Email log

Wild Apricot keeps a detailed log of all the email messages that are sent manually (e.g. newsletters) or sent automatically (renewal reminders, event announcements, etc) from your Wild Apricot site. For each message, you can view the message and its delivery status, and a list of the failed and delivered email addresses. 

If you have email tracking enabled, you can see the number of clicks for each link. For each message received, you can also see whether the message was opened and which links the recipient clicked on.

You cannot delete email log entries.

Displaying the email log

To view the email log, hover over the Emails menu then select the Email Log option.

The email log displays the following information:

Date
The date and time that the message was sent.

Type
The type of email (automatic or manual). If manual, the name of the administrator who sent the email.

Email details
Summary of the email including the subject line and the origin of the email. Test emails recorded in your email log but not sent to the selected recipients have the phrase [Test mode] added to their subject lines. For more information on sending test messages before emailing is enabled for your account, see Email settings.

To
The number of recipients, or the name of the recipient if there is only one. Also, if any administrators were copied on these emails, Copied to admin(s) will appear.

Opens
The total percentage of these messages that were opened by the recipients. Tracking opened emails does have certain limitations so the actual number may be higher than what any email system is able to track. If the emails are still being sent, Sending in progress will appear. If email tracking was not enabled from your organization settings or for the individual event, Tracking off will appear.

Clicks
The total number of links that were clicked within the message.

Delivery
If there are multiple recipients, the percentage of delivered messages appears in green, and the percentage of failed messages appears in red. The number of delivered and failed messages appears below the percentage in each case. If there is only one recipient, a status of Delivered or Failed appears. Clicking the email will give you further information on any failed messages.

Viewing email details

If you click on an email within the log, you see a summary of its delivery status. By clicking on the tabs below the summary, you can view details of the email, including:

• original message text
• list of failed email addresses
• list of recipients
• list of links clicked (if email tracking was enabled)

Any macros inserted into the subject or body of the message will be replaced by the current value of that macro, not the value at the time the message was sent. For example, if a macro is used to display a renewal date that has changed since the message was sent, the log will display the current renewal date not the original one.

You can use the buttons at the top of the screen to save the message as a custom email template or use it as the basis for a new message.

Viewing delivery summaries

From the email log, you can track the status of email messages – whether they were delivered or not – for both manual emails and automatic emails such as renewal reminders and event announcements.

Within the email log, the status of each message appears under the Delivery column.

If there are multiple recipients, the percentage of delivered messages appears in green, and the percentage of failed messages appears in red. The number of delivered and failed messages appears below the percentage in each case. If there is only one recipient, a status of Delivered or Failed appears.

If you click an email within the list, you can view more information about the message, including a complete list of the delivered and failed email addresses. A summary of the message status also appears.

Viewing delivered and failed email addresses

To view the list of email addresses to which the message was successfully delivered, click the Delivered tab within the email details view. If you had email tracking enabled, you can see whether each recipient opened the message and which links were clicked.

To view a list of email addresses to which delivery has failed, click the Failures tab.

Secondary addresses will not be listed on the Failures or Delivered tabs.

To send all the failed messages again, click the Resend to selected failures button. For failed invoice emails, do not resend from the email log, but instead open the invoice from the Finances tab and click the Email button.

For each email failure, the list displays the intended recipient (i.e. the contact), the email address, and the response received from the email server (i.e. the reason for the failure). See below for explanations of some of the more common failure messages.

If the contact has experienced multiple email failures, you can click the multiple failures link to display a complete list of email failures for that contact.

Messages sent in test mode

When a new Wild Apricot account is created, most emails are initially disabled, so that contacts don't receive emails while the account is set up. While emailing is disabled, the emails are not sent to their intended recipients, but instead routed to your organization contact's email address, as specified on your Organization details screen. The emails that would have been sent are still recorded in your email log, allowing you to test and confirm your email setup.

Test emails recorded in your email log but not sent to the selected recipients have the phrase [Test mode] added to their subject lines.

Searching and filtering the email log

You can filter the email log to display certain types of messages, or messages within a certain time period. To filter by date, choose a range from the  Select range list, or select your own date range in the calendar controls, then click Apply.

To filter the list by email type, click the Filter list and choose an email type.

You can further filter the list by entering a Search string to be matched. Only messages with the specified string will be displayed.

Exporting the email log

You can export your filtered email log to a spreadsheet file by clicking the Export button.

On the screen that appears, you can select the export file format – XLS, CSV, or XML – and choose which fields to include in the export file.

The contents of your email messages will not be exported.

After you have made your selections, click the Export button.

While the export file is being generated, you can click the Continue working button and safely switch to another Wild Apricot admin screen. Once the file is generated, you'll receive an email with a link to the file.

If you waited until the export file was generated, the file will be automatically downloaded. As well, a dialog with a link to the file will appear, and an email with the link will be sent to you.

Before clicking the download link within the email, make sure you are logged into your Wild Apricot account as an administrator, and in admin view.

Email tracking

When you send mass emails – both manual emails and automatic system emails – you might want to know how many people opened the message, and how many clicked on each link within the message. If you enable email tracking, you can go the email log and view the total number of opens and clicks, and see which recipients opened the message and clicked which links.

To view the email log, hover over the Email menu then click the Log option. To view the activity for a particular message, click the message within the log.

To track emails, you must enable email tracking before the email is sent. Enabling email tracking will not allow you to track email messages already sent.

Email tracking is enabled separately for manual emails and automatic system emails (e.g. event announcements).

To enable email tracking for manual emails, click the Enable link and open email tracking check box before sending the message.

To enable email tracking in automatic system emails, hover over the Dashboard menu and select the Organization option. On the right side of the screen, check the Tracking check box.

For more information, see Tracking emails.

Searching for delivery problems

To search for contacts with email delivery problems, go to the Contacts tab. Within the Simple search tab, click the Filter drop-down and select with email delivery problems. A list of contacts with at least one failed email delivery will appear.

To archive all the contacts with email problems, you can export this list to a spreadsheet, change the values in the Archived column to yes, then reimport the spreadsheet. For more information, see Bulk changes using import and export.

Emails with persistent delivery problems

Contacts who experience persistent email delivery problems will eventually have email delivery automatically disabled by Wild Apricot. Where email delivery has been disabled, a warning message will appear on the contact record.

The options that appear within the message allow you to archive the contact, re-enable email delivery using the existing email address, or enter a new email address for the contact.

Troubleshooting email delivery failures

The process of sending an email from your account to your contact's inbox involves many steps. Below is a very simplified version of how an email starts from your account and reaches – or doesn't reach – your recipient.

If something goes wrong, Wild Apricot may receive a response message from the recipient's mail server that provides an error code and a partial explanation of the problem. The responses received for each message will appear in the list on the Failures tab.

See below for a list of common error codes and possible resolutions.

Viewing a contact's email history

To view a contact's complete email history – including both delivered and failed emails – click the Email settings and log tab within the contact record.

To filter the email list to display only certain kinds of messages – automatic, manual, failed, etc. – click the Filter drop-down and select an option. To perform a keyword search, enter a search string in the Search field.