Subject line LENGTH validation on Send E-mail page

Some customers have been getting an error after clicking the "Send" button on the "Send E-mail" page if the Subject line is too long (greater than 200 characters).

We have now added a validation check so that you get a popup alert asking you to shorten your Subject line if JangoMail detects that the Subject line is too long when you hit the "Send" button.

mail.jangomail.com will now refuse connections from spammer IPs

As an extension to the JangoMail Spam Blocker, every day starting wtih today, IP addresses that send mail.jangomail.com (the incoming e-mail handler for @jangomail.com e-mail addresses) the highest amount of spam e-mail will be added to a blocklist that will prevent them from establishing a connection on port 25 to mail.jangomail.com.

This additional security measure will further reduce the amount of spam received as replies to mass e-mailings, and will conserve overall JangoMail network resources and bandwidth.

Multi-threading added to core sending process

The JangoMail engine processes mass e-mails in two steps. In the first step, a mass e-mail is pre-processed, where it is determined who the actual recipients are. The original recipient list is filtered for unsubscribes, bounces, duplicates, invalid e-mail addresses, and other measures. In the second step, JangoMail's network of distributed senders around the country actually send the indvidual e-mail messages.

It is the first pre-processing step that is now multi-threaded. Previously, this step operated in a linear fashion, pre-processing one mass e-mail job at a time. Occasionally, this would cause a delay in sending e-mails, when say, a customer sent out one mass e-mail to 2,000,000 recipients. All mass e-mail jobs submitted after the big job would have to wait while the big 2,000,000 recipient job was pre-processed. This wait has now been eliminated, because our new code can pre-process multiple mass e-mail jobs at a time.

This will result in greater overall e-mail sending speed across the entire JangoMail application!

Updated challenge-response filters

We have updated our incoming e-mail filter to categorize two more types of challenge-response e-mails:

1. Spam Sleuth challenge-responses
2. PeoplePC Spaminator challenge-responses

Previously, these types of challenges were being classified as User Reply e-mails. Now they will be appropriately classified as challenge-response e-mails.

How the spam blocker works

You may be wondering how JangoMail determines whether a response to a mass e-mailing is a valid reply or spam. The method JangoMail uses to decide is quite simple. Any response that doesn't fit into other categories, such as unsubscribes, bounces, out of office, etc., must be either spam or a valid reply from your recipient. The e-mail is assumed to be spam unless at least one of the following criteria are met, in which case the e-mail is a valid reply:

1. The Subject line of the e-mail is similar to the Subject line of a previously sent mass e-mail from your JangoMail account.

2. The From E-mail Address of the e-mail matches an address to which you've recently sent a mass e-mail.

3. The Body of the e-mail contains a special header that JangoMail includes on all outbound mass e-mails. This would indicate that the recipient replied to the e-mail, and left your original mass e-mail, with headers, at the bottom.

New Features: Spam blocker and better reply management

One of the complaints we frequently get from our higher volume and longer term customers is that they are frustrated with the amount of spam they receive at the address they use as their From Address in their mass e-mailings.

Why does this happen?

After a particular From Address has been used on large mass e-mailings, over time, the From Address becomes overexposed. Your From Address is obviously exposed to your recipients, and if your recipients have e-mail related viruses or spyware on their computers, your From Address can also be exposed to hackers and spammers.

We now have a spam blocker in place to combat this problem!

Our new spam blocker will filter out replies that are actually spam. Additionally:

1. You can decide whether or not they want to use the spam blocker.

2. If using the spam blocker, you can decide to have the e-mails classified as spam forwarded onto an e-mail address of your choice, or just sit in Reporting for viewing.

3. You can now decide what to prepend the subject line with in the cases of replies, challenge-responses, and spam messages. In the past, replies were always prepended with "USER REPLY: " and challenge response e-mails were always prepended with "CHALLENGE-RESPONSE: ". Now you can modify this text and add a prepend for spam e-mails as well, if you choose to have spam received by JangoMail sent to an e-mail address.

4. There is a new "Spam" category under Reporting --> Incoming Messages so that you can view spam that has been received by your account.

The default spam settings for all existing accounts and all new accounts are:

Spam blocker is on.
Spam is NOT e-mailed to any address.

All of these settings are under My Options --> Forward Replies To.

If in using our spam blocker feature, you notice false positives (e-mails being classified as spam that are legitimate replies), then please let us know so we can modify our spam-detection algorithm. You can let us know via https://www.jangomail.com/Support/.

Scrub reports will now contain an attachment

Details of a particular scrub report will no longer be contained within the body of the e-mail message. Rather, the particular details of the scrub report will now be in an attached text file to the e-mail message.

Change with how From Display Name is remembered

In the "Send E-mail" section, when you clicked the "Compose New Message" button, previously the From Display Name field would be pre-filled with the last From Display Name used on the specific computer.

NOW, the From Display Name that is remembered and pre-filled will be tied to the specific account that is logged in rather than the physical from which JangoMail is being accessed.

We are no longer checking help@us.jangomail.com

Requests for support sent to help@us.jangomail.com will no longer be read/answered. An autoresponse will be sent back to the sender requesting the sender to fill out the form at https://www.jangomail.com/Support/ instead.

New Way to Contact JangoMail Support

Since the beginning of JangoMail, we have used help@us.jangomail.com as our support e-mail address. We are phasing out help@us.jangomail.com and phasing in a new web-based support contact system, located at:

https://www.jangomail.com/Support/

This web-based support contact form has several advantages over using help@us.jangomail.com:

1. help@us.jangomail.com gets a lot of spam, and sometimes real support requests are confused with spam and vice versa.

2. It isn't always apparent to which account a particular support e-mail is referring, unless you, the user, are careful to include your username or contact information within your e-mail message to help@us.jangomail.com.

3. Our support personnel will now be able to look at your support history to refer back to an old case when necessary.

4. If you are logged IN to your account when accessing http://www.jangomail.com/Support/, then all of the contact information fields will already be filled out. All you have to do is type in a Subject and Message and hit the button.

We will continue to read and respond to e-mails sent to help@us.jangomail.com for now, but around mid-next week we will setup an autoresponder on the help@us.jangomail.com account that automatically kicks back an e-mail instructing you to submit your support request at https://www.jangomail.com/Support/ instead.

Bug Fix: Forward-to-friend and View-as-web-page links were preventing CAN-SPAM footer from being forced

Previously, if your account was set to force a CAN-SPAM footer, if you included a Forward-to-Friend link or a View-as-web-page link but NOT an unsubscribe link, then the CAN-SPAM footer was not forced, and it should have been forced since the unsubscribe link was not present.

This behavior has now been corrected.

New Tutorial on Adding/Importing Data Into Groups

Since one of the most frequent customer support requests involves help with importing data into Groups, we've written a step-by-step tutorial on this process.

The tutorial can be downloaded here.

If you pay-by-check, invoices will now be sent 30 days in advance

Previously, invoices for pay-by-check accounts were sent only 20 days in advance of renewal, therefore sometimes causing issues with accounts automatically expiring when checks did not arrive in time.

Now, these invoices will be sent 30 days in advance of the renewal.

Tutorial on Conditional Logic / Dynamic Messaging Updated

We have updated this tutorial to include information on the most common mistakes made by users when using this feature. This section of the document is entitled "Important Considerations" and includes information about:

1. Using straight quotes instead of curly quotes
2. Choosing VBScript compliant field names
3. Converting from strings to other types
4. Using the OutputString function to output a variable to the e-mail message

The revised tutorial can be downloaded here.

Exported Reports/Data Will No Longer Be Sent As E-mailed Attachments

Previously, anytime you exported data from the "Reporting" section or exported Group data, an e-mail would be sent containing an attachment with your requested data.

FROM NOW ON, the e-mail notification will contain a LINK to your requested file. The e-mail will not have the file attached to it. This is to avoid problems where an attached file is too large for an e-mail server to handle.

Group Field Names Can No Longer Begin with a Number

In the past, Group field names could begin with a number. For example, a Group could have a field named "1Address". This is no longer allowed, as a rule has been put in place forbidding field names from beginning with a number. This is so that field names can be compliant with VBScript variable names, for those customers wishing to use VBScript conditional logic statements within the body of their e-mails.

Mass E-mail ID#s More Accessible Now

For certain functions, it is necessary to know the JangoMail assigned ID# for a particular mass e-mail. This ID# can now easily be retrieved from two places:

1. The "Sending Complete" e-mail notifications that go out after a mass e-mail is completed will contain the ID#.

2. Under "Reporting", in the "General Job Statistics Report", clicking the Subject of a mass e-mail launches a popup with the e-mail's details. This popup will now contain the mass e-mail ID#.

Credit Card Receipts Will Now Contain Purchase Order Numbers

If your organization has generated a Purchase Order Number (PO) for JangoMail billing, this number will now automatically appear on any credit card receipts generated by our billing system.

Bug Fix - adding unsubscribe link to plain text messages will no longer force CAN-SPAM footer

Last week, a customer who included an unsubscribe LINK within a plain text message noticed that JangoMail still forced the CAN-SPAM footer onto the bottom of his e-mail. This was because, in plain text messages, JangoMail was looking for the presence of the words "unsubscribe" or "unlist".

This has now been corrected, so that a plain text message with either "unsubscribe", "unlist", or an unsubscribe link within the message will NOT have the CAN-SPAM footer forced on.

JangoMail Joins Email Sender and Provider Coalition

JangoMail has joined the premier industry organization for e-mail service providers, the ESPC, or Email Sender and Provider Coalition.

From the ESPC web site at http://www.espcoalition.org:

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The Email Sender and Provider Coalition (ESPC) was formed to fight spam while protecting the delivery of legitimate email. The ESPC members have recognized the need for strong spam solutions that ensure the delivery of legitimate email and have been very active in the war against spam.

The Email Sender and Provider Coalition is a cooperative group of industry leaders working to create solutions to the continued proliferation of spam and the emerging problem of deliverability. Our membership provides volume mail delivery services to an estimated 250,000 clients - representing the full breadth of the U.S. marketplace. The ESPC is currently working on solutions to spam and deliverability concerns through a combination of legislative advocacy, technological development, and industry standards.
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