Introduction

Email sender domains are used primarily for sending platform email notifications and handling user self-registrations. 
For example, with the email sender domain company.com you can send out email notifications from any sender address ending in @company.com. 

Before you can use an email sender domain in this way, it has to be configured in the Domain management settings area of the platform, as described in this article.

Remember that sender addresses ending in @docebo.com can no longer be used. You always need to use a properly configured email sender domain instead. For more information and a full list of where email senders are used in the platform, see the Community update on Changes to the email sender policy (opens in a new tab).

Prerequisites

Domain name:

You must own the domain name that you want to use for emails. Typically this is done through your registration provider or corporate IT department. 

• An email sender domain can be between 2nd and 5th level. 
• An example of a 2nd level domain is yourcompany.com. An example of a 3rd level domain is learning.mybrand.com.
  The corresponding email addresses would end in @yourcompany.com and @learning.mybrand.com.
• Do not reuse your custom domain or any of your secondary domains as an email domain, as the required DNS configurations may conflict. We recommend choosing a different, but related, domain name for emails. 

Mailboxes:

If you want to receive replies to the emails you send out  you will also (again through your provider or IT department) have to create the mailbox or mailboxes that you intend to use for sending emails from the platform. For example, updates@mybrand.com or notifications@learning.mybrand.com.
You can do this after the domain configurations described in this article.

→If you do not require replies, you just need to configure your email sender domain, after which you can use any sender address under that domain (eg <anysender>@yourdomain.com.). 

Adding an email sender domain

You can add up to 500 email sender domains to the platform. These are used for sending platform notifications and self-registration purposes, either using the internal email sender or an external SMTP server.

1. Select Admin menu > SETTINGS > Domain management.
2. Select the Email sender domains tab to see the list of already-configured email sender domains. 
3. Click the green plus icon in the top right corner and select New email sender domain. 
4. In the panel, enter the email sender domain you have acquired (eg mybrand.com) and click Create and edit.
5. Now in the General tab you can choose whether to use the Built-in email service or a Custom email sender for sending out emails from your custom domain. The following sections provide instructions for each option.

Built-in email service:

If you select the Built-in email service,  you will see SPF Record, DKIM and MX Record information displayed on the screen. You will need to copy all these settings and add them to the DNS configuration of your email domain. 

• Typically DNS servers are provided by your domain registrar, your hosting provider or they are self-hosted on your corporate network. If you are unsure how to edit DNS records you may need to contact your provider or IT department for further assistance. 

For more information, see also the article Domain management: DNS configuration requirements > Email domains.

When adding a DNS record, please allow for adequate time to pass in order for the record to properly propagate before testing your domain. Also, if you are changing an existing record, please allow the TTL (Time to Live) of the old record to pass before attempting to use the updated record

Once you have done this, and allowed enough time for the new DNS settings to propagate, you can come back to this page and click Test DNS configuration to check that it's all working:

• If the test fails, this could be due to misconfiguration in your DNS settings. For example, missing DKIM records in your DNS settings can also cause the validation to fail. In that case your emails would still be sent and received but they would not be sent with the DKIM header, certifying them as authentic, and could be marked as spam on the recipient end.

Best practice: You should always add the necessary SPF, DKIM and MX records to your DNS settings, not doing so can cause your emails to either be marked as spam or be rejected by the receiving email server altogether. 
Docebo is not in a position to investigate and provide support for email notifications delivery issues when the platform is using a sender domain without SPF, DKIM and MX records.

Custom SMTP option: 

→ Note that the custom SMTP server option is available only if you have the Custom SMTP app activated on your platform. Without this app, emails are always sent out using the Built-in email service option.

If you choose to use an external provider, by selecting the Custom SMTP server option, you will need to enter the following information of your SMTP provider:

• SMTP Username
• SMTP Password
• SMTP Host address
• The SMTP host's port

Under SMTP encryption: Select TLS (transport layer security) if your external host uses SSL/TLS encryption. Otherwise, if your external host uses StartTLS encryption, select StartTLS.
→ Customers using Microsoft365 services as their external email sender should select StartTLS.
→ The platform always uses encryption to communicate with your external email sender

When you are finished, click the Test Connection button to check the SMTP settings of your custom email sender. Then click Save changes.
→  If you want to do or repeat the “Test connection” after saving changes you will have to re-enter the SMTP password. Alternatively, to test the connection without re-entering the password, from the list of email sender domains, click the ellipsis icon alongside your domain and select Check validation.

Finally, to ensure that your emails will be reliably delivered, you must also make sure the SMTP account configured as custom sender is authorized to send emails on behalf of the address configured at the notification/send email level (eg noreply@myemaildomain.it).
For this, you will need to check with your SMTP provider for the necessary configurations to achieve this.

SMTP provider limits
Some SMTP services place a limit on the number of messages that can be sent out at the same time, on the number of recipients per day, and so forth. If a notification comes up against these limits it may fail to be delivered to some recipients. 
To ensure reliability and performance of email delivery, make sure that your SMTP provider can effectively handle the email volume of your platform. Email volume is influenced by factors such as the number and frequency of notifications triggered and the number of recipients per notification.
- using Microsoft 365 SMTP is not the best solution with a high volume of notifications/emails

Managing  email sender domains

When you select Admin menu > SETTINGS > Domain management, the Email sender domains tab shows you the list of email sender domains already configured in the platform.

Click the ellipsis icon on any row to access the available actions for that domain:

• Check validation will test the DNS configuration, in the case of a domain using the built-in email sender, or it will test the Connection in the case of a custom SMTP sender. 
• Edit will open up the settings of that email sender domain. See the chapter Adding an email sender domain for an explanation of the configuration.
• Delete will remove the email sender domain from the platform. If you do this, any emails (such as notifications, newsletters, or self-registration confirmations) that used that domain for the sender will no longer be delivered.

You can also click the plus icon in the top right corner to create a new email sender domain.