Outgoing Mail

The main thing you want to use FollowUpExpert for is probably sending messages of some kind. Please read this section not only to become familiar with what it takes to configure the program to send mail but, more importantly, also to learn what problems you may encounter while trying to deliver your mailings.

I strongly suggest you read this entire section, as it is arguably the most important part of this Guide.

This is the easiest path you can take; you can use an SMTP server provided by a hosting company or your ISP.

This is what you need to know if you want to use an external SMTP server to send your mailings:

Note: User name may also be called login or account name by your ISP or hosting company.

For more information contact your ISP, your IT personnel, or your network administrator.

On the “Mail Settings” tab, click “Outgoing Mail Servers", click "Add", and type the name of the server in the "SMTP server name" text box.

The SMTP server may or may not require some sort of authentication; this strictly depends on how it is configured; if you are in doubt contact your ISP or your network administrator. FollowUpExpert supports two most common authentication methods; it can log in using a user name and password or it can connect to a designated POP3 account before it sends anything.

To let the program log in into the SMTP server, mark the “My outgoing mail server requires me to log in” check box, and type the login (user name) and password in the text boxes.

If you are supposed to connect to a POP3 account to authenticate before sending, mark the check box labeled “Authenticate by connecting to POP3 server”, click the "POP3 account" link, and enter the server name, user name, and password.

It is a good idea to test your settings; click "Test Server Settings", enter your email address in "From" and "To", and click "Test".

If you have not already done it, you should contact your ISP before sending a large number of emails, explain what is the source of the email addresses you will be sending to, how you intend to use the SMTP server, and negotiate a fair deal that lets you contact your customers. Basically, this is one of the things that you are paying your provider for!

On the other hand, if your ISP is not flexible, you may choose to create an account with a company that is more liberal in this respect and use the new account for delivery of your messages.

You may choose to use the built-in SMTP server instead of your Internet Service Provider’s SMTP server, especially if your Internet Service Provider has a strict policy on the number of outgoing emails they let you send.

To use the built-in SMTP server you need to go to the “Mail Settings” tab. Click "Outgoing Mail Servers", and click "Add". Choose "Direct delivery" using the "Delivery method" drop-down list.

Note: For Windows 98/ME users: You need to enter the name of a DNS server in the text box labeled "DNS server name".

To find out the name, please do the following:

1. Click the "Start" button, and then click "Run".

2. Type the following line in the "Open" box, and then click OK:

winipcfg

Your current TCP/IP settings are displayed.

3. Click "More Info".

4. You can find DNS server name next to "DNS Servers". Copy the address into the "DNS server name" text box of the "Outgoing Mail Server" window.

To test your settings click "Test Server Settings", enter your email address in "From" and "To" and click "Test".

If you plan use the built-in SMTP server, be aware that some providers keep lists of IP addresses of machines they accept emails from and may not accept messages sent directly from computers that are not on their list!

Risking oversimplification here, you may say that every machine connected to the Internet has a unique number called an “IP address”. Some ISPs store IP addresses of machines they accept mail from. A database of these addresses is called a “whitelist”.

When a mail message to their user arrives to the server, the provider’s mail server checks the origin of the message. If it can find the IP address of the originating machine in its whitelist it allows the incoming email into the user’s mailbox. Otherwise, it rejects the message and the user is never going to see it!

In effect, the built-in SMTP server may not be able to deliver to some email addresses unless your machines IP address is on the whitelists of the companies that host your recipients' email addresses.

Because the providers that are using this kind of rejection policy are usually big boys such as AOL and Hotmail, it is very difficult to get whitelisted. But if your ISP is any good, the IP address of their SMTP server must be whitelisted. Otherwise, you would not be able to send to Hotmail and AOL addresses.

Note: If you are using FollowUpExpert Business edition or better, you can set up the program to automatically bypass direct delivery for certain domains (e.g. aol.com).

You can enter a list of domains you do not want to send to directly. Click "More Settings" on the "Outgoing Mail Server" window, click the "Limits" tab, click "Do not send through this server to certain domains", and enter one or more domains in the "Domain list" box (separate domains with a comma).

Outgoing Mail Server - Advanced 1

The program dos not try to send to these domains using the built-in server. If you select a secondary server, it will use it to send to these domains; if there is no secondary server, it will not send at all! So be careful with this option. Read the following section to learn how you can select a secondary server.

You can set up the program to send through a Gmail account; simply choose "Gmail" using the "Delivery method" drop-down list and enter the Gmail user name and password.

Please note that Gmail has strict limits as far as sending through their servers is concerned (although they are not extremely specific about the limits). Please read this:

The "Mail Settings" tab lets you select a secondary outgoing mail server using the "Secondary server" drop-down list.

The program uses the secondary server whenever sending using the primary server fails.

Hint: It is a good idea to select an external secondary server if you use direct delivery. In case a recipient does not accept mail from your computer that is sent directly, the program uses the secondary server.

If the SMTP server you use requires you to connect using a non-standard port number, you can enter it by clicking "More Settings", switching to the "Connection" tab, and typing the number in the "Port number" box.

If you have a slow network connection, choose a longer timeout using the "Timeout" slider.

If you are using FollowUpExpert Business edition or better, the program sends your messages in parallel using multiple threads of execution. You can control how many simultaneous connections the program uses by clicking "More Settings", clicking the "Connection" tab, and using the "Max connections" text box.

You can also tell the program to reset the connection every so often. Normally, the program opens a connection and tries to send as many messages as it can without disconnecting at all (up to the default of 999 messages). Some ISPs do not like that; you can change it using the "Reconnect every" text box.

If you do not like the default display name for the server, you can change it by clicking "More Settings", and entering the name in the "Display name" text box on the "General" tab.

FollowUpExpert Business edition or better lets you limit the number of messages it sends per hour, day, week, or month. Click "More Settings", click the "Limits" tab.

You can add as many limits per server as you like. For instance, you may limit the number of messages sent through smtp.mydomain.xxx to 200 per hour and 10000 per month by adding two limits.

If the program fails to send a message for the first time, it tries sending it again after an hour. You can specify the maximum number of retries by clicking the "Options" toolbar button, and entering the number in the "Retries" text box.