What to do if a user does not receive their email invitation

Sometimes, a user will be added to a Collaborate site but will not receive their email invitation. This can happen for many reasons, the most common of which are:

• The email address for the user was entered incorrectly by the person who invited them

• The email invitation was caught in the user's spam filter

• The user received the email invitation but overlooked it or deleted it

• The user was added to the site, but no invitation was sent

When a Site Administrator or System Administrator is alerted to this type of issue, it is recommended that these steps be followed:

1. The Site Administrator should confirm that an invitation was sent, by looking at the User admin page for the site in question:

If there is no record of an invitation having been sent, then the Site Administrator can initiate sending an invitation from this page. 

2. If the invitation was sent, the Site Administrator should confirm that the email address entered for the user is accurate and does not contain any mistakes. Hover over the user's name in the "Users" admin page to reveal the user's email address.  A System Administrator can also confirm a user's email address from the User admin page in the System Admin module (access required). If the email address is incorrect:

   1. If there is a mistake in the email prefix, a System Administrator can access the user's profile (access required) and change the prefix. Then another invitation can be sent by the Site Administrator from the User admin page. 

   2. If the mistake involves the email domain, determine whether the domain is accurate or not. If the domain is not accurate and there is no other email domain associated with that organisation, the System Administrator can: (a) create a new email domain for that organisation, (b) change the domain in the user's email address from the user's profile page, and then (c) archive the incorrect domain (access required) so that no one can select it in the future. Then another invitation can be sent by the Site Administrator from the "Users" admin page.  

3. If the email address was entered correctly, the Site Administrator should attempt to send another invitation from the "Users" admin page.  Then the Site Administrator can follow up with the user to determine whether the invitation was received.

4. If the email invitation is still not received, it is likely that the email invitation has been caught in the user's spam filter. The Site Administrator should ask the user to check their spam folder for the email.

   1. If the email is found there, the user will be able to activate their account. If the user works for a company and is using a corporate email address, the System Administrator should reach out to an IT administrator at the company and request that emails from the firm's instance of Collaborate be whitelisted in the receiving company's email system. This will ensure that future emails sent to the company will not be caught in the spam filter.

   2. If the email is not found in the spam folder, emails from Collaborate may be blocked at a higher level by a corporate spam filter. In that case, the System Administrator can ask the receiving company's IT department to investigate. In this case, it is also useful to ask the receiving company to ensure that emails from the firm's instance of Collaborate be whitelisted in the company's email system.

5. If the issue has still not been resolved, the System Administrator can access the login page for that user from the User admin page of the System Admin module. Locate the user using the search function, then right-click on the link across from the user's name and in the "Reset password link" column and copy the URL for the login page, as described here (access required).  The System Administrator can email this link to the login page directly to the user, who can use the link to activate their account.  However, other emails sent by Collaborate also may not reach the user.