In order to determine where and if there's a problem, you can check on a few things and run a couple of tests.

Also, bear in mind that it may not be just you which is having a problem. You email provider may be having a bad day.

You can use sites, such as downdetector.co.uk to check on the status of various online services.

1. Check you have email addresses stored for the customers you are trying to email.

You can check a customer's details once they're on the main form by single clicking on the address area of their details. Look for the box labelled "Primary Email" or "Email List".

2. For desktop installs, check the Emailer is running in the background

If you're using a cloud edition of LabManager, you can skip this step as you will not have an Emailer application running. We use a different method for sending email from the cloud.

If you're running LabManager desktop edition on a single PC, the Emailer should start up automatically when you start LabManager, and displays on your Windows taskbar as a green square with a white envelope icon. (if you have earlier versions of LabManger this may be a blue/grey or red envelope on a white square). If it's not running, you could just close LabManager and re-open it and the Emailer will start again.

If you're running LabManager desktop edition on multiple PCs then one of them is designated as your server. The Emailer should start up automatically when Windows starts on that PC. If it's not visible in the Windows taskbar you can try opening it using the LabManager Emailer icon in your Windows Start Menu > Programs > LabManager. (the folder may be named Transactor on previous versions)

3. Check the error messages reported by the Emailer

Click the red box in the bottom right of your LabManager window. This will list all your failed emails along with an error message.

From 30th May 2022, GMail will be disabling the "Allow less secure apps" feature. Starting from that date, if you have been relying on that setting you may be required to use an app-specific password instead, which requires you have two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled on your Gmail account.

Note that Virgin Media/NTL will place a 24 hour block on your email account if you send too many emails within a short period. This is to stop spammers. If you see the error messages mentioning error VM320 then this block has been placed on your account and you will not be able to send anything for 24 hours. We recommend using a non-Virgin Media/NTL account for sending your monthly invoices.

AOL also has a similar procedure where they require you to complete an online puzzle to confirm you are a human and not spam generating software.

We've also heard from users of BT Internet email accounts that there are some usage limits. Waiting for the lock period to expire should solve it.

If the error messages mention authentication errors it is possible you have entered your password incorrectly in the Emailer Setup. Note that if you have updated your email password recently, you will also need to update this in the Emailer Setup page of LabManager, or it will still be trying to send using your old password.

4. Check with the recipient that the email hasn't gone into their spam folder

Most email accounts will filter out spam, but sometimes they can filter out emails from legitimate sources by accident. To stop that happening you can usually specify if email coming in from particular email addresses is never considered spam. That's the whitelist - basically a list of addresses that can be trusted.

So, if your customers are finding the emails from LabManager are ending up in their spam folders, they need to add your email address to their list of trusted addresses. They may know it as a whitelist, or a trusted senders list. Every webmail account or email program manages this differently so they'd have to look into how to do that themselves.

5. Check the settings in the Emailer Setup

You can follows this article for in-depth discussion of the Emailer:   Emailer Setup.

• Check the settings are correct for the email account you want to use for sending email out. Generally the user name will be your email address and the password is your usual email password. The Outgoing Server name, port and SSL settings are dependent on your email provider so you may need to check with them what these settings are. If you have ticked Authentication, check you have also entered your user name and password in the boxes below the Authentication tickbox.

Once you've checked the settings, click Close to save them. 

Some common email providers and their settings are listed below. Note that these settings were obtained from each provider's help guides.

Note 3: Starting from 30th May 2022, GMail will be disabling the "Access from less secure apps" feature. You may need to enable two-factor authentication and create an app-specific password to use your gmail account with LabManager.

6. Try sending an email to yourself

Either send any report to Preview Window, then click the Email icon at the top... OR temporarily change the Email address on one of your customers to your own email address, then try and send a report via email to that customer... 

OR create a new "Send To" channel so you always have the option of sending emails to yourself. To do this:

• Open the Control Centre using the Tools menu
  
• Ensure you're on the Setup Wizard page by clicking it at the top left
  
• Click on "Send To's" near the bottom of the vertical list
  
• Click the green plus symbol on the right of the page to add a new channel
  
• Enter the name as "Email to self" or "Email to <your email address>"
  
• Enter the Type as "Email address (third party)"
  
• Enter your full email address in the "File Path or third party email address" box
  
• Set the Email > Subject to "Document(s) Delivery"
  
• Set the Email > Text message to "Please see attached document(s) + Signature"
  
• Set the Email > HTML message to "No message"
  
• Click OK, then Close the Control Centre
  

7. Try sending an email to us

8. You may need to update your LabManager to the latest version

Later versions of LabManager support TLS/SSL security, which may be required by your email provider. Note that email providers may also be updating their servers to support this newer security at any time.

You can use Help menu > Check for Updates, to check if a newer version is available, or contact the Helpdesk.