Hard Bounce How-To

Whitney Shelton

Hey y'all! Our marketing department recently sent out an email to our donor base, but they did it using an excel doc and mail merge. I have a long list of Hard Bounces that I would like to globally mark their records as such.

Can I subtract the Hard Bounce excel doc from the original mail merge document, then import that list into RE? That list would contain all emails NOT hard bounce. Can I then subtract the NOT hard bounce list from the master list in RE to get a list of only Hard Bounce?

Does anybody have a better process for this? Thank you!

Austen Brown

Hi @Whitney Shelton - I would personally mark these emails through Export/Import, here are the steps I would follow. If you are not familiar with Importing, I recommend you take a BlackbaudU Campus class on this subject prior to attempting this (KB Article on Importing).

1. Copy all Hard Bounce email addresses into a Constituent Query using the filter “Phone Number” with the operator “one of”. You can copy up-to 500 at a time in query (see KB Article #41666 for more information).
2. Save the Query and go to Admin > Import > Constituent Phone to create an import file to update these emails.
3. Make sure you have a CSV file on your desktop or FTP folder, that you can use. If you do not, you'll need to create one.
4. Create an Import File, highlighting “Constituent Phone” and clicking “New” at the top of the window. You want to choose the following on the ‘General Tab’:
   1. “Create Import File”
   2. Include - Previously created query
   3. Locate the CSV file on your desktop/FTP site
   4. Field to use “Constituent ID" or “Import ID”, your choice.
   5. Import File format “Delimited"
5. Leave everything as is on the “File Layout” tab and move onto the “Fields tab”. Expand the “Phone Number” list and move over the following fields.
   1. Constituent ID or Constituent Import ID
   2. Is Inactive
   3. Is Primary
   4. Phone Comments
   5. Phone Number
6. Click “Create Now” on the lower right corner, to generate an import file. Once created, locate the file on your desktop/FTP and open it.
7. Compare the Phone Numbers in your import file against your master list of Hard Bounces. Anything that does not match should be deleted from the CSV file. Utilize “Conditional Formatting” > “Highlight Duplicate Values” to aid in this comparison. (see this link for more information).
8. Once the listings on the import file consist of only the Hard Bounce emails, up-date the Phone type, Inactive, Primary, and Comment fields according to your data entry/tracking standard.
9. Save the import file, as it is a CSV excel will prompt you 2-3 times to make sure you want to save it - say yes/ok to all.
10. Back in Database View, open your Import parameter file under Admin > Import > Constituent Phone. Change the following areas on the “General” Tab:
    1. Update Existing Records
    2. Validate Data Only (Very Important!)
11. Under “File Layout” check the display to make sure it is representative of the updated data previously saved in your CSV.
12. Under “Fields” check that the “Field to Import” matches “RE's Field”.
13. Under “Summary” select the options according to your entry standard; it is a general best practice to create an output query and to at least preview a control report.
14. Once you have checked all tabs, choose the button on the bottom right of the window to “Validate Now”; this will tell you if there is anything within your import that has errors.
    1. If there is an error, fix it and re-run the validation prior to proceeding.
15. Once everything is validated, and you are good to go, back on the “General” tab uncheck the box next to ‘Validate data only’, and run your import.