PowerClerk Support Center

Program Design
Automations
Questions to ask yourself
Locating the Automations feature
Creating an Automation
FAQs
Communication Templates
Questions to ask yourself
Locating the Communications feature
Creating Communication templates
Smart Templates
Feature reference
FAQs
Deadlines
Questions to ask yourself
Locating the Deadlines feature
How to create Deadlines
Delaying Deadlines
Deadline Automations
Deadlines in the Admin View
Deadlines in Communication Templates
Deadlines in Reports
Deadlines in Project List Columns
Deadline Functionality Definitions
Feature reference
FAQs
Forms
Questions to ask yourself
Locating the Forms feature
How to create and edit Forms
Adding data fields
Configuring Forms
VersaForms
Sensitive Data Fields
Feature reference
FAQs
Roles
Questions to ask yourself
Locating the Roles feature
How to create and edit a Role
Access Groups
Feature reference
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Workflow
Questions to ask yourself
Locating the Workflow feature
How to create and edit the Workflow
Transitions
Changing a project's status
Feature reference
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Advanced Program Design
Channels
Locating the Channels feature
What are Channels?
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3-Step Publishing Process
Channel Type A: Mark As Child
Channel Type B: Make Successor
Channel Type C and D: Create/Submit Related Project
Sending Signals
Connections
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What are Connections
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Content Library
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Locating the Content Library feature
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Use with Communication Templates
Use for Front Page content
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Curated Lists
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Locating the Document Templates feature
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eSignatures
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Formulas and Calculated Fields
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Locating the Formulas feature
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Front Page
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Locating the Front Page feature
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Incentive Design
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Locating the Incentive Design feature
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Incentive Options
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Single Sign On (SSO)
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Data Import
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Locating the Data Import feature
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Duplicate Check
Questions to ask yourself
Locating the Duplicate Check feature
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ePayments
Questions to ask yourself
Locating the ePayments History feature
How to add ePayments
FAQ
Import Projects
Questions to ask yourself
Locating the Import Projects feature
How to Import From V2
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Operation Status
Questions to ask yourself
Locating the Operation Status feature
How to use the Operation Status feature
FAQs
Program Info
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Locating the Program Statistics feature
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Test Environment
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Locating the User Administration feature
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Integration Guides
Integration Guide 001: How to configure a Web Adapter – ArcGIS Implementation
Integration Guide 002: How to configure Electric Power Research Institute’s (EPRI) DRIVE Connect software with PowerClerk
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Locating the Data Fields feature
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Table form element
PV System + batteries element
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Milestones
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Locating the Milestones feature
How to define a Milestone
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Project List Columns
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Locating the Project List Columns feature
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PowerClerk Program Launch
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Learning Management System (LMS)

Operation Status

Operation Status enables administrators to track failed applicant communications.

Operation Status feature


Questions to ask yourself about the Operation Status:

Why did the Communication Template fail to send?

Am I fielding questions from applicants that deal with not receiving expected documents or notifications?
How should I address spam complaints?

Locating the Operation Status feature

Anyone in a Role with the Edit Communications privilege can access the Operation Status feature by opening the ADMIN menu and clicking on Operation Status:

 

Locating the Operation Status feature

Figure 1: ADMIN >> Operation Status

 

How to use the Operation Status feature

The Operation Status feature allows you to easily identify failed communication attempts. You can tab through the report of communication failures to filter for Undeliverable Emails, Spam Email Complaints, and Failed Background Operations. There can be diverse reasons for failures. Shown below are failed attempts due to an invalid email address:

 

Operation Status

Figure 2: Operation Status overview


You can expand any row of a failed communication attempt to retrieve further information on Error Code and Error Details. You also have the following options:

  • Quickly navigate to the project that the communication failure stemmed from with the Project Admin button.
  • Click on View Communication to investigate, if the source of this failure was an error within the actual email sent to the recipient.
  • Utilize the Mark as Acknowledged button to mark the communication failure as reviewed

 

Details on communication failures

Figure 3: Details on communication failures


To show all communications including the ones that have been reviewed, use the Show Acknowledged Notices option:

 

Show Acknowledged Notices

Figure 4: Show Acknowledged Notices

 
Please note: PowerClerk’s Operation Status functionality allows you to identify and troubleshoot common issues with undeliverable or bouncing email communication. Mistyped (“bad”) email addresses causing repeated bounces can impact the reputation of the PowerClerk platform as an email sender. To avoid jeopardizing your programs’ ability to send communication templates via email, Clean Power Research will be regularly scanning for repeated bounces and inform you in severe cases so that you can address them. If the bad addresses are not promptly rectified, we reserve the right to remove offending email addresses from the system to preserve PowerClerk’s ability to reliably send email, which is a critical component of all programs operating within PowerClerk.
 
To avoid issues we recommend the use of distribution lists in Communication Templates to avoid bad email addresses. Placing individual email aliases in templates does not future proof your communications if that person leaves the company and the email becomes inactive. Distribution lists can more easily be maintained outside the individual currently assigned to receive communications.
 

Troubleshooting Email Delivery Issues

The way PowerClerk delivers emails through Amazon SES (SES = Simple Email Services) and can be stepped through as follows:

  1. An email gets triggered either manually by an Admin within a PowerClerk program, or via an Automation that is configured to send out a Communication Template at a specific process step.
  2. PowerClerk then contacts AWS SES to send that email to the respective set of recipient email addresses.
  3. AWS determines based off the email addresses which servers to hand off the email to.
  4. AWS then picks on mail server out of a pool of mail servers to handle the outgoing connections to deliver the email.
  5. That respective mail server now attempts to establish a connection to the receiving server, which is determined by the owner of the receiving domain.
  6. The delivery succeeds and a delivery receipt is sent back to PowerClerk, or alternatively upon unsuccessful delivery an error message states the reason as to why the deliver failed.

In case of a delivery failure there can be many reasons as to the root cause of the failure. The below list of common email delivery failures, as they appear on the Operation Status page under the “Undeliverable Emails” tab, may help pinpoint how to remedy the issue at hand:

  • Error Detail: smtp; 550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try 550-5.1.1 double-checking the recipient’s email address for typos or 550-5.1.1 unnecessary spaces.: Your recipient’s address might not work or exist anymore. Or, you might have entered it with a typo. Check for these common mistakes in the address you’re emailing: Quotation marks; dots at the end of the address; spaces before or after an address; spelling errors.
  • Error Detail: smtp; 550 5.7.1 Service unavailable; client [ip-address] blocked using Proofpoint Dynamic Reputation (Visit https://ipcheck.proofpoint.com/ if you feel this is in error.): Email error 550 email blocked is primarily caused when a mail server IP is listed in a spam blacklist.
  • Error Detail: smtp; 550 5.4.1 Recipient address rejected: Access denied.: “Access Denied” is often a catch-all response for when mail is rejected, commonly due to falling into a spam filter where the user/users have marked similar messages as spam.
  • Error Detail: smtp; 554 delivery error: Not a valid recipient or Error Detail: smtp; 554 5.7.1 Remote MTA not accepting connections: Your recipient’s address might not work or exist anymore. Or, you might’ve entered it with a typo. Check for these common mistakes in the address you’re emailing: Quotation marks; dots at the end of the address; spaces before or after an address; spelling errors.
  • Error Detail: Amazon SES has suppressed sending to this address because it has a recent history of bouncing as an invalid address. For more information about how to remove an address from the suppression list, see the Amazon SES Developer Guide: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/remove-from-suppressionlist.html: Amazon SES includes a global suppression list. When any Amazon SES customer sends an email that results in a hard bounce, Amazon SES adds the email address that produced the bounce to a global suppression list. The global suppression list is global in the sense that it applies to all Amazon SES customers.

FAQs

Have additional questions? Contact us to nominate your FAQ and help others find answers to your own questions concerning this feature.

Create A Support Ticket

Not finding your answer here?  Submit a question to our support team at the PowerClerk Ticket System and leverage the PowerClerk team’s expertise.