Read Receipt & Delivery Receipt

L

Les Bessant

And am I the only one who considers that FAQ to be very silly? It uses the
term "return receipt" rather than the more generally understood "delivery
receipt" and "read receipt", and makes valid points about the limited value
of the latter, while completely ignoring the value of the former for
troubleshooting...
 
B

Barry Wainwright

Generally understood, to you, but it depends on what mail client background
you come from. 'RR' was pretty generic, a while back.

The preferred term now is "Disposition Notification" which is also the name
of the header that carries the address to which notifications are sent.

--
Barry Wainwright
Microsoft MVP (see <http://www.microsoft.com/mvp/> for details)
Visit the Entourage User¹s Weblog for Hints, tips and troubleshooting
information:
http://www.barryw.net/weblog/
 
L

Les Bessant

What's ever more silly is using them in the first place. IMHO
Click to expand...

What's silly is not understanding that a *delivery* receipt is a useful tool
for determining that a message has reached the destination server. It has
nothing to do with checking if the intended recipient has opened the
message.

The FAQ is either deliberately ignoring the distinction, or shows a worrying
lack of understanding.
 
L

Les Bessant

Generally understood, to you, but it depends on what mail client background
you come from. 'RR' was pretty generic, a while back.

The preferred term now is "Disposition Notification" which is also the name
of the header that carries the address to which notifications are sent.
Click to expand...

I come from an Exchange Server background, as it happens. And again, you
appear to be ignoring the quite relevant distinction between the two receipt
types.
 
W

William Smith

Les said:
What's silly is not understanding that a *delivery* receipt is a useful tool
for determining that a message has reached the destination server. It has
nothing to do with checking if the intended recipient has opened the
message.
Click to expand...

I think you're being jaded by your Exchange Server background. That FAQ
has nothing to do with *delivery* receipts.

The FAQ is only about *return* receipts or disposition notification
requests (Disposition-Notification-To:). The impetus of returning this
kind of receipt is on the recipient, not the server.

The *delivery* receipt (Return-Receipt-To:) is generally available on
Exchange Servers and indicates that a message has reached the
recipient's mailbox as you've already indicated. However, while it may
be active on some non-Exchange servers, it generally is not.

Any kind of receipt notification whether it's a delivery receipt or a
read/return receipt is still unreliable because you can't guarantee the
receiving server will respond to RRTs nor the recipient will respond to
DNTs in all cases.

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
 
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