It has recently become problematic for some sellers to receive the various emails that AoB's service provides. With the security needs in today's world which have brought about various updates regarding a site's domain and their authentication for emails, AoB is working to update our system so that we're in compliance with the various levels of these authentication regulations. (If you ever want to see Rodger's head explode come to chat and tell him you wish to discuss SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. I only ask that you alert me that you're doing it so I can document the event for posterity.) He assures me that it will not take him but a few weeks to puzzle it all out and do the work to bring us up to date and put a stop to the various email delays that some of you are experiencing.
Though most of this will require Rodger's handiwork, we're seeing errors for some sellers stating that RFC Compliance is a cause. RFC Compliance deals with the To:/From:/Subj. of an email. And, in working with those aforementioned seller's I've noticed they're using the Confirmation settings in the Shipping Settings section incorrectly, so I thought a brief clarification of those settings might help others as well.
The settings in question can be found when you're looking at your Shipping Settings - Confirmation email section. You've likely noticed a few text entry fields titled 'Pretty eMail Name' and 'Confirmation Email ReplyTo Address'. If not, trust me, they are there. =)
I should start by clarifying that emails sent from/by our system have our domain name (after the @ in the address, ex.. @theartofbooks.com) and that is what your customer will see. You can mask that email address by entering your Business Name into the Pretty Email Name text field as most Sellers do. But, if you enter your email address you're creating an issue for authentication systems because you're telling the various systems involved that the email address is other than it really is. So, to avoid authentication issues simply enter your business name into that field. If you don't mind that the AoB email address is the From: address leave feel free to leave this field blank.
Also by entering your email address to the second line, titled 'Confirmation Email ReplyTo Address' you're giving your customer a way to contact you directly when they reply to their confirmation email with their questions. Leave that blank, and if they reply, they're responding to AoB staff who have to locate your customer's order so we can figure out which seller the order belongs to before we can forward your customer's contact to you, or respond to your customer that they should reach out to you using the contact seller options on the venue. So it's a good idea to utilize this field, though not required that you do. My intention in explaining these two fields to you is to help correct those who are already using them, but using them incorrectly, and maybe give ideas to those who have perhaps never considered using them but now think they're cool.
Whitelisting is also a step that you can take that may have a positive effect. When you whitelist an email address you're basically telling your mail client that you know the address of the Sender and that you trust that address. Each mail system has its own settings, and with a quick Google search, you can likely find instructions pertaining to the specific email client that you are using (for example, whitelisting emails in Gmail).
The last point I want to discuss here is that while receiving the email with your first violin report, the sales history files you've generated, or the inventory file download is lovely and helpful, it's not entirely required that you receive the email. And let's face it, some of us are just not email-oriented people when it's not absolutely necessary that you have it. On that line, let's say you've requested an Inventory Download. Inventory downloads can sometimes take a little while to generate, but typically if you allow 10-20 minutes for the system to produce the file, you can then navigate back to the Inventory Download page and look to the lower-left corner for the Recent Downloads section where you can right-click the ID and choose the Save as option from your browser menu, like so..
If the file you've requested is a Sales History download, simply do NOT check the option to receive the file in an email and it will begin downloading directly to your machine as soon as you click the Get File button. It's important that you remain on that page until your file completes downloading or you risk disrupting the download, so you will want to use a different tab in your browser window if you need to do something else while that file is downloading.
Another email that is frequently questioned is the First Violin Report. Some sellers don't really care to see the First Violin report, and some may not realize they get this report because it's going to their SPAM folder (ahem: whitelisting helps that), but to those of you that depend on that report, it's frustrating if/when that email gets delayed. To that end...
The First Violin Report can be found by navigating to Inventory > Listing and Upload History where you can click on the hyperlink in the Status column on this page.
There's a lot here to digest so I'll wrap it up by saying that while these three examples are not the only automated emails, but they are the most commonly sought out for their download links. There could be other emails that are delayed, but they just do not have workaround methods to still get to the data being communicated. Know that your AoB team is working to keep communications flowing for you and we'll update anything further that is necessary to reach the userbase as a whole. If you have comments or questions to add feel free to sign in at the top of your Zoobilee Help Center and that will allow you to post to this thread.