Email and Blacklist Management

Overview

Emails that are sent from your Astute portal will show in the Communication Log so that you can track their progress and identify any potential delivery issues, as well as refer back to the content that was sent to specific recipients. 

Situations that arise where emails have been sent but there is an issue with delivery will also be flagged in this report to indicate a general cause for the failed delivery, so that you can manage this accordingly. In some cases, emails may be added to the Email Blacklist and will need to be removed from this by our Support team before you will be able to resend content. 

Email Blacklisting

Email addresses are blacklisted by Astute's third-party provider if they have:

• hard bounced (ie sent to an email address that doesn’t exist); or,
• been reported as spam by the recipient

When a communication is sent from Astute and the third party flags that a recipient email address has been blacklisted, the address will be added to Reports > System History > Email Blacklist.

The Email Blacklist report details the date an email address was added and the reason for blacklisting. You can use this report to identify users who are not receiving emails and determine why this is happening.

If you need an email address to be removed from the Email Blacklist, please contact Support with the relevant details.

Common Errors

Below are some common errors regarding email addresses and why they might be blacklisted. The error messages may differ depending on the receiving server. 

Reason	Description	Action required
'RecipientNotFound'	Generally, this means the email address does not exist.	Check the email address and confirm it is current.
'Unknown mail server'	The server in the email address does not exist.  eg 'gmail.com.au'	Check the server details in the email address are correct. Check for blank spaces at the end of the email address.
'Permanent bounce from recipient address'	The email address doesn't exist	Check the email address, update it in the employee profile.
Email validation issues	This could be a variety of things. Please check the rest of the message in the 'Reason' column for more details. Some things to check:  invalid characters such as :,;'? things like .co instead of .com or .gov instead of .gov.au an email address just being a name or word instead of an actual email address typos in email address such as @hotma.com instead of @hotmail.com	Fix the relevant error in the email address in the employee profile.
[recipient] reported this message	The recipient has reported the email as Spam	Ask the recipient to mark your 'From' email address as safe/whitelisted in their email settings.  You can view your 'From' email address in the Communication Log by expanding any sent email.  Once the recipient has updated their settings, contact Support to have the email address removed from the Blacklist.

Sent Emails Not Being Received

You may experience situations where the Communication Log indicates that an email has been sent, but recipients report that these emails have not been received. 

The sending and delivery of emails are two separate process, so while an email can be marked as sent successfully from Astute and received by another email server, we are limited in the information that we receive regarding the rest of the delivery process.

Once an email is sent, there are external variables, including email filtering configuration, spam filters, or other privacy and security measures, which may impact the delivery of emails that have been received by a server. 

Where are my portal emails sent from?

Each portal in Astute has its own sender (return path) email address, which uses the domain portalmail.l.astutepayroll.net.

Generally, this email address will be in the format of [e-mail] and can be confirmed in Config > Company Management > select company > Entity, in the Email 'From' Address field.

You can also confirm your specific sender/return path in for a specific email in Reports > System History > Communication Log, by expanding the view of the email and referring to the Return-Path in the Header summary.

The Reply To email that is linked to a sent system email is based on what content is being sent. Generally, the system will use the Email 'Reply-To' Address that has been set in Config > Company Management > select company > Entity, unless specific payroll or invoicing email addresses are configured:

• Payroll related emails will use the email that has been set as the Email 'Reply-To' Address in Config > Company Management > select company > Payroll, if it has been set
• Invoicing related emails will use the email that has been set as the Email 'Reply-To' Address in Config > Company Management > select company > Invoicing.

Whitelist your Astute Domain

To mitigate issues with filtering or delivery, email recipients can whitelist your Astute portal domain, as this will authorise emails that are sent and reduce the likelihood of them being categorised as spam or junk, or delivery being prevented due to filtering. 

Whitelisting serves the following functions:

• Ensures consistent communication, guaranteeing you and your contacts won't miss crucial information, updates, or notifications.
• Bypasses spam filters, so that emails are not mistakenly flagged as spam or junk.
• Facilitates smooth operations, ensuring all stakeholders receive communications 

It is essential as a first measure to confirm with recipients who have advised that they have not received an email from your portal that they have added portalmail.l.astutepayroll.net to their email whitelist or list of permitted senders.

The process for whitelisting will depend on the email provider, so they may need to reach out to your internal IT team if they are unsure of their provider.