Our platform uses SendGrid as its bulk emailing service, which means all emails sent from our platform will run through SendGrid and be delivered by SendGrid servers.
Due to the high levels of email spam these days, you should add an SPF rule to your custom domain name to avoid having platform emails blocked/bounced by recipient email servers.
Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an email authentication standard developed by AOL that compares the email sender’s IP address to a list of IP addresses authorized to send mail from that domain. The IP list is published in the domain’s DNS record.
If SendGrid is not included in your SPF record, you will probably receive email bounces regarding authentication issues.
Adding an SPF entry onto your web domain
To add an SPF record, you need to log into the administration area of your web domain or DNS provider's website.
You may need to search the knowledge base of your web domain registrar for details on how to add an SPF record - for example, Namecheap.
A quick Google search for "add SPF record <your registrar name>" should find you the help document for your specific registrar.
Once you have found the area in the admin site that lets you add DNS records to your custom domain, you need to include a SendGrid reference.
If you do not have an SPF record for your domain, you must create a TXT record with the value:
v=spf1 include:sendgrid.net ~allModifying an existing SPF entry to include SendGrid
Already have an SPF record for your domain?
No problem. You need to add the SendGrid onto your existing record.
For example, if your record looks like this:
v=spf1 a mx include:_spf.google.com include:spf.protection.outlook.com ~all
UndefYou need to add include:sendgrid.net at the end of the string before the ~all mechanism, like so:
v=spf1 a mx include:_spf.google.com include:spf.protection.outlook.com include:sendgrid.net ~all
Make sure that you save/apply your SPF record changes.
Once this is done, the number of email bounces/blocks you experience when sending emails from our platform should be negligible.
If you have issues with emails not being delivered, then be sure to contact our support team.
SendGrid Domain Authentication (DKIM)
For maximum confidence that the emails sent from our platform will be delivered to your users and clients, we highly recommend adding SendGrid domain authentication to the domain you use to send emails from our platform.
Domain Authentication, formerly known as Domain Whitelabel, is Twilio SendGrid's process for domain setup and setting the DNS entries that grant us permission to send emails on your behalf.
We'll automate the setup of your SendGrid domain for regular users on our platform. WaaS and Enterprise Toolkit users will need to create an account with SendGrid and then provide a Domain Name, Username, and API Key.
| Only user accounts with VendorAdmin/EnterpriseAdmin user permissions will see the SendGrid Domain Authentication settings. |
The process for setting up Sendgrid for our Enterprise users is similar to the process for WaaS/Enterprise Toolkit clients, but it's different enough that we've described each separately under its own section below.
- Setting up Sendgrid for Enterprise Users
- Setting up Sendgrid for WaaS/Enterprise Toolkit Users
Setting up Sendgrid for Enterprise Users
For Enterprise customers, i.e., regular users who don't have add-on services like WaaS or Enterprise Toolkit linked to their accounts, this is the process you follow to configure SendGrid in your account.
For this configuration, you will not be required to have your own SendGrid account; your domain will be validated under our system account. |
Go to "Admin -> Organization Setup -> Integrations (at the top of the screen)" on our secure web portal.
Click the "Add Domain" link in this section to open the "Add Domain" modal window, as shown in the screenshot below.
Enter the domain you wish to have verified on SendGrid. It will return a list of domain entries you need to add to your domain's DNS (image below). At this point, you can also add your own 'BIMI' image.
BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) is a new industry standard for increasing inbox security. It allows you to add a logo to your emails so recipients can quickly identify your messages and trust that you sent them. SendGrid does not set up the BIMI image and is not required to do so, but if configured, it will improve email deliverability.
Adding these DNS entries may require you to involve your IT or hosting provider.
Once you've added the DNS entries to your domain's DNS servers, click the **"Verify"** button in the screenshot above to check your domain's configuration automatically. If the checks return successfully, then our platform has verified your domain, and your clients and users should have no issues receiving emails sent from our platform.
DNS entries can take 2 - 48 hours to take effect, so please give it some time if the verification isn't immediately successful. |
Keep checking back after you've made your DNS changes to verify if they have been implemented. If our platform detects that your DNS changes have been implemented correctly, your domain status will change to "Verified", and you are done with the configuration.
Setting up SendGrid for WaaS/Enterprise Toolkit Users
For WaaS and Enterprise Toolkit customers, we've added the option to link your own SendGrid account and add your own sub-user accounts to your SendGrid configuration.
If your account has WaaS or Enterprise Toolkit, you will be required to have your own SendGrid account before proceeding. |
Go to Admin -> Organization Setup -> Integrations on our secure web portal and find the SendGrid Email Service section. You'll notice that this section has an additional field, "EmailServiceApiKey."
- This allows you to add your SendGrid API key so that all emails from our platform fully utilize your SendGrid account.
Click the "Add Domain" link in this section to open the "Add Domain" modal window, as shown in the screenshot below.
Enter the domain you wish to have verified on SendGrid. It will return a list of domain entries you need to add to your domain's DNS and a valid SendGrid sub-username should you wish to link this domain to a sub-user account on SendGrid (image below).
| Domain authentication for a sub-user client requires a username.** The username can be found in your SendGrid account under SendGrid > Settings > Subuser Management. |
You can also add an image for **BIMI** support. BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) is a new industry standard for increasing inbox security. It allows you to add a logo to your emails so recipients can quickly identify your messages and trust that you sent them.
SendGrid does not set up the BIMI image and is not required to do so, but if configured, it will improve email deliverability.
Adding these DNS entries may require you to involve your IT or hosting provider. The article details the process with some of the more popular hosting providers.
Once you've added the DNS entries to your domain's DNS servers, click the **"Verify"** button in the screenshot above to check your domain's configuration automatically. If the checks return successfully, then our platform has verified your domain, and your clients and users should have no issues receiving emails sent from our platform.
DNS entries can take 2 - 48 hours to take effect, so please give it some time if the verification doesn't happen immediately. |
Keep checking back after you've made your changes in DNS to verify if the changes have been implemented (you will need to click the "Verify" button each time you want our platform to check if your DNS changes have taken effect). If our platform detects that your DNS changes have been implemented correctly, your domain status will change to "Verified", and you are done with the configuration.