Sending Emails from TOOLS
You can ask for a confirmation email to be sent to each student or parent, after they enter their choices into TOOLS (via Item 2 on the TOOLS Admin Menu).
If you are experiencing a problem with this, then below are a couple of reported problems and their solutions.
Problem #1: My emails are not going out in TOOLS. I am getting the message "Sorry, Mail could NOT be sent".
Solution: This usually indicates that your web server is not properly configured to send out emails. TOOLS uses the standard PHP mail() function, as described (for example) here: http://php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php
For this to work, the web server’s outgoing mail services (php interpreter, sendmail, etc) have to be properly configured by your hosting company or IT department.
You can change your email settings, if you need to, by editing them in the "php.ini" file ... but the first step is to ask your IT Manager about this, and see if s/he is able to help (s/he will know more about your email settings than we do).
Problem #2: My emails seem to be going out in TOOLS (at least, I am not receiving any error messages). But my recipients (parents or students) say they have not received them.
Solution: This is tricky to diagnose as mail() doesn't in itself send the email. It just submits the email message to the host system's mail subsystem and asks it to send it.
But here are some things you can do to check if the email has gone out:
- look at your mail spool to see if the emails are in there, waiting to be delivered
- look at your system's mail log to see if it is generating errors when trying to send your emails..
- but even if the email is successfully sent, it doesn't mean the recipient will necessarily receive it. It may be trapped by a spam filter, rejected by a server, or be sent to a wrong/mis-typed email address.
- or it may be delivered but marked as "junk" or "spam" by the receiver's e-mail client.
If you can find an error log on your system, and check it, that is a good starting point.
Any questions, let us know.
By the TimeTabler Team