Tech Forum

My ward uses the ward website system extensively, especially for sending out information via email. I have been somewhat frustrated because it has been very spotty. Earlier this week I tried to send out a major announcement, only to find out that the system was not really delivering the messages. This was on Sunday Sep 28. It seems like sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I can assure you that I am creating the broadcast in the same way every time, and I'm not new to computers by any means. I really don't think it's user error.

Has anyone else had similar problems?

Doughy wrote:My ward uses the ward website system extensively, especially for sending out information via email. I have been somewhat frustrated because it has been very spotty. Earlier this week I tried to send out a major announcement, only to find out that the system was not really delivering the messages. This was on Sunday Sep 28. It seems like sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I can assure you that I am creating the broadcast in the same way every time, and I'm not new to computers by any means. I really don't think it's user error.

Has anyone else had similar problems?

Take some time to browse the existing threads on this forum and you will see many issues in this area. In particular, the thread Broadcast email question has been very active lately and covers similar topics.

Doughy wrote:My ward uses the ward website system extensively, especially for sending out information via email. I have been somewhat frustrated because it has been very spotty. Earlier this week I tried to send out a major announcement, only to find out that the system was not really delivering the messages. This was on Sunday Sep 28. It seems like sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I can assure you that I am creating the broadcast in the same way every time, and I'm not new to computers by any means. I really don't think it's user error.

Has anyone else had similar problems?

As the STS for our stake I use the Email broadcast occasionally and I've never seen any problems.
My only complaint is when a few dozen members change their Email address and never update the profile.
I end up creating a list of the names of members and their ward who's address needs to be corrected and sending that list to the ward admins and asking for their help in contacting these members and getting their Email updated.

Doughy wrote:My ward uses the ward website system extensively, especially for sending out information via email. I have been somewhat frustrated because it has been very spotty. Earlier this week I tried to send out a major announcement, only to find out that the system was not really delivering the messages. This was on Sunday Sep 28. It seems like sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I can assure you that I am creating the broadcast in the same way every time, and I'm not new to computers by any means. I really don't think it's user error.

Has anyone else had similar problems?

Yes! I've been running into this problem for months. I have sent out a broadcast email on several occasions and received an email that it was sent to the "following receipients", but it never really went anywhere. Sometimes it goes. Similarly, sending an email in connection with a news and information item may or may not result in email being sent. It seems maybe half the time it actually works. I've been trying hard to get ward leadership to start using this more. The email capability has been the biggest seller. Now I'm really worried that it's not working, or at best is very unreliable.

When the email does work, I've received messages about bad addresses. Interestingly, it never seems to report all the same addresses. We have three that I know of. One time I'll see one bad address, the next time I'll see a different one. I've never seen all three reported from one email message. I am beginning to suspect that even when it works, the system is only sending to a small number of the listed recipients. I guess I'll need to do some serious testing and find a number of members who will actually work with me during the tests if we hope to identify what is really happening. In the meantime, suggestions would be well received.

My wife and I are always included as recipients and we get the emails only about half the time. They are not going to a spam box.

- Brad

To follow up on failed email broadcast transmissions, I did some more testing. I am the ward mission leader and the ward web administrator. My wife and I are both listed in the leadership directory under "mission". She has her own email account listed as her address on the web site. On the Email Broadcast page I created and sent six test messages about 5 minutes apart. After previewing each message, verifying the two recipients (my wife and me), I clicked the send button. The screen then showed, "Your message has been sent."

After sending each message, I checked our email accounts. The first and fifth messages never showed up. The other four tests came through immediately. My email box got two messages each time the message went through, the actual message and a "Stake/Ward Website email verification" that shows the recipients.

Does anyone have any idea what might be happening? In these tests my wife and I both either received or did not receive the message. However, I am very suspicious that in messages to the whole ward, some people are just not getting the email. I am still curious about why in past email broadcasts to the whole ward, I got back mail server messages on different bad email addresses. You'd think I'd get the same ones each time.

Any help would be appreciated.

- Brad

I just got an email message from someone asking to be removed from my list and to "stop swamp me with your email immediately!!!!"

This was in reply to a "news and information" notification from the ward web site. The return address in the reply was -----@aol.com, but the address in the email I sent to our ward member was -----@aim.com. Any ideas? Does the mail server occasionally "correct" an email address and send it out to .aol when it should have gone to .aim? The person in our ward with the .aim address wants to receive email, but I really don't want to continue sending accidental mail to the aol address.

Please help!
- Brad

I think more likely @aol and @aim use the same name space. It seems logical since a AOL screen name is IM screen name. In other words, johndoe@aol.com and johndoe@aim.com will end up in the same mailbox. It's something on AOL's end, not the church.

The problem may not be in SLC, but at the mail exchange servers on the receiving end.

I run a forum website that does emails for topic/thread based subscription notifications. When I look at the returned emails, most show the receiving host is not available or has been identified as a spammer and the sending IP is blocked before the individuals spam list.

Also, sometimes a site won't be able to take an email so it may be delay for days before it's actually sent. I see that a lot as well, particularly with AOL type accounts.

However none of these would ever be known by anyone other than the SLC admins.

RussellHltn wrote:I think more likely @aol and @aim use the same name space. It seems logical since a AOL screen name is IM screen name. In other words, johndoe@aol.com and johndoe@aim.com will end up in the same mailbox. It's something on AOL's end, not the church.

I wouldn't exactly say it's AOL's fault yet either. I would have them write down their address again right in front of you and double-check it with what's entered. I agree AOL and AIM are probably the same domain, so I'm wondering if the member just mistyped their email address or something.

BDalton wrote:I just got an email message from someone asking to be removed from my list and to "stop swamp me with your email immediately!!!!"

This was in reply to a "news and information" notification from the ward web site. The return address in the reply was -----@aol.com, but the address in the email I sent to our ward member was -----@aim.com. Any ideas? Does the mail server occasionally "correct" an email address and send it out to .aol when it should have gone to .aim? The person in our ward with the .aim address wants to receive email, but I really don't want to continue sending accidental mail to the aol address.

Please help!
- Brad

Both addresses may be owned by the same person. You may have to contact the individual to see if that is the situation. It is possible to receive a message using one address and reply using another. Just consider e-mail forwarding, disposable e-mail addresses and techniques for disguising e-mail addresses.

In situations where I get requests such as the one you recieved to have their name removed from 'my' mailing list I respond with a message like this. "I am sorry for the inconvenience caused. You are receiving these messages because you have elected to belong to the group list(s) at your unit's web site for which these messages were sent. You can remove yourself from these group lists by editing your user profile for you unit's web site. Only you can edit your user profile and make these changes. It is not accessible by web site administrators. To edit you user profile ..." I then explain the procedure to edit a user profile.