Can I see when the recipient has opened my email?

[Guest]

My company recently switched from Groupwise to Outlook. In Groupwise, there
is a way to see (within the company) the recipients of the email and whether
the email has been opened and/or deleted. Is there a way to do this in
Outlook?

Many thanks for your help!

 

[Vanguardx]

My company recently switched from Groupwise to Outlook. In
Groupwise, there is a way to see (within the company) the recipients
of the email and whether the email has been opened and/or deleted.
Is there a way to do this in Outlook?

Many thanks for your help!

Use the return receipt function in Outlook. The recipient may elect to
ignore all read receipts or elect to get prompted (and then refuse to
send one), so you need to make it company policy that read receipt must
be enabled or that users send a read receipt when requested for all
senders within your company. I don't know if Exchange can be configured
to block read receipts to external senders (so some spammer can't just
slam your company hunting for valid e-mail addresses); if it does then
it would be safe to require employees to leave the read receipt function
set to automatically respond.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your help. I was aware of the reciepts and knew that you could
opt not to send one, so that won't work. I was hoping that there was a
similar feature to view activity on the recipient's end. Thanks anyway!

 

[Vanguardx]

Thanks for your help. I was aware of the reciepts and knew that you
could opt not to send one, so that won't work. I was hoping that
there was a similar feature to view activity on the recipient's end.

It works if it is company policy to require its employees to enable read
receipts. It is really easy to test: periodically send announcement
e-mails to your employees, Any that don't respond with a read receipt
get to have a discussion with their boss. If you don't want to
establish company policies and then enforce them then you deliberately
choose to let your employees do whatever they want regarding e-mail and
abuse your resources however they like. If it doesn't work, it is
because you chose not to make it work.

You might want to inquire in a newsgroup for Exchange. I've heard but
not confirmed that Exchange can be configured to issue the read receipt
when a user opens a message using Outlook. You could try using the
System Policy Editor in the MS Office Resource Kit (ORK). There is
where you can configure the preferences settings regarding read
receipts, what action to take, and enforce them. I haven't used this
tool so I don't know if it applies only local policies or domain-wide
policies.

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately, I am not the boss, so I can't enforce it, but thanks anyway

 

[Vanguardx]

Unfortunately, I am not the boss, so I can't enforce it, but thanks
anyway

Then why are you attempting to enforce policies that are not yours to
enforce? If you don't have the power then you should not be attempting
to change current policies. You'll get yourself in hot water real
quick. If you are only being asked to suggest solutions then make it
quite clear that policies need to be established that you can enforce
otherwise you are just wasting your time (and their money).