Vacation and paste my text in, then submit. But the box returns to the same Modify Panel. Is that normal?

3) When I click on Vacation and paste the text and submit, the system also clicks on Enable Save Copy & Forward. Is that normal?

[don5408]

"1) We are on Server 25. Is the mail on a different server for all HR clients?"

I may be mistaken however I *believe* there may be a central mail server at this point (at least I don't see any reference to host32 in the headers of mail sent via the new system as was the case previously).

"2) In the Modify Email panel, I click on Vacation and paste my text in, then submit. But the box returns to the same Modify Panel. Is that normal?"

That's the way it's *supposed* to work, yes. As I mentioned above I've been encountering a quirk in which that's *not* happening (I get hung up on a blank page rather than being redirected back to the Modify User dialog, and when that happens I'm unable to get back to the Modify User settings for that email addy *at all*), as long as that is happening each time you change a setting you should be in good shape.

"3) When I click on Vacation and paste the text and submit, the system also clicks on Enable Save Copy & Forward. Is that normal?"

Yes. I'm just guessing but what I *believe* that may be referring to in this context is saving a copy of the original message and appending it beneath the autoresponse in a vacation message. In any case yes, with a vacation message in place that box is ticked automatically.

Don

[David Copeland]

Well . . . we're still down.

"Joe" from support said yesterday that they are still working on the mail robots and vacation responses.

I guess your server works and Host 25 does not.

[David Copeland]

Originally posted by don5408
"Most of my regular autoresponders are relatively short (2-3 brief paragraphs...maybe 80 words, 500 bytes or so tops) so I hadn't noticed any issues however as a test I created both a mail robot and a vacation message containing the Gettysburg Address (approx 1.5kb) pasted five times. While emailing both addresses the autoresponses were sent, however in both cases the email was truncated in exactly the same spot about 1/3 of the way into the 4th copy, or after almost exactly 5kb of text.

Don, my email trouble ticket is now into two weeks and has gone through about 4 support people to a Sr. Support. He is now suggesting that our vacation and mail robots are not working because he "has determined they are spam like".

Can you test a couple of autoresponders on your mail system to see if the same text works??

Here is one vacation response I'd like to test on your server:

(DO NOT REPLY TO THIS AUTO-EMAIL NOTICE)

This is an automated response to acknowledge that your email has been received by this department.

---------------------------------------

CONFIRMATION of Email Received:

Thank you for your inquiry.


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Most general questions and answers are in the Union News Forum, the Trainee Questions & Answers Forum, and the Technical Support Forum. Time tables are posted on the forums for all steps in processing.

If the question in your email has an answer on the forums, our answer email will be a web link to the appropriate forum topic. We have volunteer moderators and forum guides who can answer general questions (not personal questions) about the processing and time tables.

If your question has an answer on the website, we will answer in the next 7 business days.

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Again, we thank you for your email and we will respond.

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Thank you

And also, here is another to use as a Mail Robot:
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When copying the above, you may have to use the QUOTE feature to retrieve the full coded text.

My off-premise email is ipiu79@yahoo.com

Thank you for your support. I don't know of anyone else to turn to.

David

[don5408]

"Can you test a couple of autoresponders on your mail system to see if the same text works??"

Absolutely...I'll do that ASAP and report back.
-----------------------------------------------
I got a chance to play with this and (a) I did encounter a few problems and (b) the problems do appear to involve having the autoresponder emails identified as spam. I'm still looking into this on my end, and I have a TT in on a problem or two I spotted.

Don

[hopper]

FWIW,

After 15 days of back and forths I have been informed by support that "the Vacation auto response feature will only accept three (3) mails from the same address in any seven (7) day period. Any further mails from the address are then, by default, queued and will not be replyed to untill the seven day period is up".

With many hours and days working with this new mail system, I have found that this presents numerous, major problems if you attempt to use the Vacation auto reply feature as a simple, stand alone Auto Responder. What happens when senders mail the accounts more than 3 times in a given 7 day period is that the mail just keeps backing up in queue, and as each day begins a new 7 day period, the mail continues to back up farther and the address of the original mailer will start to get bounced mails.

This is not a good thing for Business Sites that depend on email for client services. Actually, it's not good for anyone. IMHO, the Vacation auto reply is useless.

As a work around to this, I have tried to implement the use of the
Mail Robot feature and have used the excellent tutorial posted by Don to properly set up the Robots. So far, I'm finding that the Robot feature has some problems of it's own and I am now having similer problems as posted by David Copeland.

Time out issues and mail server capabilities aside, I now have no confidence in the new email program whatsoever.

Any enlightenment appreciated.

hopper

[don5408]

"Can you test a couple of autoresponders on your mail system to see if the same text works??"

Hi, David. While I still have a TT followup response pending from HR I wanted to give you an update reviewing what I found as a result of your request to have me test your autoresponses (I noted from a post in another thread that since our last correspondance you've figured some of this out on your own, however perhaps this will be of help to others as well).

As far as the "vacation response" example I had no problem with that one...at least not on the first three tests, and as we've subsequently found out the vacation messages have a limitation by design in which only three autoresponses per week will be sent out to a given email address. Other than that issue the vacation message seemed to work for me as intended.

The mail robot example was another matter. I initially got no response at all emailing the robot address with your message as posted. As a result of your mentioning the "spamlike" comment by an HR staffer I persued that possibility and everything I found does seems to confirm that this is indeed the source of the problem.

As most of us are aware HR filters outgoing email through SpamAssassin in order to try to fulfill what is really their obligation to insure that HostRocket doesn't become a haven for spammers. SpamAssassin works by searching email for certain indicators which suggest that the message may be spam (find full details here (http://spamassassin.org/tests.html)). Scores are assigned to specific indicators such that some tests carry more weight than others.

As a general rule having SpamAssassin in place *shouldn't* prevent most legitimate email from leaving HR's servers intact, although some of the rules which are based on specific phrases can cause perfectly innocent messages to gather some hits the system is setup such that one or two inadvertant "spamlike" comments alone shouldn't cause the score to exceed the number of hits required to designate the email as suspected spam.

The problem appears to be that due to the way the message id and From: header lines in mail robot autoresponses are setup they're almost guaranteed to be designated as spam. As it stands according to my ISPs SpamAssassin reports ALL mail robot messages fail the following three tests consistantly:

NO_REAL_NAME......0.500 - From: does not include a real name
INVALID_MSGID.....1.848 - Message-Id is not valid, according to RFC 2822
MSGID_HAS_NO_AT...2.150 - Message-Id has no @ sign

...going by the default score weights that's 4.5 hits against even a BLANK mail robot message right out of the box. As these failures all reference the message id and header info there's nothing that we as end users can do to effect them, and as it's now setup it's hard to write a message which WONT fail the SpamAssassin tests...one small innocuous mistake such as including a toll-free number in the message could possibly put it over the top.

I'm currently corresponding with Justin of HostRocket on these concerns and hopefully HR will be able to take some action on their end to make things a little more equitable...in any case unless/until HR does something to help on their end all one can really do is to learn the SpamAssassin rules inside and out. As it stands the message body of a mail robot has to be virtually perfect by SpamAssassin standards to pass through the system.

David FYI some of the more obvious issues which resulted in your messages going *over the top* were LINES_OF_YELLING (the use of ALL CAPS in a few of your lines), SUPERLONG_LINE (paragraphs which exceeded 199 characters without a line break...when composing messages use NotePad with Word Wrap OFF and make sure to manually insert carriage returns in longer than 199 character paragraphs) and the MAILTO_LINK.

Best wishes
Don