Use SendGrid

We highly recommend SendGrid as your email solution. It's flexible, provides valuable feedback, and can be upgraded to use a dedicated IP or domain authentication.

Configure A Proxy Email

Some email services may reject emails where the sender's domain doesn't match the organization's domain (for example, if a volunteer with a gmail.com email address uses the Send Group Email option). So, we recommend that a SPoC set up the proxy email feature. This sets a standard From email address but still allows all replies to go to the original sender's email address.

There are two places this should be configured if your SMTP provider requires outgoing email to be from your domain. In the Platform, edit the following on your Domain record:

• Email Domain – This should be the base domain(s) that emails are coming from. For example, if your church's email addresses look like name@church.domain, then your Email Domain would be "church.domain". You can add as many email domains as needed, with each one on a separate line in this field.
  Note: This should be the email domain(s) you have configured in SendGrid.
• Email Proxy From Address – This is the email address from your domain to use when senders have emails in a different domain.

Changes take place immediately, and any new Messages are handled at the time they are sent.

What does the Proxy Email do?

When email is created and the from email address is not in the specified domain, the email is sent from the proxy email address instead, with the original email address moved to the Reply To. This means outgoing email will come from your domain rather than a third-party domain.

Watch What You Send

There are some rules of thumb for avoiding the SPAM Bucket:

• Never send images only.
• When sending HTML emails, always include a text version. (Some Email Service Providers do this for you.)
• Avoid SPAM words in the Subject line, like "Free", "Prize", "Sign Up", and so on.
• Always make it clear how to unsubscribe or stop receiving these emails. Use templates or snippets to help users include this easily.
• Always include the street address in the footer of the email to maintain your legitimacy. Use templates or snippets to help users include this easily.

Implement Email Security

There are some things that just have to be set up and secured. Email Security is one of them. There are several technologies that can help ensure the security of your email, domain, and sending infrastructure:

• DKIM – DomainKeys Identified Mail
• Sender Policy Framework – You generate a special key and update the dns for the affected domain with information that identifies authorized sources of email.
  • http://www.spfwizard.net – Tool that generates SPF records that is easy to use.
  • http://mxtoolbox.com/spf.aspx – Tool that can lookup your domain dns info and report SPF information. This tool also conducts a number of tests against your SPF information and report any found issues.
• Make sure the following email addresses exist in your domain. They can all point to the same mailbox, but some ISP’s / SPAM tools test against these.
  • abuse@domain.com
  • postmaster@domain.com
  • webmaster@domain.com
  • hostmaster@domain.com