The following FAQ list will help you become more acquainted with ListNanny.NET. If you have any additional questions, feel free to email them to support@advancedintellect.com or to use our online form here.

What is ListNanny.NET?
ListNanny is a .NET assembly, commonly known as a dll (dynamic link library). It is not an exe, or application, or GUI. It is meant to be used by other developers to help parse and classify NDRs or bounce backs. It does not have any dependencies on any COM objects. It requires the .NET Framework (ListNanny runs in all versions of .NET) to be installed to function properly. It is 100% managed code, written from the ground up in C#.

What is a NDR or Bounce Back?
A NDR is short for Non-deliverable Receipt of Non-Deliverable Report. NDRs are also commonly known as bounce backs, or bounced emails. NDRs are generated from mail servers when there was a problem delivering an email message, for example, to a non-existent mailbox or recipient.

Are all NDRs in the same format?
No. Although there is a standard for NDRs, for whatever reason, most mail servers and mail server developers ignore this standard. Because of this, NDRs come in many thousands, if not millions of different formats and error messages. The only requirement of an NDR, is that it has to be in the format of a RFC822 email message. That's where the similarity of NDRs usually stops. ListNanny uses advanced text pattern matching and logic to determine if an email message is a NDR, and if it, it classifies it into one of the following categories:

Member Name	Description
AddressChange	The recipient has requested an address change.
ArfReport	This bounce has an embedded Arf report. The Arf Report should be extracted, and used for additional information.
AutoResponder	Automatic email responder ( ex: 'Out of Office' or 'On Vacation').
ChallengeVerification	The bounce is a challenge asking for verification you actually sent the email. Typical challenges are made by Spam Arrest, or MailFrontier Matador.
Custom1	A custom category, that can be defined by the developer.
Custom2	A custom category, that can be defined by the developer.
DnsError	A temporary DNS error.
HardBounce	The server was unable to deliver your message (ex: unknown user, mailbox not found).
OpenRelayTest	The NDR is actually a test email message to see if the mail server is an open relay.
SoftBounce	Unable to temporarily deliver message (i.e. mailbox full, account disabled, exceeds quota, out of disk space).
SpamNotification	The message was delivered, but was either blocked by the user, or classified as spam, bulk mail, or had rejected content.
Subscribe	Subscribe request from someone wanting to get added to the mailing list.
Transient	The server couldn't temporarily deliver your message.
Unknown	Unable to classify the NDR.
Unsubscribe	Unsubscribe or remove request
VirusNotification	The bounce is actually a virus notification warning about a virus/code infected message.

So what can ListNanny do for me?
Managing an email list is becoming more and more complicated. If an email list isn't regularily cleaned of bad email addresses, receiving domains can sometimes block all of your email. If you contine to attempt to send messages to non-existant addresses, some of these domains will think you are spamming the their server. ListNany also improves the quality of your list, because you will be able to determine the number of 'real' subscribers.

What if ListNanny does not recognize some NDRs?
Although we've done our best to find, categorize, and parse NDRs, we're sure there are many more yet to go. When you discover new NDRs that ListNanny does not yet recognize, there are two options available.

1. ListNanny provides the capability for you to create your own NDR pattern definitions. This makes ListNanny extremely extensible.

2. Send us copies the NDR. With new NDRs that are sent to us, we update the XML file that ListNanny can consume to automatically recognize new NDR formats.

Where can I get the latest NDR Definition file?
The latest NDR pattern definition file can be found on the download page.

What is this "NDR Definition file"?
The NDR Definition file is a Xml file that contains the latest patterns and definitions used by ListNanny. Every time new NDRs are discovered, by us, or by developers, we add them to this file. When enough new NDRs have been discovered, we publish this file, for developers to download. ListNanny can then consume this file, in one line of code, and based upon decoded instructions, it will update its internal engine.

What else can ListNanny do?
Besides being a complete NDR parser, ListNanny is also a complete Mime parsing component. If you need to programmatically get at any part of an email message, ListNanny will easily give you this capability.

How do I use ListNanny?
Because ListNanny is a .NET component, it can be used from any .NET application. This includes ASP.NET, web services, console applications, winforms applications, and windows services, to name a few. Included in this help manual are samples to help you build your own NDR parsing and recognition application, built to your specifications and standards.

Does ListNanny include any reporting capabilities?
Yes, as a matter of fact it does. Although it is only a component, ListNanny contains built-in XML reporting and Value Separated reporting capabilities.

What is a Value Separated Report?
A Value Separated report is commonly known as a CSV (comma separated value) file or a Tab delimited file. ListNanny allows you to specify the parameters of the report object, and easily creates your own report structure. This report can then be used by other systems for further processing.