Messages are Sent yet not Delivered - Email Address is on the Suppressed Destinations List

Reported Issue

The Suppressed Destinations list is not controlled by Student Success & Engagement, and SS&E does not add email addresses to this list. Rather, this is a function of the AWS SES email tool that is used to help preserve the reputation of the message delivery service for SS&E Messaging and for AWS SES as a whole. 

Most of the time, messages sent to email addresses that are on the Suppressed Destinations list display as "Sent Successfully" in Messaging Administration on the Message Report, seen here.

• The reason that email messages display as processed successfully by the SS&E Messaging process is that they were sent succesffully by SS&E yet after reaching the destination email domain could not be delivered because of something in the recipient/institution environment.
• If the email message has a Sent status on the SS&E Message Report, yet it does not display in the user's edu Inbox/Spam, and the recipient user's email address is not on the Suppressed Destinations List, then most likely there is something wrong with the email address itself or something in the institution that is preventing the email from being received. To fix this, please reach out to the local institution's IT department email administrator.
• Click here to view the different Message Statuses that display on the SS&E Message Report.

If an email sent to a recipient's email address from within SS&E bounces, then the email address will be added to the Suppressed Destinations list, and NO messages will be able to be delivered to this recipient until this is fixed.

• The most common reasons for an email to bounce and not reach it's destination are that the email address doesn’t exist or the destination inbox is full.
• Since this is most likely caused by an issue with the recipient's edu email address account, please ask your organization's email administrator to verify that the suppressed edu email addresses are correct and managed properly to prevent edu email addresses from being added to the suppressed destinations list in the future.

Resolution

Overview

How to check/fix an email address on the Suppressed Destination List

To check if an email address is included on the Suppressed Destinations list:

1. Navigate to Administration > People & Roles > People.
2. Select the person record to view the user details.
3. Check under the user's primary and/or secondary email addresses for an informational message noting that the email address is on the Suppressed Destinations list.
   • The Suppressed Destinations list is generated outside of SS&E and is not an SS&E report.
   • SS&E has no control over what email addresses are on the Suppressed Destinations list and cannot display this information in SS&E Reporting or on the SS&E Messaging Administration Message Report.
4. Identify the underlying issue and/or make sure the suppressed email address can receive email messages.
   • The list is generated by AWS upon evaluating the recipient's email domain, and Watermark staff cannot help find the underlying cause.
     
   • The underlying cause must be researched by the suppressed email address domain's Email Administrator. Most likely, this is the edu email address/institutional IT department that can help check the suppressed edu email addresses.
5. Once you receive confirmation that the underlying issue is resolved, remove the email address from the Suppressed Destinations list by clicking on the message found in step 3.

Note: There is no way to find all users that are on the suppressed email destinations list from within SS&E. In addition, once an email address is added to the suppressed destinations list, all subsequent email messages will not be delivered until the suppressed email address is removed from the list.

Identifying the Underlying Root Cause

If the recipient's edu email address is suppressed, please ask your institutional IT staff to help verify that the recipient email address is valid and that their destination inbox is not full.

• To prevent SIS/SS&E email addresses from being added to the suppressed email destinations list in the future, please ask your IT staff to regularly monitor EDU email addresses and mailbox inboxes to make sure they valid and are not full, and able to receive messages.

Remove the Suppressed Email Address

Once you have confirmed that the suppressed email account is valid/not full and able to receive email messages, remove the email address from the Suppressed Destinations list by clicking on the message displayed under the email address on the person detail record in SS&E People Administration. 

Once the email address is removed from the suppressed destinations list, the user will be able to receive messages sent from within SS&E.