I am being told that the info you were sent is not completely correct and reflect the current status (a limit of 45) while an issue is being worked on. I suggested that they give your rep something official and more informative to send you. Hopefully they send an update soon.
Original Message:
Sent: 04-30-2026 09:35
From: Michael Cammer
Subject: iLab disables Message Customers feature
I understand the problem with people ignoring the emails from Agilent.
But this is a problem on the users' side. We tell them that they need to pay attention to these emails.
We provide notice of instrument shutdowns, service, new features, changes in billing, etc. via the iLab messaging system. We tell users that they need to pay attention to these messages. If they miss something, it's their fault. We give notice; if they refuse to read the notices, then this is their problem, not ours.
Messaging is a key feature which led to the purchase of iLab here.
Every time we need to send an group email, we are not going to create a report, move it to Excel, remove duplicates, concatenate a ";" on each email address, and then paste into Outlook. We would need to do this every time we need to send a message because new users are constantly being added and sometimes we only need to send messages to people who used the equipment in the last two weeks and sometimes its two years.
Also, we get tons of undelivered message errors back when we do this. A feature sorely missing from iLab's database is a field and checkbox called "Gone", a simple binary which would stop people who are gone from the institution or our core from being sent emails.
Cheers-
Michael Cammer, Sr Research Scientist, DART Microscopy Laboratory
NYU Langone Health, 540 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Office: RB (formerly Skirball) 4-102 -- call if door is locked (phone near elevators)
Office: 646-501-0567 Cell (voice only, not text): 914-309-3270 Michael.Cammer@med.nyu.edu
http://nyulmc.org/micros http://microscopynotes.com/
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Original Message:
Sent: 4/30/2026 9:16:00 AM
From: Tom McHugh
Subject: RE: iLab disables Message Customers feature
Thank you for sharing this information. I was unaware.
I don't generally send messages to large lists of people from iLab as they are too easily banished to someone's Junk folder or simly easy to ignore. Being that the communications come from Agilent or iLab and not my work email address.
I typically use the reporting feature to set a date range, export to xls and then create a mailing list in OutLook or Constant Contact for emails to larger groups. Again, because my emails from in the system weren't really reaching people as reliably as I would have liked.
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Tom McHugh
Director, Research Cores Administration
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Baltimore MD
Original Message:
Sent: 04-29-2026 09:03
From: Michael Cammer
Subject: iLab disables Message Customers feature
Anyone who uses iLab and have more than 45 customers in the database needs to be aware of this new policy.
iLab is supposed to be one complete customer database to meet our needs.
Throttling emails contacts to any number smaller than our complete customer list removes a key function we rely on. The appropriate size of a recipient group is based on each message. Sometimes this is five. Sometimes this is 300.
They offered to determine the best setup for our use case and said that they would be happy to assist. We already know this. Being able to email up to the number of every customer who used any of our services in the last three years is precisely why we purchased iLab.
Even worse, we were not notified of this change so we wasted hours with their service ticketing system, where you have to wait overnight for a response. And then they lectured us on how to communicate with our customers. What they really said here is that their product cannot email more than a few people at a time and they are not interested in correcting this.
From Agilent:
Hi Michael,
As part of recent improvements to how system emails are handled, we have standardized the maximum number of recipients per message to 45. This change was made to ensure consistent delivery, better performance, and a more usable experience as message volume and platform usage continue to grow. From a practical standpoint, this brings a few benefits, as noted below:
- Keeping recipient counts within this range helps avoid delays or dropped messages, especially during peak usage.
- Messages are delivered more quickly and consistently when sent to appropriately sized recipient groups.
- Targeted notifications reduce inbox noise and make it easier for recipients to act on messages.
- This approach allows the system to scale without degrading performance for all users.
For cases where you need to notify a broader audience, we recommend using a shared distribution list or group email address, which provides the same visibility while keeping delivery reliable.
Please let us know if you would like help determining the best setup for your use case and we will be happy to assist.
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Michael Cammer
Sr. Research Scientist
NYU School of Medicine Langone Medical Center
New York NY
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