Use SendGrid

We highly recommend SendGrid as your email solution. It's flexible, provides valuable feedback, and you can upgrade it 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 to configure this if your SMTP provider requires outgoing email to send from your domain. In the Platform, edit the following on your Domain record:

• Email Domain: This is the base domain(s) that emails come 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 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 occur immediately, and any new Messages are handled at the time they send.

What does the Proxy Email do?

When you create an email and the From email address is not in the specified domain, the email sends from the proxy email address and the original email address becomes the Reply To. This means outgoing email comes from your domain rather than a third-party domain.

Watch What You Send

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

• 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 opt out 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 you must set up and secure. 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: An easy-to-use tool that generates SPF records.
  • http://mxtoolbox.com/spf.aspx: A tool that can look up your domain DNS information and report SPF information. This tool also conducts a number of tests against your SPF information and reports any issues it finds.
• 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