An Error Has Occurred: Sales Notification was not sent!
Every once in a while you might see a system email with the subject line "An Error Has Occurred: Unsubscribed Error" or "An Error Has Occurred: Sales Notification was not sent!"
This article will walk you through the most common reasons for these errors and how to go about fixing them.
Subject - An Error Has Occurred: Unsubscribed Error
Here's a quick snap shot of how the email header will appear:
The first thing to do when getting these emails is to take note of the information it provides in the content of the email itself. The screenshot below is a snippet of a very common message in this email.
Here's what the email is telling you:
The account the error occurred in.
The exact workflow that triggered this error. In this case it was the Lead Notification Workflow trying to send a Sales Notification email.
The error message - which in this case translates to, 'This employee's email address is unsubscribed in ActiveDEMAND'.
In short, this error means that the listed employee on the email error notification has been unsubscribed, similar to how a regular contact might be unsubscribed.
Subject - An Error Has Occurred: Sales Notification was not sent!
Here's a quick snapshot of how this email header will appear:
Once again, the first thing to do when getting these emails is to take note of the information it provides in the content of the email itself. The screenshot below is a snippet of a very common message in this email.
Here is what this email is telling you:
The exact workflow where the error occurred - in most cases it's a lead processing workflow.
The contact list being used by the email notification. In this case (and most) it's the sales distribution list.
The contact ID and Name (if it exists) for the contact who's action/activity triggered the workflow.
The type of activity that triggered the workflow, in this case a submitted form.
Possible reasons for this error:
No one is on your sales distribution list. You should have at least one employee on your sales distribution list.
Everyone on your sales distribution list is unsubscribed. You will need to resubscribe them and check to see why they were unsubscribed.
Troubleshooting unsubscribed employees: Why where they unsubscribed?
In order to answer this question, you need to look at the activity timeline for the employee mentioned in the email.
The two biggest reasons an employee may be unsubscribed is due to email errors, or they actually unsubscribed from your communication preferences form just like a regular contact would have.
These activities will appear on the timeline and you should be able to determine what happened.
In the example screenshot below, this employee is unsubscribed because their email inbox is rejecting the email notification due to an issue with the sending domain's SPF record.
SPF records are a type of DNS record called sender policy framework. In short, what this means is that the email address your sales notifications are being sent from has not given ActiveDEMAND permission to send emails on its half, or your SPF record has errors in it.
For more information on setting or checking an SPF record on your email sending domain, please view the last half of this help article Setting an SPF record
Please note: Neither Lead Intuition or ActiveDEMAND cannot provide support with failing DNS records. If your DNS records are erroring out, you will need to contact your DNS provider.
You could see any kind of email error on the timeline and it will be a hint to what the issue is. In most cases, these email errors will need to be addressed by making a change or adding some kind of DNS record on your email sending domain.
In other cases it could be due to the receiver's firewall settings.
In any situation, the email error should at least point you in the right direction towards a solution.
How to resubscribe an employee
There are two ways to resubscribe an employee:
Have them submit another ActiveDEMAND form. Form submissions will resubscribe contacts and employees.
On the employee profile, delete their email address, and add it again.
Lastly, try to fix the reason for the email error if that is why they were unsubscribed.
This article will walk you through the most common reasons for these errors and how to go about fixing them.
Subject - An Error Has Occurred: Unsubscribed Error
Here's a quick snap shot of how the email header will appear:
The first thing to do when getting these emails is to take note of the information it provides in the content of the email itself. The screenshot below is a snippet of a very common message in this email.
Here's what the email is telling you:
The account the error occurred in.
The exact workflow that triggered this error. In this case it was the Lead Notification Workflow trying to send a Sales Notification email.
The error message - which in this case translates to, 'This employee's email address is unsubscribed in ActiveDEMAND'.
In short, this error means that the listed employee on the email error notification has been unsubscribed, similar to how a regular contact might be unsubscribed.
Subject - An Error Has Occurred: Sales Notification was not sent!
Here's a quick snapshot of how this email header will appear:
Once again, the first thing to do when getting these emails is to take note of the information it provides in the content of the email itself. The screenshot below is a snippet of a very common message in this email.
Here is what this email is telling you:
The exact workflow where the error occurred - in most cases it's a lead processing workflow.
The contact list being used by the email notification. In this case (and most) it's the sales distribution list.
The contact ID and Name (if it exists) for the contact who's action/activity triggered the workflow.
The type of activity that triggered the workflow, in this case a submitted form.
Possible reasons for this error:
No one is on your sales distribution list. You should have at least one employee on your sales distribution list.
Everyone on your sales distribution list is unsubscribed. You will need to resubscribe them and check to see why they were unsubscribed.
Troubleshooting unsubscribed employees: Why where they unsubscribed?
In order to answer this question, you need to look at the activity timeline for the employee mentioned in the email.
The two biggest reasons an employee may be unsubscribed is due to email errors, or they actually unsubscribed from your communication preferences form just like a regular contact would have.
These activities will appear on the timeline and you should be able to determine what happened.
In the example screenshot below, this employee is unsubscribed because their email inbox is rejecting the email notification due to an issue with the sending domain's SPF record.
SPF records are a type of DNS record called sender policy framework. In short, what this means is that the email address your sales notifications are being sent from has not given ActiveDEMAND permission to send emails on its half, or your SPF record has errors in it.
For more information on setting or checking an SPF record on your email sending domain, please view the last half of this help article Setting an SPF record
Please note: Neither Lead Intuition or ActiveDEMAND cannot provide support with failing DNS records. If your DNS records are erroring out, you will need to contact your DNS provider.
You could see any kind of email error on the timeline and it will be a hint to what the issue is. In most cases, these email errors will need to be addressed by making a change or adding some kind of DNS record on your email sending domain.
In other cases it could be due to the receiver's firewall settings.
In any situation, the email error should at least point you in the right direction towards a solution.
How to resubscribe an employee
There are two ways to resubscribe an employee:
Have them submit another ActiveDEMAND form. Form submissions will resubscribe contacts and employees.
On the employee profile, delete their email address, and add it again.
Lastly, try to fix the reason for the email error if that is why they were unsubscribed.
Updated on: 15/09/2022
Thank you!