The Transactional Email Log offers an in-depth look at the transactional email history sent through Novi over the past 90 days.
See general trends (including the percentage of emails successfully delivered, open/click rates, etc.), email addresses that need attention, and the details of specific messages!
What Is A Transactional Email?
Transactional emails are triggered in response to actions taken throughout the Novi system, a "transactional" action.
This can be anything from a new member welcome email, to a password reset, event confirmation, etc.
What emails aren't included in the Novi log?
The log does not include marketing emails sent through Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or other third-parties. Typically these platforms will have their own email tracking capabilities.
The log also does not include emailed financial transactions such as invoices, sales receipts, etc. - these are sent through the QuickBooks Online email server (even if sent in Novi). The only exception to this being Smart Renewal emails, since the content for these originates from Novi.
Transactional Email Dashboard
At the top of the Transactional Email Log, there is a dashboard of general trends over the past 90 days.
The dashboard displays the following stats:
Transactional Emails: The total number of transactional emails sent from Novi in the 90 day timeframe.
Successful: The number and percent of emails that have been successfully delivered.
This includes emails with a status of Delivered, Opened, Clicked, or Spam Report.
Not Successful: The number and percent of emails that failed to reach the recipient's inbox.
This includes emails with a status Failed or Bounce.
Processing: The number of emails in the queue/process of being sent and tracked.
Unique Opens: The number and percent of recipients who opened your emails.
Unique Clicks: The number and percent of recipients who clicked a link in your emails.
Bounced: The number and percent of emails that bounced (meaning the message was rejected by a recipient's mail server).
Spam Reports: The number and percent of emails that recipients reported as spam.
Clicking any of these tiles will automatically filter out messages that do not meet the tile's criteria from the email list below.
Transactional Email List & Columns
Below the dashboard is a full list of transactional emails sent over the last 90 days. By default, emails that were sent most recently will appear at the top.
Available Columns:
To Email is the recipient of the message.
Current Status indicates where the email is in the delivery process. Statuses include:
Processing indicates the email is in the process of being sent and/or delivered.
Delivered indicates the email successfully reached the recipient's inbox, but it has not been opened yet.
Open indicates the recipient has opened the email.
Click indicates the recipient has opened the email and clicked a link within the email's content.
Failed indicates the email did not reach the recipient's inbox. Take action on failures by clicking "Resolve" in the Action column.
Bounce indicates the email also did not reach the recipient's inbox, likely because the address is incorrect or the recipient's inbox is no longer available. Take action on bounces by clicking "Resolve" in the Action column.
Spam Report indicates the recipient has reported the email as a spam message.
Sent indicates when the message was originally sent. Sent times are shown in association's local time.
Subject displays the email's subject line.
Opens shows how many times the recipient opened the email.
Clicks shows how many times the recipient clicked a link in the email.
Action allows admins to 'View' the content of the email and its history.
Additional columns that can be added via the list view (gear icon):
From Email is the address that sent the message.
Last Activity indicates when the latest status was achieved (i.e. when the email was delivered, bounced, or opened). Times are shown in association's local time.
Narrow down the Transactional Email List by applying filters such as Status, sent date, and whether the emails have been opened and/or clicked. Remember, this log specifically holds 90 days of history.
The log can be (1) as a PDF or (2) exported as a CSV.
View the History of Emails
When clicking 'View' under the Action column, the Transactional Email Detail modal opens. In the modal review the full history of each email.
1) Overview
An Overview appears first in the Transactional Email Detail modal. This will display the same information as the main Transactional Email List's columns (From Email, To Email, Subject, Sent Date, and Status).
2) Email History
After the Overview is Email History. This outlines all the stages a message has reached, including when it was originally sent/processed, when it was delivered to the recipient's email address, when it was opened or clicked, and (in some cases) when it bounced or failed.
If an email has bounced or failed, admins can investigate further and attempt to resend the message.
3) Email Contents
Below the Email History are the Email Contents. This displays a replica of the email, allowing for a review of what the recipient sees in their inbox.
4) Forward Original Email
At the bottom right corner of the modal, there's a button to forward the original email. This is useful if a member ever asks to be sent a second copy of the message, or if the email failed and needs resent.
Resolve & Resend Failed Emails
When ready to resolve an email issue, take action by hitting 'Resolve' in the Action column.
The Resolution Modal
Clicking 'Resolve' will pull up the Rejected Email Address Details modal.
Depending on the Rejection Type, different helper text displays in the AE Tip:
Bounced: Bounces are most often caused by a misspelled or outdated email address.
Blocked: When DNS settings are correct, blocks are almost always the result of an overly restrictive mail server refusing to deliver an organization's email. Asking the receiver to whitelist your organization's domain may resolve the issue, but the receiver may need to contact their mail provider or IT consultant.
Invalid: Invalid emails are most often mistyped emails that do not meet internet email format standards.
Spam Report: The recipient marked the email as spam or moved the email to their spam folder within their email client, such as Yahoo, Outlook, or Apple Mail.
Resolution Modal Actions
After investigating the rejection type, decide how to proceed:
Take no action.
Delete the email address from these records.
The email address is correct. Attempt to send future transactional emails to {email address}.
This will only send future transactional emails. It will not send previous emails that were never delivered.
This prevents accidentally surprising members by sending several delayed messages all at once.
When needing to resend an undelivered email from the last 90 days, use the "Forward Original Email" button on the Transactional Email Detail modal.
Update the email address on these records.
If "Update the email address on these records" is selected, an additional field displays that allows you to update the email address on all associated records:
A word of caution when selecting "The Email Address is correct" if the rejection reason is "Spam Report":
If the bounce reason is Spam Report, take special note of the warning that displays when selecting "The email address is correct. Attempt to send future transactional emails to {email address}":
Did You Actually Get Permission? Sending additional emails to someone who has asked you to stop can severely damage your organization’s reputation with email providers. Should the person report your email as spam a second time, you will be prohibited from resolving this email address again for 12 months.
Find Emails Needing Resolution
In addition to the Transactional Email Log, when an email address that needs resolving is used in various places throughout the site, an alert appears that allows admins to take action directly from the alert, which can appear on member records, event attendee records, settings, and more!
A Note About Troubleshooting
We understand the importance of delivering transactional emails to members' inboxes. Novi offers our customers access to our SendGrid account and its dedicated IP address at no extra cost.
You can trust in our choice of Sendgrid, as companies like Intuit, Spotify, and Instacart rely on Sendgrid's proven track record for delivering transactional emails with high inbox placement rates and low spam scores.
We know the significance of each email address entered into the system, and we know you may want to work with individual members to resolve deliverability issues. That's why we've embedded SendGrid's deliverability data here within Novi.
The data in this report comes directly from SendGrid, which receives the data from the hundreds of email clients used by your members to process and receive their emails.
While we're happy to help guide you through implementing best practices for sending transactional emails at a high level, it's ultimately up to your members' email providers to determine whether your emails land in their mailbox, not us or you.
The Novi AMS team is limited in our ability to support or even decode many of the technical error messages sent by your members' email providers to SendGrid. In these cases, members' IT teams should be relied upon to resolve these issues.