Agents in ZeptoMail

An Agent in ZeptoMail is used to segment the outgoing transactional emails based on their purpose, application, type and more. This ensures separate channels for each category, ensuring better management and organization. You can associate one or more domains to each Agent for sending out emails.

Create an Agent

By default an Agent will be created during the account creation process. To create additional Agents, follow the instructions below:

1. Log in to your ZeptoMail account.
2. Click the Add Agent icon near Agents in the left panel. 
   
   
    
3. The Add Agent pop-up appears.
4. Provide the Agent Name, Domain, and Description for the new Agent. You can associate multiple domains with an Agent.
   
   
    
5. Click Add to create the new Agent.

Sections of an Agent

Each Agent has multiple sections to help you manage sending, domains and tracking. 

Agent setting

The Agent setting section comprises the following:

• IP restriction
• Suppression list
• Sending limits
• Shutdown an Agent

IP restriction list

IP restriction allows you to add those IPs from where transactional emails are sent. This provides an additional security layer in case your send mail token is inadvertently compromised and prevents unauthorized parties from sending email through your account. To add to the list :

1. Click Add IPs.
   
   
    
2. You can either add individual IP addresses or a range.
   
   
    
3. Click Add.
4. You will be required to validate your identity, post which the IP will be added to the list. 

Suppression list

The suppression list contains those addresses for which you no longer wish to send any emails and those that you do not wish to track anymore. Apart from email addresses, you can also suppress email-sending to whole domain. You can add the email addresses or domains specific to Agents to this list. To do so:

1. Go to the Suppression list section in Agent settings.
2. Choose whether you wish to add the email address or domain from the tab at the top.
   
   
    
3. Enter the email address or domain you wish to suppress. Enter the reason for the suppression.
4. Confirm the selection using the Add button.
5. The email address or domain will be added to the list.

Sending limits

You can set limits on the number of emails sent from your Agents, based on your usage. This helps you monitor and control your outgoing emails according to your business needs. You can configure individual sending limits for each Agent too. The limit you set will automatically reset at 12am server time each day. To add an email limit:

1. Go to the Agent settings section. 
   
   
    
2. Select Sending limit.
3. Enter the desired limit for that Agent. Save the limit.

If the number of outgoing email exceeds the set limit:

• For API users, the email will not be processed and you will receive a SM_151 error in your console.
• For SMTP users, your email will be accepted by ZeptoMail servers, but will not be sent out to your recipients. The email will have a Process failed status.

The Settings section lists all the limits set for a ZeptoMail account. You can add, edit or delete the limits from there too. This help page gives you more information on email limit actions in the Settings section. 

Blocked Agent

In some cases, your outgoing emails may bounce or be marked as spam. When this happens, the Agent or domain responsible for most of these emails will be temporarily blocked. You can view the list of blocked Agents or domains in the left pane. This is done to protect your sending reputation and prevent further delivery issues. Agent blocking also help our team identify the cause of the problem and assist you in resolving it effectively. 

Click More details to view the blocked Agent(s) or domain(s) along with the steps you can take to prevent further blocking. 

You can take the following mitigation to secure your Agent and reduce the chances of further bounces or spam: 

• Regenerate the API token— A compromised token can be misused by bad actors to send spam. Generating a new token ensures your Agent remains secure.
• Add IP restrictions— Restrict your Agent to trusted IP addresses. This ensures emails are triggered only from authorized sources. 

To unblock your Agent or domain, submit a feedback form with the suspected reason for bounce/spam along with the mitigation measures you have carried out. Our team will review the information and unblock your Agent or domain after verification. 

Shutdown and Delete an Agent

You can delete the Agents that you no longer use. To delete the Agent, you should first initiate a shut down process, which will go on for 45 days. During this period, your Agent will not be operable, i.e., no emails will be sent out from it. Only the pre-existing data like email logs and reports will be available. Once the shutdown period is over, the Agent and its related information will be completely deleted. Only Postmaster has the permission to perform the deletion operation. 

Here are a list of things to keep in mind before initiating the Agent shutdown process:

• Once the shutdown of an Agent is initiated, the process and the associated actions cannot be reverted.
• After initiating the shutdown process, emails cannot be sent using API or SMTP from the Agent.
• All actions performed by the Agent such as scheduled emails, tracking, webhooks triggering, etc., will be blocked immediately once the shutdown is initiated.
• After shutdown, processed email logs and reports will remain till the deletion of the Agent.
• Once the Agent is deleted, all information corresponding to the Agent except the associated domains will be deleted irreversibly.

Steps to initiate the shutdown process:

1. Log in to ZeptoMail account.
2. Launch the Agents section from the left panel.
3. Select the Agent you want to delete.
4. On top right corner click on Agent setting.
5. Click Shutdown Agent
   
   
    
6. In the Shutdown Initiation popup, agree to proceed and click Shutdown.
7. You will be required to validate your identity in order to shutdown your Agent. Once validated, it will be deleted.

The Agent will be permanently deleted after the completion of 45 days from the shutdown initiation period. 

Points to remember

• All the domains you add can be associated to a single Agent or multiple Agents.
• The domain should be verified to send transactional emails from it.
• You can use different domains for sending different types of transactional emails from the same Agent. This is purely based on your sending requirements.
  • Example: The company Zylker sends two types of transactional emails - Daily reports and account alerts from the same Agent. It uses the sub-domain reports.zylker.com for daily reports and alerts.zylker.com for account alerts. Both these verified sub-domains are part of the same Agent.
• However, you can also send different emails using different Agents. For instance, Zylker can use Agent 1 to send welcome emails and Agent 2 to send daily reports. Agent 1 will have the sub-domain info.zylker.com added to it. Agent 2 will have alerts.zylker.com sub-domain added to it.
• ZeptoMail does not support certain formats of in-line images and attachments. Click here to view the list of unsupported formats.