Read Receipt
Some e-mail applications, such as Microsoft Office Outlook, employ a read-receipt tracking mechanism. A sender selects the receipt request option prior to sending the message. Upon opening the email, each recipient has the option of notifying the sender that the message was opened and read.
However, there is no guarantee that you will get a read-receipt. Some possible reason are that very few e-mail applications or services support read receipts, or simply because users disable the functionality. Those do support read-receipt aren't necessarily compatible with or capable of recognizing requests from a different e-mail service or application
Delivery Receipt and FailureRepor
It is also called a DSN (delivery service notification), which is a request to the recipient’s email server to send you a notification about the delivery of an email you've just sent. The notification takes the form of an email, and will tell you if your delivery succeeded (Delivery Receipt), failed, got delayed (Failure Report).
Parse Report
For an email campaign application, one of the most important tasks is to detect if the email is received by recipient or not. Parsing the delivery report is a common way to get the email status. EAGetMail ActiveX Object provides a built-in function (GetReport) to parse the report. The following sample demonstrates how to parse the delivery-report.
If ReporType is DeliveryReceipt or ReadReceipt, the report probably has only OriginalSender, OriginalRecipient and OriginalMessageID information in the report, it depends on the mail server that generated the report.
Example
[Visual Basic 6.0, VBScript, Visual C++] The following example demonstrates how to parse the delivery report with EAGetMail POP3 & IMAP4 ActiveX Object. To get the full samples of EAGetMail, please refer to Samples section.
[Visual Basic 6.0]
Private Sub ParseReport(emlFile As String)
Const FailureReport = 0
Const DeliveryReceipt = 1
Const ReadReceipt = 2
Dim oMail As New EAGetMailObjLib.Mail
oMail.LicenseCode = "TryIt"
oMail.LoadFile emlFile, False
If Not oMail.IsReport Then
MsgBox "this is not a report"
Exit Sub
End If
Dim oReport As EAGetMailObjLib.MailReport
Set oReport = oMail.GetReport()
//get report type
Select Case oReport.ReportType
Case DeliveryReceipt
MsgBox "This is a deliver receipt"
Case ReadReceipt
MsgBox "This is a read receipt"
Case Else
MsgBox "This is a failure report"
End Select
//get original message information
MsgBox oReport.OriginalSender
MsgBox oReport.OriginalRecipient
MsgBox oReport.OriginalMessageID
If oReport.ReportType = FailureReport Then
MsgBox oReport.ErrCode
MsgBox oReport.ErrDescription
MsgBox oReport.OriginalSubject
MsgBox oReport.ReportMTA
Dim oHeaders As EAGetMailObjLib.HeaderCollection
Set oHeaders = oReport.OriginalHeaders
Dim i, nCount As Integer
nCount = oHeaders.Count
For i = 0 To nCount - 1
Dim oHeader As EAGetMailObjLib.HeaderItem
Set oHeader = oHeaders.Item(i)
MsgBox oHeader.HeaderKey & ": " & oHeader.HeaderValue
Next
End If
End Sub
[VBScript]
Sub ParseReport( emlFile )
Const FailureReport = 0
Const DeliveryReceipt = 1
Const ReadReceipt = 2
Dim oMail
Set oMail = CreateObject("EAGetMailObj.Mail")
oMail.LicenseCode = "TryIt"
oMail.LoadFile emlFile, False
If Not oMail.IsReport Then
MsgBox "this is not a report"
Exit Sub
End If
Dim oReport
Set oReport = oMail.GetReport()
//get report type
Select Case oReport.ReportType
Case DeliveryReceipt
MsgBox "This is a deliver receipt"
Case ReadReceipt
MsgBox "This is a read receipt"
Case Else
MsgBox "This is a failure report"
End Select
//get original message information
MsgBox oReport.OriginalSender
MsgBox oReport.OriginalRecipient
MsgBox oReport.OriginalMessageID
If oReport.ReportType = FailureReport Then
MsgBox oReport.ErrCode
MsgBox oReport.ErrDescription
MsgBox oReport.OriginalSubject
MsgBox oReport.ReportMTA
Dim oHeaders
Set oHeaders = oReport.OriginalHeaders
Dim i, nCount As Integer
nCount = oHeaders.Count
For i = 0 To nCount - 1
Dim oHeader
Set oHeader = oHeaders.Item(i)
MsgBox oHeader.HeaderKey & ": " & oHeader.HeaderValue
Next
End If
End Sub
[Visual C++]
#include "eagetmailobj.tlh"
using namespace EAGetMailObjLib;
void ParseReport( LPCTSTR lpszEmlFile )
{
const int FailureReport = 0;
const int DeliveryReceipt = 1;
const int ReadReceipt = 2;
IMailPtr oMail;
oMail.CreateInstance( "EAGetMailObj.Mail" );
oMail->LicenseCode = _T("TryIt");
oMail->LoadFile( lpszEmlFile, VARIANT_FALSE );
if( oMail->IsReport == VARIANT_FALSE )
{
_tprintf( _T("This is not a report"));
return;
}
//get report type
IMailReportPtr oReport = oMail->GetReport();
switch( oReport->ReportType )
{
case DeliveryReceipt:
_tprintf( _T("This is a delivery receipt\r\n"));
break;
case ReadReceipt:
_tprintf( _T("This is a read receipt\r\n"));
break;
default:
_tprintf( _T("This is a failure delivery report\r\n"));
break;
}
//get original message information
_tprintf( _T("OriginalSender: %s\r\n"), (TCHAR*)oReport->OriginalSender );
_tprintf( _T("OriginalRecipient: %s\r\n"), (TCHAR*)oReport->OriginalRecipient );
_tprintf( _T("OriginalMessageID: %s\r\n"),(TCHAR*)oReport->OriginalMessageID );
if( oReport->ReportType == FailureReport )
{
_tprintf( _T("ErrCode: %s\r\n"), (TCHAR*)oReport->ErrCode);
_tprintf( _T("ErrDescription: %s\r\n") (TCHAR*)oReport->ErrDescription );
_tprintf( _T("OriginalSubject: %s\r\n") (TCHAR*)oReport->OriginalSubject );
_tprintf( _T("ReportMTA: %s\r\n") (TCHAR*)oReport->ReportMTA );
IHeaderCollectionPtr oHeaders;
oHeaders = oReport->OriginalHeaders;
int count = oHeaders->Count;
for( int i = 0; i < count; i++ )
{
IHeaderItemPtr oHeader;
oHeader = oHeaders->Item(i);
::_tprintf( _T("%s: %s\r\n"), (TCHAR*)oHeader->HeaderKey, (TCHAR*)oHeader->HeaderValue );
}
}
}
See Also
Using EAGetMail POP3 & IMAP4 ActiveX Object
User Authentication and SSL Connection
Digital Signature and E-mail Encryption/Decryption
Unique Identifier (UIDL) in POP3 and IMAP4 protocol
Work with winmail.dat (TNEF Parser)
EAGetMail ActiveX Object References
EAGetMail POP3 & IMAP4 Component Samples