Handling bounce back for Email requests.

michaelj.flynn

Hi

We are using the Easylink Messaging API to dispatch email messages. We would like to be able to report on delivery failures such and undeliverable addresses, mailbox full etc. To test this, we dispatched emails to invalid addresses, for example:

1.    No @ symbol

2.    invalid domain

3.    incorrect email on a valid domain

For scenarios 1 & 2, we get back an cancelled status and a Gamma code from the JobDeliveryStatus. EasyLink can determine that the email address is invalid and flag this immediately.

For scenario 3 we initially get back a status of "Sent" and after some time, we get an additional Arrival event that indicates the DSN status.

My question is, is this the best / only way to handle email bounce back for Easylink messaging API.

In our JobDeliveryStaus response handles, we first check for Gamma code error conditions, then arrival event, then status to determine if a message failed. If all of these checks are ok, we use the status field to verify success.

Is this the correct approch to validate success or failure on Easylink email message delivery.

Many thanks

Mike.

skamens

Yes, this is the correct (and only) way to handle reporting on email bouncebacks.

Just keep in mind that you can't ever be 100% sure that a message was delivered or read.  And even if you do get a bounceback, it's conceivable that the message did get delivered to someone (the bounceback could be the result of a forward or some such thing).  

But this method does give you a pretty good idea of which emails didn't get where they were going.