Debouncing Hard Bounced Email Addresses on the Custom Screen

Reactivating a former hard bounced contact is what we call ‘debouncing’. You can debounce and reactivate contacts who have previously hard bounced from an email communication sent from Pro2, on your own. This article will walk you through the different ways to debounce a contact and the essential steps to must take prior to debouncing a contact.

What is a Hard Bounce?

A hard bounce is a permanent email delivery failure. This can happen for several reasons, such as the email address having a typo, the address no longer existing, or the recipient's email server permanently blocking delivery. An email address will also be marked as a hard bounce if it returns three consecutive soft bounces, which are potentially temporary issues like a full inbox or a server being down. Click here to learn more about bounces.

The Critical First Step: Confirm Validity and Consent

Before any debouncing action is taken, you must confirm two things directly with the patron.

Only after you have received this direct confirmation should you proceed with either of the debouncing methods.

How and Where Debouncing Takes Place

Debouncing a contact can happen in two different ways: automatically through the scheduled eAddress Change Sync job or manually via the Prospect2 Custom Screen. Each method serves a different purpose and has unique tracking.

Method 1: Automatic Debouncing via eAddress Change Sync

This debouncing method is a component of the eAddress Change Sync, which is a scheduled, "set-it-and-forget-it" job. It works by monitoring the Tessitura audit logs to find email address edits that were made directly on a constituent's record on the 'Contact Details' tab, or by contact driven updates they may have made on something like a My Account page on your website. 

Use Case for this Method

This process only debounces a contact when a hard bounced email (ex: stephenlynch@lynch2.com) is replaced with a new, different email address (ex: slynch@lynch2.com) in Tessitura. When the scheduled job runs, it finds the contact in Pro2, applies the new email, and automatically removes the hard bounce status.

This job is not designed to handle reactivating the same email address (ex: stephenlynch@lynch2.com to stephenlynch@lynch2.com).

Tracking for this Method

Contact Tagging: When a contact is successfully debounced by this sync, a tag is applied to their record in Pro2: Pro2_EAddress_Change_Hard_Bounced.

Contact Note: A note is added to the contact's record in Pro2 that documents the change and its source, formatted like this: stephenlynch@lynch2.com changed to slynch@lynch2.com via Prospect2 eAddress Change processing.

Job Audit Log: The results for the entire sync job, including any debounces, are logged in the Activity Log within your Tessitura Integrated Dashboard. We retain these logs for 20 days.

Method 2: Manual Debouncing via the Prospect2 Custom Screen

This debouncing method is handled manually on the Prospect2 Custom Screen within a constituent's record in Tessitura. This is your tool for immediate, live assistance when helping a patron.

Use Case for this Method

The Custom Screen provides two distinct ways to debounce a contact in real-time. When you select a hard bounced email from the dropdown, an alert will appear. After you have confirmed validity and consent, you can proceed with one of these two actions:

• Debouncing the Same Email Address: The Custom Screen is the only tool that allows you to reactivate a patron's original, exact same hard bounced email address. If the patron confirms their original email is now valid, you simply click the Debounce button to clear the bounce status immediately. An example of when this would likely be used is if the email address soft bounced for a full inbox, which turned into a hard bounce after three attempts. After the inbox side issue is resolved by the patron, this would be the next step towards the patron receiving emails at this address again.
• Debouncing via Change Email Address: You can also use the Custom Screen to debounce a contact by changing their email to a new, different address. Clicking the Change Email Address button and following the steps to change the email will also immediately clear the hard bounce status from the record. An example of when this would likely be used is if an email address was typed wrong, like a .con instead of .com. 

Tracking for this Method

Contact Tagging: This process does not apply any tags to the contact record since you are manually making the change in real time.  

Contact Note: A note is added to the contact's record in Pro2 that documents the change and its source.

The Final, Required Step: Manually Update Subscriptions

This is a crucial part of the process that applies to both debouncing methods. Debouncing a contact—either through the automated sync or the manual Custom Screen—only reactivates the contact record. It does not alter the contact's former Pro2 List subscriptions or automatically re-subscribe them to any Lists.

This is an intentional safeguard, as we cannot assume a patron's consent is still valid. Once the contact is successfully debounced, someone at your organization must manually re-subscribe the patron to the appropriate Lists based only on the preferences the patron explicitly expressed to you as outlined in the first step of this process..

Extras: Bounce History on The Custom Screen

For awareness and diagnostics, you can review a detailed audit log of all bounce events for a specific contact. This log is located on the Prospect2 Custom Screen within Tessitura.

When you select an email address that has any bounce history, a Bounce History section will become visible. This section displays a clear log of every bounce event for that email, including the timestamp and the exact bounce code or message received from the server. This provides staff with a complete history to better understand the contact's deliverability status, independent of any debouncing actions.