Read Receipt and Delivery Receipt

[LMarks]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: pop

I understand the limitations of both read and delivery receipt, however there are other business reasons for using them. It tells the recipient that the sender considers a particular item as being important. (That is obviated by having a default for all items to have a receipt as is suggested in the forum.)

Since this is a long standing feature of Outlook and many people use it, what are the chances of getting it back, rather than simply telling us that we are wrong for wanting it? That particular microsoft arrogance is one of the reasons I switched to MAC in the first place.

 

[Michel Bintener]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: pop

I understand the limitations of both read and delivery receipt, however there
are other business reasons for using them. It tells the recipient that the
sender considers a particular item as being important. (That is obviated by
having a default for all items to have a receipt as is suggested in the
forum.)

What is generally suggested is to create an account only for receipts, and
to use that account only when a read receipt is actually required.

Since this is a long standing feature of Outlook and many people use it, what
are the chances of getting it back, rather than simply telling us that we are
wrong for wanting it? That particular microsoft arrogance is one of the
reasons I switched to MAC in the first place.

Nobody outside of Microsoft can really say if and when this feature is going
to be implemented. You can request this feature by clicking on Help>Send
Feedback about Entourage. Also, nobody from Microsoft has ever publicly
commented on this feature in any of the public newsgroups. The "you're wrong
for wanting it" statement is an opinion given by private users who are only
voicing their opinion.

Hope this helps.

 

[Diane Ross]

Since this is a long standing feature of Outlook and many people use it, what
are the chances of getting it back, rather than simply telling us that we are
wrong for wanting it? That particular microsoft arrogance is one of the
reasons I switched to MAC in the first place.

It's not a Mac or PC thing it's an Outlook feature. Paul Berkowitz explained
it a while back:

Why isn't Return Receipt (Disposition Notification Request) a feature in
Entourage?

The reason why is that it's an almost useless feature which gives people
false assurances, always a bad thing:

1) It doesn't work when the receiving email client does not have an
automatic service that sends a reply. (Not only Entourage - there are many,
many other other email clients which don't reply.) Therefore, if you don't
get a reply you may incorrectly think it wasn't received,

2) It doesn't tell you that the recipient read the message anyway, only that
his email client received it. Therefore when you get the reply you may
incorrectly believe that he read it when he hasn't.

So - bad both ways round. It's a really feeble protocol, and good that
Entourage does not (pretend to) implement it. The fact that Outlook
implements it is an indication that the Outlook developers, unlike the
Entourage developers, seem to think that everybody else in the world uses
Outlook, which they don't. The Entourage developers, being on a "minority"
platform, know better, and are smarter in not implementing it. To be a bit
fairer, the Outlook approach probably reflects the fact that, originally,
back in Office 95 for PCs, Outlook was an extension of an earlier client
that worked only as intranet - something you used only with other people on
your own Exchange server. Outlook started life doing the same thing - there
used to be two modes - one for "Workgroups" on an Exchange server, and
another for "Internet".

There were some poor decisions made when Outlook was extended to the
Internet, that shouldn't be there. This is one of them - it's inaccurate and
unreliable, since it assumes that everyone can do it, which they can't.
You're much better off just not using it, since it cannot be relied upon.

And that's why Entourage does not implement it.


--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
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