Return Receipt

[Claudia Satori]

I must be an idiot - how does one attach a return read receipt in
Entourage??? Help is NO help. ;-\

 

[Bill Bryson]

Unfortunately, despite the many improvements to Entourage, read receipts are
still not available as a built-in feature of Entourage. Here are some links
from various posts to this list. You can find articles related to
"receipts" if using Entourage by using the Subject contains "receipts" in
the upper right while accessing this newsgroup.

Here are the links:

Check out Return Receipt:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/11365

You can create a separate POP account to accomplish it:

http://www.basilweb.net/macoffice/receipt2.html for requesting
http://www.basilweb.net/macoffice/receipt1.html for replying to

Or you can modify headers:

http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/return_receipt.html

Bill

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Since it's unreliable, depending totally on which email client the recipient
has, I think it's safe to say that this (rather crappy) feature will NEVER
make it into Entourage. And since you can create the (unreliable, crappy)
header yourself, you will always have this workaround.

You'd be a lot better off if you just accepted that it's not reliable
anyway, and forget about it, though.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Bill Bryson]

Paul,

Then why does Outlook 2003 support such a crappy and unreliable feature?

It is immaterial whether the feature is technically not a reliable feature.
It is what some users want and other email clients provide it built-in. I
don't think it was excluded because it is not a feature that needs to be
added but because it was a low priority item in comparison to the permission
setting feature and GAL integration that Microsoft seems to have done a good
job implementing in SP2. I personally don't use read receipts.
Unfortunately we have users who use this feature regardless of its true
merits. It not being available (as the out of office auto reply) will be
seen as a deficiency.

Overall I am very please with the new Exchange functionality in Entourage.
The major stumbling blocks (require Mac users to actually use Outlook to set
permissions) have been removed.

Bill

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Then why does Outlook 2003 support such a crappy and unreliable feature?

1) Outlook may not mind giving people a false sense of security.

2) Outlook (i.e. its managers) seem to have a rather blinkered world-view
that thinks that everyone else in the world is also on Outlook. as it
happens, Outlook, unlike Entourage, was built on top of an earlier app that
was entirely "intranet" - just within an organization. It added some
intranet messaging to a personal Information Manager. So in those days
(Windows 95) it was actually a reasonable assumption to make: anyone you
were corresponding with had the same capabilities. Then when it became an
internet app open to eh rest of the world, a pretty high proportion of
correspondents were still within the organization, and many of the others
had Outlook Express Windows. It has just never cared too much about the rest
of the world, and often ignores internet standards. Entourage has never made
any such assumption. It was built on top of an email app (OE Mac) which knew
from the start that most of its email correspondents would be on other apps,
many of them Mac apps. It never made any sense to introduce a "feature"
doomed to failure. It depends on the recipient app being set up to return
receipts. Since many don't, you never know whether your message was never
received. It's pointless, and would be a total waste of time and resources
to add this feature. If you want that level of unreliability, just add it
yourself in "Additional Headers" box of the Options tab of
Tools/Accounts/that account. Add a Disposition-Notification-To header, and
in the Value box type your email address.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Boettcher, Scott]

Return receipts are not a "false sense of security" as long as you're all
using Exchange.
Here's the problem:
The PC version of Outlook has always pretty much been what Entourage is now
- an application that could be used for many types of email accounts.
OTOH, the Mac Outlook client (not express) has always been a one-trick-pony
- it only works with Excahnge, as far as I know.
Anyone using Outlook with Exchange can/should expect the return receipt
option for that use.

Entourage is an Exchange client, and should therefore support return
receipts in that environment.
With SP2, putting in the header does work for people on the Exchange
servers, which is great.
BUT - has to be one, right? I liked selectively using receipts, and now,
it's all or nothing.

I am hoping people here will write constructive criticisms and requests for
updates/features.
SP2 went forward a HUGE step for us on Exchange servers.

SB

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Not all or nothing. As one of the links originally offered said, create a
duplicate account for sending only, with the return receipt header enabled.
You have to remember to switch the From account, which is probably harder
than remembering to check a box that is presented to you, or however it
worked in Outlook.
e.g.:
http://www.basilweb.net/macoffice/receipt2.html