How does CiviMail determine reply-to addresses?

[planigan]

Step 2 of the Mass Mailing process contains the following three options:

• Track Replies?    Recipients' replies are sent to a CiviMail specific address instead of the sender's address so they can be stored within CiviCRM.
• Forward Replies?    If a recipient replies to this mailing, forward the reply to the FROM Email address specified for the mailing.
• Auto-respond to Replies?       If a recipient replies to this mailing, send an automated reply using the selected message.

How does CiviMail determine the "CiviMail specific address" mentioned in option (1)? I am assuming is it taken from one of the incoming mail accounts, but which one? Is it the account used for "Bounces", or an account used for "Email-to-Activity"? What happens if you have multiple accounts configured for "Email-to-Activity"?

I apologize if this is covered in the documentation, but I read both the book on flossmanuals.net and the documentation on civicrm.org and this did not seem to be covered.

[ken]

The "CiviMail specific address" is the bounce address derived from the CiviMail mail account.

• Go to Administer > CiviMail > Mail Accounts
• One of your mail accounts needs to be set up for CiviMail
• Edit that mail account and you'll find the comments on the fields helpful

The bounce address is composed from 'Localpart' and 'Email Domain' plus some other stuff you can research if you're keen.

As far as sending and receiving goes:

• The sending account (SMTP) is the one specified at Administer > Configure > Global Settings > Outbound Email
• The receiving account (IMAP) is the one specified in 'Username' in the CiviMail mail account

Ken

[planigan]

Thanks! That was clear and concise. Much appreciated.

Also, it just dawned on me that mail accounts that are listed as "used for" Email-to-Activity processing are used when you are tracking emails sent outside of CiviCRM (i.e., these are the addresses that you put in the BCC field), and have nothing to do with bounce or reply processing to mass mailings. Correct me if I'm wrong though!

[ken]

That's correct, if by "addresses that you put in the BCC field" you mean that you're sending an email to a contact and you want CiviCRM to record this email as an Activity connected to each of the addressees of the email.

[planigan]

Yes indeed. Thanks again!

[Dennis Gray]

I still don't get it.


"One of your mail accounts needs to be set up for CiviMail". We are using the CiviSMTP service from UAS. I have one default entry in the settings for the bounce processing account. When I look at the settings in CCRM 4.1.5, I do not find any helpful comments on the fields.

In which field do I enter the "receiving account"? The "username" is actually blank. What am I supposed to fill in there?

[ken]

Dennis,

When I visit the CiviSMTP site and check out the HowTo at http://www.civismtp.com/drupal/node/1 I see that the instructions for setting up the Mail Account for bounce processing are at Step 3.2.

Have you followed that step?

Now, when I look at the fields on the page CiviCRM > Administer > CiviMail > Mail Accounts, there is a comment under each one, but I'm on v4.2. This is what I see ...

Name : Name of this list of settings.
Server : Name or IP address of mail server machine.
Username : Username to use when polling (for IMAP and POP3).
Password : Password to use when polling (for IMAP and POP3).
Localpart : Optional local part (e.g., 'civimail+' for addresses like civimail+s.1.2@example.com).
Email Domain : Email address domain (the part after @).
Return-Path : Contents of the Return-Path header.
Protocol : Name of the protocol to use for polling.
Source : Folder to poll from when using IMAP (will default to INBOX when empty), path to poll from when using Maildir, etc..
Use SSL? : Whether to use SSL for IMAP and POP3 or not.
Used For? : How this mail account will be used. Only one box may be used for bounce processing. It will also be used as the envelope email when sending mass mailings.

Finally, if you continue having issues, you might find you get more directed assistance through the CiviSMTP help desk rather than on a generic forum such as this one,

Ken

[Dennis Gray]

Haha. Shane directed me to this forum and to this thread specifically.

I'm on 4.1.5 so maybe the comments are not there and maybe it works differently in 4.2.

[ken]

Dennis,

Assuming you're using myuser@mydomain.org as your sending address, the simplest configuration is to have bounces go back to that address.

So ...

Name : Whatever you want to call it
Server : mydomain.org
Username : myuser username
Password : myuser password
Localpart : myuser+
Email Domain : mydomain
Return-Path :
Protocol : IMAP. You can use POP3 but IMAP is saner
Source :
Use SSL? : Yes. Never send passwords in the clear.
Used For? : Bounce processing.

(CiviCRM has little balloons you can click to get help. Perhaps in 4.1 the comments are placed in one of those rather than against individual fields. Check out the CiviCRM book at http://book.civicrm.org/user/current/initial-set-up/email-system-configuration/ for additional information.)

Ken

[ken]

BTW, Dennis, when I wrote my original post, our site was running 4.0.7, so I doubt the comments would have disappeared in 4.1 and then reappeared in 4.2.

Is your install clean? Some missing comments is no big deal in and of itself, but sometimes these little details signify something more substantial ...

Ken