Understanding Exchange DSN, NDR and Message Tracking : Microsoft, Exchange, Outlook, 2003

May 9, 2008 06:33am pdt

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03.27.2008 at 01:34AM PDT, ID: 23273273

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8.2

Understanding Exchange DSN, NDR and Message Tracking

Zones: Exchange Email Server, Email Clients, Outlook Groupware Software

Tags: Microsoft, Exchange, Outlook, 2003

I am trying to understand how DSN, NDR and Message Tracking works in a Microsoft Exchange 2003 environment with Outlook 2003 as the email client software.

I am having several users complaining about non-delivered messages and several other issues.

First of all let me describe what I have done so far.

1. I have enabled message tracking in Exchange.
2. I have set "Request a Delivery Receipt for this message" and "Request a Read Receipt for this message" in Outlook as the default configuration for all sent messages.

The issues I am having are:

1. Some messages do get delivered and the user does not get a notification.
2. Some messages never get delivered and the user does not get a notification.
3. I can not figure out when the TRACKING tab is displayed in a Sent Message in Outlook and when the tab appears information in there is inconsistent. For example if a message is sent to 4 users in the same domain (thus delivered locally from my exchange) some recipients have blank information in the delivered and read columns and some have valid information for both delivered and read columns. However, all recipients have successfully got the message.
4. In Exchange message tracking when I try to track a message, tracking log can go up to delivering the message to the destination Mail Server. There is no way (as far as I can understand) to know what happens to the message by the time it will reach the server (for example what if their spam filter block the message and it never reaches the destination mailbox).

I need to fully comprehend how the whole system works in order to explain and guide my users on how to track the message and know for certain whether a message has been delivered or not.

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Question Stats

Zone: Software

Question Asked By: gbougiakas

Solution Provided By: SkiptonBS

Participating Experts: 1

Solution Grade: B

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03.27.2008 at 02:04AM PDT, ID: 21219556

SkiptonBS:

"Request a Read Receipt for this message."

When a user receives a message with a reciept request on it the user reading the message has the choice of whether to send the receipt.

NDR's if you right mouse click on your Primary SMTP Server and click Properties. Click the Messages type. You can then enter an internal email address/mailbox into the "send a copy of Non-Delivery report to" box.

When you say some messages don't get delivered, are we talking about external users?

I believe the tracking column is only display when you require tracking of Outlook items, such as meeting requests or messages where voting buttons have been used.

Once the message has left your exchange orginisation your tracking center logs will show you no more. They don't know what happens to the message once an external server picks it up.

Accepted Solution

03.27.2008 at 04:03AM PDT, ID: 21220052

gbougiakas:

I understand the concept of "Read Receipt"

What about the "Delivery Receipt" - Is this generated by my Exchange server when it delivers the message to the recipient's server? If this is the case, is it 100% certain that it will return the delivery receipt to the user's mailbox?

When I say that some messages are not being delivered I am talking about a user (local) sends a message to an external user and we know for a fact that the message never reached the recipient's mailbox and exchange never returned a Non-Delivery Report. Maybe the mail did get delivered to the recipient server and never reached the user mailbox. In that case shouldn't I receive a Delivery Receipt?

No, tracking tab in Outlook seems to work randomly it's not about meeting requests and voting buttons were never used. Still it appears randomly to some email messages.

03.27.2008 at 04:24AM PDT, ID: 21220181

SkiptonBS:

If you have the tracking tab but not all receipts are shown, the recipient may have declined to send one a read receipt, or the recipients server may not support sending receipts for privacy and security reasons.

If you don't see the Tracking tab at all, the server may not have processed the receipts yet. This sometimes involves a lag time.

If a receipt isn't appearing on the Tracking tab even though the receipt is in the Inbox, either the sending user hasn't opened the read receipt message yet, or the replying sender edited the receipt message.

As far as Delivery receipts go, not all mail servers support them. For instance if you send a message to a hotmail account with the delivery receipt on you will not receive one.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/280966

With regards to you NDR's this could be a setting on the remote server. If the email server accepted the message, but failed to forward it to the relevant mailbox then i would look at speaking to the external organisation. If your mail flow (in/out) is working normally and you are not experiencing any problems receiving mail then there is no reason why NDR's won't get through.

I presume you are receiving some NDR's?

Assisted Solution

03.27.2008 at 06:30AM PDT, ID: 21221074

gbougiakas:

Yes I receive some NDR's.

The weird thing is that when sending an email to an external user sometimes the send message has the tracking tab and some times it doesn't. In that particular case both mails have been delivered.

Are you sure there is not a setting somewhere that causes this or maybe is there a way to force the appearance of the tracking tab even if the recipient's server does not support it?

03.27.2008 at 06:40AM PDT, ID: 21221179

SkiptonBS:

The tracking tab is only displayed if

1. you request a read receipt
2. the recipient responded/agreed to sending the sender the read receipt.

I am certianly not aware of any setting that forces this tab to be shown.

Assisted Solution

gbougiakas

03.27.2008 at 07:25AM PDT, ID: 21221667

Thank you for all your help and clarification on the matter.

20080236-EE-VQP-29 / EE_QW_2_20070628