Outbox: mail to distribution list : send status?

[gocat2005]

Hello

Consider this scenario please:
A user sends an email to a distribution list of email addresses. Her email
goes into her Outbox and sits there until all of the recipients have been
sent to or returned as failed, right?
The email might sit in her Outbox for a day or two, during which time she
has frantically re-sent the email to everyone, several times.
She gets complaints that everyone on the list is receiving the email
multiple times, but the email is still sitting in her Outbox.

How can she tell which recipients on her list have sent OK, and which ones
are still waiting to go?

Is there any way to help her determine if some or all of those recipients
have been sent this very important mail? (not read receipts)

Her setup is standard Outlook 2003 sending over the internet to a POP3
server at her ISP

 

[Brian Tillman]

Consider this scenario please:
A user sends an email to a distribution list of email addresses. Her
email goes into her Outbox and sits there until all of the recipients
have been sent to or returned as failed, right?

Generally, no.

The email might sit in her Outbox for a day or two, during which time
she has frantically re-sent the email to everyone, several times.
She gets complaints that everyone on the list is receiving the email
multiple times, but the email is still sitting in her Outbox.

She should disable any antivirus scanning of her mail and lengthen her
server timeout value.

How can she tell which recipients on her list have sent OK, and which
ones are still waiting to go?

No way to do that.

Is there any way to help her determine if some or all of those
recipients have been sent this very important mail? (not read
receipts)

No.

 

[gocat2005]

Well, the email does sit in her Outbox for a day or two, then it goes into
Sent Items.

Outlook is waiting for satifactory responses from all destination mail
servers right? If one recipient's mail server is down, Outlook will retry,
right?

 

[Brian Tillman]

Well, the email does sit in her Outbox for a day or two, then it goes
into Sent Items.

This is indicative of a problem connecting to the SMTP server defined in the
account properties.

Outlook is waiting for satifactory responses from all destination mail
servers right?

Wrong. Outlook simply forwards the mail to the SMTP server defined for the
account and lets that server actually route the message to the destination
servers.

If one recipient's mail server is down, Outlook will
retry, right?

If the SMTP server configures in the account is down, Outlook will tell you
as soon as it tries to connect that there is a problem. It will, however,
retain the message in Outbox and retry sending the message every time a new
send/receive attempt occurs. If Outlook can connect to the SMTP server, it
will send the message to it. It neither knows nor cares about the servers
whose domains are named in the recipient list.

 

[gocat2005]

Thanks Brian
Regards
Graham

This is indicative of a problem connecting to the SMTP server defined in the
account properties.


Wrong. Outlook simply forwards the mail to the SMTP server defined for the
account and lets that server actually route the message to the destination
servers.


If the SMTP server configures in the account is down, Outlook will tell you
as soon as it tries to connect that there is a problem. It will, however,
retain the message in Outbox and retry sending the message every time a new
send/receive attempt occurs. If Outlook can connect to the SMTP server, it
will send the message to it. It neither knows nor cares about the servers
whose domains are named in the recipient list.