SUMMARY

Requesting the following new functionality in Blackbaud EMS (and/or across all Blackbaud products):

• Add "warning" or "error" message to email address entry form for email addresses which are considered "Administrative accounts" or "Functional role email accounts"; and

• Reject with error message any imported email addresses which are considered "Administrative accounts" or "Functional role email accounts"

ISSUE

From https://docs.blackbaud.com/email-resource-center/overview/client/spam-traps:

Blackbaud automatically suppresses some email addresses because they might be used as SPAM traps, or mailbox providers discourage sending to them:

• Administrative accounts (also known as role or functional email account) — Include email addresses with webmaster@, hostmaster@, sales@, support@, postmaster@, etc.

However, the linked Blackbaud document is the ONLY place where this restriction is described, and does not specifically include email addresses such as "info@".

One of our constituent parents is using an "info@" address as their registered email address in EMS; after reporting the issue to us, I investigated and was provided the link to the Web page above by a Blackbaud support rep.

PROPOSED SOLUTION(S)

In order to prevent users from using email addresses which are suppressed by Blackbaud's internal guidelines, it would be helpful if they were never allowed to enter those email addresses; to that end, I propose the following new functionality:

• If a "suppressed" email address is entered in any of the "Email address" fields, the entry dialog should provide a notification that the email address is not appropriate for use, and should reject the entry; and

• If a "suppressed" email address is uploaded as part of a data import, the upload should fail with an "invalid email address in import file" entry (or similar).

This should also be applied to all other Blackbaud products affected by the restrictions described in the Web page.