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Sending emails out with your domain

kenji
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By default, Lineup sends out all email communications from messages@lineupteams.com. We offer the ability to send from your own domain (e.g. if you're with Acme Inc. and want to send emails from @acme.com, we can set that up for you).

Please note: currently, we support only a single, domain-specific email address to replace "messages@lineupteams.com."

Setting this up requires some work on our end and collaboration with your IT team to configure our DNS for DKIM and DMARC authentication (which is a fancy way of allowing us to send email on your behalf without it looking suspicious).

This documentation covers everything you need to know (or to pass on to your IT team) to get you up and running.

 

What Lineup needs to do

Step one is to let us know that you'd like to go down this route. There are some things that we'll need to configure with our mail service to add your domain as a sending domain. Reach out to your Lineup sales rep or create a ticket here to get started.

After that, most of the heavy lifting will be on your end as you enable DKIM and SPF email authentication for your domain. 

 

What the client needs to do

Set up DKIM authentication

To setup DKIM authentication, you will need to add a two CNAME records with your DNS provider.

  • First record:
    • Name: mte1._domainkey.example.com
    • Value: dkim1.mandrillapp.com
  • Second record:
    • Name: mte2._domainkey.example.com
    • Value: dkim2.mandrillapp.com 

Replace "example.com" with the domain you're setting up.

 

Set up DMARC

In addition to DKIM, you are required to set up a DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) policy. This is a method of email authentication that helps identify that the email you send is from the real you. It helps protect both senders and recipients from activities like phishing, spamming, and spoofing.

DMARC uses DKIM to evaluate the authenticity of email messages. When both DMARC and DKIM are set up correctly, you can send an email via Lineup.

We only require that you have a DMARC policy; it can be set with p=none in relaxed mode, which indicates that email that fails should be delivered normally.

In your Domain’s DNS settings, add a TXT record named _dmarc.yourdomain.com (Substitute yourdomain.com with the domain name you are authenticating. Note that some domain hosts automatically add the domain name after _dmarc, so make sure it doesn't appear twice.)

In the TXT record value, use v=DMARC1; p=none; at minimum. For more information on setting up DMARC, see Google’s example for How to Add Your DMARC Record.

 

Verify Domain

There's one more TXT record that you'll need to create in your domain's DNS records. This value is different for each domain, and you'll need to reach out to Lineup Support if we have no already received it.

It begins to mandrill_verify and ends with some random numbers and letters.

There's one more TXT record that you'll need to create in your domain's DNS records. This value is different for each domain, and you'll need to reach out to Lineup Support if we have no already received it.

 

SPF Configuration

Configuring SPF (Sender Policy Framework) for your domain is optional, but recommended for better email deliverability. 

SPF is a DNS record that tells mail servers which services are allowed to send email on behalf of your domain. A correctly configured SPF record can improve email deliverability and reduce the chances that messages sent through Lineup end up in spam or quarantine.

A good general explanation of SPF is available in Mailchimp’s article on Sender Policy Framework. In their example, they authorize Mailchimp’s sending service by adding an entry such as: include:spf.mandrillapp.com 

You can use a tool like MXToolbox to look up your current SPF record and see which services are already authorized for your domain. If your SPF record does not include the services you actually use to send email (for example, Mandrill/Mailchimp or other providers), receiving mail servers may flag those messages as suspicious.

For reference, Lineup’s own SPF record looks like this:

v=spf1 a:dispatch-us.ppe-hosted.com include:spf.protection.outlook.com include:mail.zendesk.com include:spf.mandrillapp.com include:spf.autopilothq.com include:sendgrid.net include:secureserver.net -all 

Your organization’s record will be different, but your IT team can use this as an example of how multiple trusted sending services are combined into a single SPF record.

References:

 

Contact Lineup Support

Once you have configured all three TXT files, please reach out to Lineup support again. We'll verify that the SPF and DKIM settings are valid and your domain is verified, and you should be all set.

 

Select an email address

Currently, we can support a single, domain-specific email address (we have plans to update this later on). Please include in your final support ticket the email address that you would like all of your emails to be sent from. We recommend setting up a shared mailbox on your domain to handle this.

 

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