Email Usage Reports - Read and Receive

Hi AndrewYates82,

I tried to find official documentation about your question but wasn't able to find it, ( sorry ). Let's see if someone else get it.

In the meantime, let me share with you some points:

. Outlook and OWA mark messages read when they are selected. So read status doesn’t always mean a human has looked at the message.

. The Receive status is basically the output of the Exchange Event. So, if a message was successfully delivered to the user mailbox. 

. A message could also have a duplicate deliver event if, for example, it was sent to the user and to a group in which the user is also a member.

. The action that logs the read action in Exchange is "MessageBind", (An item is accessed in the reading pane or opened). https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/policy-and-compliance/mailbox-audit-logging/mailbox-audit-logging?view=exchserver-2019

. A message can have more than one access item log, as for example, the same message could be accessed by the mailbox owner and by the delegate/s. 

. Opening a message and actioning a message are two different things. Someone might open your message, but it doesn’t mean they’ve done what you want them to do, (for example replied, clicked a link, filled out a form, etc).

More info:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow/transport-logs/transport-logs?view=exchserver-2019

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/policy-and-compliance/mailbox-audit-logging/mailbox-audit-logging?view=exchserver-2019

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow/transport-logs/message-tracking?view=exchserver-2019

Hope this helps.