Autoresponders
Whether you are responding
to the same type of e-mail on a daily basis or you would just like to add an
automatic response to e-mails sent to a specific domain address, you can accomplish
such a task using the "autoresponder". An autoresponder will send
a standard response e-mail message (based on a text file you specify) to anyone
who sends an e-mail to a specific e-mail address (which you specify) at your
domain. Each of our hosting plans allow you to set up a specific number of autoresponders
for free. You can set up additional autoresponders for a small additional charge.
How to set up an
autoresponder:
- Create a plain text file
which contains the message you wish to have automatically sent (e.g. sales_request_response.txt)
and upload it to your domain in ASCII mode via FTP.
- Use your Web browser
to go to the E-mail Settings section of your account Control Panel (go to
/stats/ and enter your userID and password, click on E-mail
Settings and re-enter your userID and password if requested). This page allows
you to set your e-mail forwarding, POP
accounts, and autoresponders for your account.
- Go to the 'Autoresponders'
section of your E-mail Settings page. It will look like this:
- Under the "@your_domain"
heading, enter the e-mail address at your domain which is intended to invoke
the autoresponder. For example, if you want an autoresponse message sent to
anyone who sends an e-mail to "info@", you would enter
"info". When a user sends an e-mail message to this address (info@)
the autoresponder will automatically reply with the message you specify.
- Under the "File
to send" heading, enter the location of the text file you uploaded in
step 1 which contains the autoresponse message. The text in this file will
be sent in an e-mail message to whomever sends an e-mail to the address you
specified in step 4. Be sure to enter the complete path to the file relative
to your home directory (example: /subdir/mystuff/services.txt). If you uploaded
the file to the main level of your account (the 'root') you would just enter
the name of the file, since the file is not located within any subdirectories.
Make sure the file name and path have only lower case
letters. This program is not case sensitive, therefore you cannot specify
a file that has capital letters in it.
- Under the "Reply
to" heading, enter the e-mail address from which you want to have your
autoresponse message appear to be coming. This address will appear in the
'From:' heading in the autoresponse e-mail. If the user replies to the autoresponse
message, the reply will be sent to this e-mail address.
- Under the "Who to
Notify" heading, enter the e-mail address of someone you want to have
receive a copy of the original incoming e-mail message that invoked the autoresponder.
The incoming e-mail message will be forwarded to this address and your automated
response will be sent back to the sender. If you leave this field
blank, the incoming email message will be discarded.
In the above example, any
person who sends an e-mail to "info@" will receive an
auto-response via e-mail which contains the message from the file named "services.txt".
If the recipient replies to the auto-response, their reply will be delivered
to the address "sales@your_domain". Also, a copy of the original incoming
e-mail will be sent to "bob@somedomain.com".
Adding a Subject:
line
Most e-mail messages you receive have the following header information:
(To: From: Subject:). To specify a subject, you can simply add a line at the
top of the autoresponder message text file (step 1) that reads:
Subject: Information about
our services
You would replace 'Information
about our services' with whatever subject you want to have for the autoresponse
e-mail.
Microsoft FrontPage
Users:
If you are using Microsoft FrontPage to manage your web site do NOT
use FTP to upload the text file containing your autoresponse message. Using
FTP can corrupt the FrontPage extensions and cause problems with your website.
To upload the text file, simply create your file, and import it into the FrontPage
web. Publish, then continue with the Autoresponder setup.