First Steps after Install

This page lists tasks that we recommend for newly installed systems. The following recommendations apply to On Premise installations of GreenArrow Engine and GreenArrow Studio.

Backups and Monitoring

Having backups in place is critical for system operations. Implementing a solid backup solution should be among the first steps after installing GreenArrow.

Your system administrator should review our documentation for unmanaged backups. We offer a managed backup service if you do not want to take your own backups.

It is also important to monitor your GreenArrow server’s resources periodically. Automated monitoring would be best, but if you don’t have that option then you should periodically check the status of your server’s resources to identify any trends that could result in downtime.

We have published monitoring tests that can be used as examples when setting up a monitoring system.

Available disk space is critical for a healthy system, so be sure to review our disk usage tool documentation for information on how to report GreenArrow’s disk usage.

Set a Retention Period for Statistics

GreenArrow Studio will keep detailed campaign statics indefinetely. Over time disk space required by these statistics will grow which may result in the system running out of disk space. We recommend setting up a retention period consistent with your business needs and your server’s available disk space.

GreenArrow Studio’s data retention page explains the options available.

GreenArrow Engine’s send summaries can also use all the available space if left unchecked. We recommend moving all send summaries to slower disks. This is described in the disk space troubleshooting page.

Receiving Notifications

We recommend forwarding system notifications to an email account that is monitored periodically. The email address where GreenArrow sends notifications can be set by following the instructions here.

You should also add that email address to the root email forwarder on the primary domain. This will ensure that Operating System notifications are read.

Event Notifications and/or Bad Address Suppression

If you are injecting email directly into GreenArrow Engine, then we recommend setting up Event Notifications and updating your subscriber’s information based on the events that Engine generates.

If handling these event is not possible, then at least enable bad address suppression for sending through GreenArrow Engine. Bad Address Suppression is a very limited functionality, so we recommend using it only as a last resort if you aren’t able to use event notifications, or as temporary solution while you implement event notifications.

This guide can help you get started with email injection.