An email was not received: delivery and unsubscribe help

If a customer says an email did not arrive, check the recipient’s address and the email’s activity record before sending another message. An applicant on a waitlist and the family contact receiving the email may be different people.

1. check the family contact and expected message

1. Find the applicant using Search people and open their record. For a child, follow the appropriate adult’s link in the Family section.
2. Check the intended recipient’s Email address. Use Edit person to correct a typo or missing address, after confirming the correct address with the customer.
3. Check which message was expected. For signup emails, verify the relevant setting and template in Signup Emails. For reminders, check Email Reminders. For a one-time message, check the selected applicants, list and status filters.

Emails about a child go to family email contacts. Selecting two siblings can produce separate messages about each child. Missing/invalid addresses and unsubscribed contacts do not receive emails, even though they can be included in the displayed recipient count. See Sending Emails.

2. open email history

1. On the person’s record, click Family Email Notifications. Check the message description, the applicant in For, Status, Sent Date and the address in To.
2. For an account-wide view, open Activity > Emails sent. To focus on failures, open Activity > Undelivered emails (the page is titled Emails Not Delivered).
3. Use Email Details beside a status to inspect the available Date, Status and Message activity. The details may say No Email Activity when no further events are available.
4. Use Explanation of Statuses on the report for the app’s status definitions.

3. interpret the result

• No matching message: Check the email’s setup, timing and selected audience. The absence of a message does not by itself mean the address bounced.
• Waiting: The notification has not yet completed its send. Check that an address is present and review it again before sending a duplicate.
• Expired: The app waited up to three days for an email address to be supplied, then stopped trying to send that notification.
• Bounced: The recipient’s mail server returned the message. The failure may be temporary or permanent; read any available details and confirm the address with the customer.
• Dropped: The system chose not to send the message because previous attempts to that address were unsuccessful. Correcting a spelling mistake alone is not proof that future delivery will succeed.

A sent or delivered indication is not proof that the customer read the message or that it appeared in their inbox. Ask them to check spam/junk and other filtered folders, and search for your business name and the expected subject. If found, they can mark it as not spam and add the sender to their contacts.

Unsubscribing is different from leaving a waitlist

Unsubscribing stops email to that contact; it does not confirm or remove the applicant’s waitlist membership. Leaving a waitlist changes the named applicant’s membership on the selected list. Do not treat an unsubscribe or a failed email as a request to remove someone.

Respect the customer’s email preference. Do not change their address or use an exported address list to work around an unsubscribe. The address export excludes unsubscribed contacts. See Customer Removals and Confirmations for list actions.

Resubscribe or resend after correcting a problem

A customer who wants to receive emails again after unsubscribing must contact a staff member to be resubscribed. Staff should restore the subscription only at the customer’s request. If the customer reported a message as spam, ask them to mark it as not spam as well; contact support if delivery remains blocked.

After confirming and correcting a bounced address, staff can resend the email. To send a replacement message, open the applicant’s record and use Send Email, choose the appropriate template or enter the subject and body, and review the recipients before sending. See Sending Emails. Recheck the new message’s status in email history rather than assuming the old failure has been resolved.

If a status indicates that the address is suppressed or unsubscribed and you cannot restore the requested subscription, contact support. Do not repeatedly resend to a blocked address or use a different address to bypass the customer’s preference.

When to contact support

If the address is correct but messages still bounce or are dropped, or delivery details do not explain the issue, contact support. Include your site name, the affected applicant and recipient, the message type, its date/time and the status/error shown in Email Details. Never include a password or a customer’s private portal link.

For the differences between list membership, person deletion and email preferences, see Remove, Complete, Delete or Unsubscribe: What Changes?.