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The Mailroom / The record
Twelve fields, nine kept
The record: what an operator keeps about what it sent
A message log is not a copy of the message. Sample E sets out twelve fields a log can carry, finds nine kept and three dropped, and the three that are dropped are the ones a reader usually quotes.
Desk spec
- fields
- 12
- kept
- 9
- dropped
- 3
- coverage
- 75.0%
the five kindsA receipt records something that already happened, marketing promotes something, a service note explains a state of the account, a security alert says something changed, and a legal notice is the message whose arrival is itself a step.
the two switchesOne stops marketing and nothing else - 12 of 50 messages on the samples. The other does not stop anything: it changes the channel the remaining 38 travel on, which changes how they arrive and what they prove.
the three countsSent is what the operator's log holds (50 of 50), arrived is what a delivery receipt shows (48 of 50), and read is what a read receipt shows (21 of 50). Three counts, routinely called one.
Direct answerA message log holds what a system needs to send and account for a message, not what the reader saw. Of twelve possible fields the samples keep nine - 75.0% - and drop three: the exact text as rendered, where the reader was, and what the reader did next.
The twelve fields
The kept and dropped fields divide cleanly: what is needed to send, deliver and count is kept; what is needed to explain a reader's experience is not.
Sample E - the twelve fields of a message log
| Field | Kept | Why |
|---|
| time sent | yes | dates every other field |
| channel | yes | explains arrival time and durability |
| kind | yes | decides what may be carried and what may be stopped |
| template reference | yes | identifies the wording version |
| address used | yes | the address of record at the moment of sending |
| delivery status | yes | the arrival evidence |
| opened | yes | the read evidence, where the channel reports it |
| clicked | yes | an action inside the message |
| bounced or refused | yes | explains a missing arrival |
| the exact text as rendered | no | the template reference is kept instead |
| where the reader was | no | not needed to deliver or account |
| what the reader did next | no | held elsewhere, if at all |
| twelve fields | 9 kept | 3 dropped - and they are the narrative ones |
sample E and F - what the nine fields can and cannot answer
kept 9 of 12 = 75.0%; dropped 3 of 12 = 25.0%
questions the nine answer: what was sent, when, to which address,
on which channel, whether it arrived, whether it was opened
questions the three cannot answer: what the message actually said
to this reader, where they were, and what they did afterwards
read evidence exists for 21 of 50 messages = 42.0%
so on 29 of 50 messages there is no field in the log that says
whether the reader ever saw the words at all.
Why the template reference is the field that matters
Keeping a reference to the wording rather than the wording itself is defensible for storage and awkward for a dispute, because two readers can receive different text from one reference.
sample E - one reference, several possible texts
template reference 1 per send, 50 sends in the month
rendered texts: the reference plus the merge fields, which on the
samples carry an amount, a time and a condition
merge fields per message = 3, of which the reader's copy shows all 3
the log shows 0 of the 3, and the template 1 of 1
so the reader's own copy is the only place where the three
figures that decide a dispute are recorded side by side.
How to use the record
The record tells a reader what to ask for and what to keep, and the two are different lists.
- Ask for the date, the channel and the address used, because all three are kept and all three are checkable.
- Do not expect the log to reproduce the wording; ask for the template version and compare it with your own copy.
- Keep the message itself, because the rendered text is the one thing the log does not hold.
- Note the address the log says was used, because it is the address of record at that moment, not now.
- Treat an open field as inconclusive either way - the absence of a read receipt is not the absence of a reader.
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