"Return Receipts Requested" does Entorage have the ability to sendand receive them?

[Bill Weylock]

Here's the thing:

WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT AN "AUTOMATED" RECEIPT. That is a mistake, and it
does not seem to want to die. I hereby give it another hit with the shovel.
Die, die, die.

It is a MANUAL receipt facilitated with a button that you click to request
and click to acknowledge. Use it or not, abuse it or benefit. It's up to
you. But it should be there.

It is NOT triggered by receiving an email or by opening an email. It is
triggered because YOU trigger it manually.

Again, Paul, the reason for sending a receipt is to reassure the sender. It
crosses me off the list of problems. If someone does not return a receipt
for an important memo, that person will require another email specifically
requesting a response or a telephone call to make sure he is on board.

Why not go with the much more reliable form: "Let me know when you get
this email. I need to know because _________________________."

When I go into work tomorrow I'll have at least a dozen emails waiting
for me. I will quickly scan through all of them for the most pressing
issues and attend to those first. Then I'll go back and deal with the
rest. Sometimes I forget about an email and might not get back to it
until the next day.

An automated receipt (assuming no technical glitches) tells the sender
that I *viewed* their email, but not that I actually read it,
understood it, and plan on doing something about it.[/QUOTE]

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Well, Adam was actually replying to that, Bill, in the first part of his
reply. (Incidentally, it's the "automatic type" that everyone else was
talking about since that's what "return-receipt" usually means, and what
Outlook, etc. do.)

Fort a non-automatic type, why would you need a button? As Adam dais, Just
include the following in your signature , at the top. (Leave a gap above
your "real signature" to write the actual messages.) At the top, put:

"Let me know when you get
this email. I need to know because _________________________."

All they have to do is click reply. You could even say:

"Please just click reply even without adding anything in order to let me
know you have received this email. Thank you."

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
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 Entourage you are using - **2004**, X
or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.

 

[Phillip M. Jones, CE.T.]

I'm with Bill on this one. The way Eudora (for example) implements the
return request is very different from what many people are describing. When
you *open* a message for which a return receipt has been requested, it beeps
and presents you with a button that tells Eudora to send confirmation of
receipt. This button pops up when you view the message, not when it's
delivered, and you have to manually invoke it.

Before I go any further, I should say that I find receipt-requests annoying.
I can, however, see their utility and, in such cases, an imperfect system is
better than none.

Now, back to the story... I agree that a mechanism that simply confirms
delivery is stupid. Any number of things could happen to that message before
it is read, not the least of which is that the local client's spam filter
could get rid of it. Yes, the recipient might not be able to see the request
(depending on their client), or they might choose to ignore it. It doesn't
really hurt to give people the choice, though.

That being said, a rule to segregate the message into a 'Return Receipt'
mailbox, as I originally suggested several days ago, would be more than
sufficient for me.

As an aside, I actually find it kind of amusing that, according to Paul,
Entourage doesn't support this functionality because many individuals use
e-mail clients don't support this functionality. Well, guess what? If
Entourage *did* support it, then many more individuals would be using a
client that supports it, thereby making it worth supporting. Kind of a
chicken and egg thing. Indeed, if everyone took this sort of stance with
regard to innovations in general (not that return-receipts are necessarily
innovative), there would be no progress.

Does this kind of thinking explain why we don't have format=flowed, as well?

Not only does Eudora support it. Netscape navigator did. Netyscape Communicator does
all the way back to version 4.0. Mozilla which is now up to 1.8b always has.
Thunderbird which I belive is now up to version .8 always has.

Mozilla and thunderbird use this method. To send a Return Receipt Request,
after you have written you message and before sending go to Options menu > Return
Receipts. If you receive a return receipt request when you open the message a drop
down box appears at the top of the screen with the following : The sender of this
message has requested you send a return receipt. you have two options No Yes. When
either button is clicked and the message appears and you read you message.

If you clicked No as a choice then no receipt is sent. IF yes then a receipt is sent
on the order of You have requested a receipt for message " ......." this indicate
that the message was opened. In communicator you had a choice where to save return
receipt request sent or received. I believe the same is in Mozilla and Thunderbird
as well.

--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |MEMBER:VPEA (LIFE) ETA-I, NESDA,ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112-1809 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://home.kimbanet.com/~pjones/birthday/index.htm>
<http://vpea.exis.net>

 

[Bill Weylock]

Paul -


I know you were talking about "the automatic type," but no one who is
interested in the receipt feature is talking about that. The frustration
with that now (I hope) clear fact is that NO software supports an
"automatic" receipt return. I'm sure it would be possible to configure one;
but, as you and others have eloquently pointed out, it would be stupid and
misleading.

It boggles my mind that so many people have been vigorously attaching the
merits of something that does not exist in any software that I know of and
which is not at all what we miss in Entourage or want.

I've already said in one (the longest one, I think) of the postings to you
that of course you can simply ask for an acknowledgement. No argument. An
easy way to ask for a return receipt is a luxury, but it is a shortcut that
both the requestor and the grantor appreciate.

There are workarounds for everything. Certainly having separate mailboxes
and categories and views are all luxuries. So is the receipt button. And
it's one that I have come to expect and would like to have back.

Since the Mac development team seems to have misunderstood the feature
request, perhaps they will now reconsider. I hope they may now see that the
reasons they have given previously for not providing it are irrelevant.

By the way, I think we should all plan to spend no more than another week or
two on this.


Best,


- Bill

 

[Bill Weylock]

By the way, I have long since set up my rules to handle incoming requests so
I don't miss one and to enable sending a request in case that mood hits me.

Got sucked into this discussion and can't seem to quit it, but the truth is
that I almost never use the receipt request feature because I personally
find it annoying. I guess that would be grounds for murder, so I probably
shouldn't admit it.

My issue was being able to know if a client was requesting one, because
several of my clients pepper their emails with the darned things.