Email Replies Display in HTML Code

Issue

Most Email Messages are sent with multiple versions that include both a plain text version and an HTML version.

• For security reasons, Student Success & Engagement only reads the plain text version, and does not render the HTML version.
• If an email is not formatted properly, and/or the plain text version is omitted, then SS&E will only present the HTML code when displaying the content of the message.
• This indicates that SS&E attempted to process the message, however, found no other plain text content to display.

Further, when receiving messages like this, SS&E attempts to strip out any potentially dangerous formatting and display the content, but can't make any guarantees on the readability of this result, as it's simply a last attempt to present the user with some form of readable content.

For this reason, there is a disclaimer at the top of these messages stating: "[Warning: The message sender did not include a plain text version of this email. We have attempted to show the content here.]"

Resolution

As this is not something that can change within SS&E, it is a setting that can be checked and changed on the individual email clients sending a response to a SS&E user.

• If the plain text reply is missing from edu emails then this should be something that you can control to make sure that all edu email messages include a plain text version of any message.
• If the issue is happening on other external email clients then you can find out which email clients are being used and google how to send plain text messages. You can then send a generic message asking students to check their email clients mail options to make sure they have "Send Emails in Plain Text" checked.

Email clients should have a place to set Message Options or Message Settings, where email message formats can be selected from HTML, Plain Text, and Rich Text. If Plain Text is selected this should resolve the issue.