RE: SNDDST Confirmation of Delivery - Internet (Outside World)

Brendan,

I disagree with your statement in the first paragraph about "delivery".
Even if you make the as400 SMTP a "full" SMTP server, it delivering to
the MX does not mean the mail has been accepted. It just means it "has
not been rejected yet".  And depending on the setup, it might still
have to go thru other SMTP servers, or might get rejected yet for other
reasons (spam filters, invalid user, next server down, etc).

But, it really doesn't matter very much as I really like your
suggestion in the next paragraph!  Put a URL in the email that includes
the order number (or some other ID) that they must click on to "confirm
receipt".  Then in the CGI on your machine, update the database.

As long as this is Customer->Vendor, it should work like a champ in
most cases.  The exception being those weird upside down situations
like "end user company" and IBM.  IBM is the vendor, but they act like
they are doing you a favor by letting you spend your money!

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com
[mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Brendan Bispham
Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2002 8:21 AM
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Subject: Re: SNDDST Confirmation of Delivery - Internet (Outside World)

<snip>
As far as delivery goes - you dont have to use a main SMTP server, you
can
deliver direct to the target SMTP server. Thus delivery means that the
target
domain accepted the email, and the internet is no longer the issue. I
wouldn't recommend using the OS400 SMTP server for this, but something
with
better logging/tracking of emails status, but you can always give it a
go -
just change the firewall paramter of the CHGSMPTA to *NO, and make sure
your
DNS settings point to an Internet DNS server.

To confirm a message is read, rather than delivered or opened, you can
insert
a unique URL which contains part of the email message, and will only be
used
when the user reads and clicks on the URL. You can then track this URL.