Dear HarmonySite administrator,

As you may have heard, Google/Gmail, Yahoo and others have recent tightened up their requirements for allowing emails through their spam filters.  In other words, more and more emails you send from your HarmonySite are going to get moved to spam folders, unless you make some changes to the way you send your emails.

Your HarmonySite account already has all the required technical protocols in place:  SPF, DKIM and DMARC.  So there's nothing you need to do there.  However you will likely need to make some changes to your email-sending practices...

In short:  Aways ensure that the FROM address of the emails you send is an "official" email address, not a personal email address.

To explain:  Let's say your group is called "Prestige Choir", and your domain name is prestigechoir.com.  The guideline above says that you should always send emails FROM email addresses such as president@prestigechoir.com or marketing@prestigechoir.com, and NOT from email addresses like mypersonalemail@gmail.com.

Here's why:  Let's say you DIDN'T do that, and instead sent your HarmonySite email from mypersonalemail@gmail.com.  Then, when it is received by Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc, those systems will see that the email is from a GMAIL address, but it's not coming from a GMAIL email server - it's coming from the HARMONYSITE server.  This is deemed suspicious, and so the email is sent to spam folders - or even bounced back to the sender.

Creating "official" email addresses

So if you wish to send out email addresses, it's a good idea to have an "official" email address to send from.  These are VERY easy to create.  Simply update any "position" (e.g. President, Music Director, Webmaster), and select that the position is to have an email address associated with it...

You would choose either the second or third option.  The third option (POP3 mailbox on the server) gives you the most flexibility, but also requires that the email account owner sets up their email program to receive and send the emails.

If you already have your "official" email addresses set up as forwarders (as most HarmonySites do), then you may want to change most/all of them to proper POP3 mailboxes, and go through the process of setting up each member's email program (see below).

Sending emails via "official" addresses

Once that's set up, there are two ways to send "from" this email address:  (1) from the "Send Email" page on the website, and (2) from the email program/app on their computer or phone.  So let's look at each one...

1. Sending from the "Send Email" page in your HarmonySite:  On that page, presuming you have an "official" email address (forwarder or POP3 mailbox), you can choose which email address you wish to send "from", at the top of the page...
   
   
   

I've just made an adjustment to that page so that your "official" emails are listed first, and your personal email address is listed last, to suggest that it not be used.

2. Sending from your own email program:  If you wish to send from your own email program (e.g. Microsoft Outlook, Mac Mail), you will need to configure that program with the email account details.  To find those details, visit your Admin Dashboard, then click the link on the "Email" line, in the centre column, called "Email Addresses and Mailing Lists".  Then look for this link...
   
   
   
   

Note that it's very important that these mailboxes be set up as POP, not IMAP.  If you set these up as IMAP, then at some point in the future, the mailbox will become FULL, and will not be able to receive any further emails.

Sending to Mailing Lists

If you change your practices so that emails are only ever sent from "official" email addresses, then there's nothing more that you need to do.

However, many of your regular members will not have "official" email addresses.  So if you have a "members" mailing list, and allow your regular members to send to it (which is MOST HarmonySite groups), then you'll likely want to make a change to the configuration of each mailing list that regular members are allowed to send to...

1. Ensure you're logged in as an administrator
2. Visit your "Mailing Lists" page
3. Click the "Administer" link to the right of the list in question
4. Click the big link called "Administer this list via external Mailing List Management Console (Mailman)"
5. Find this setting, and change it to "Munge From"...
   
6. Click the "Submit Your Changes" at the bottom of the page.

Repeat for each list that regular members should be able to send to.

HarmonySites that are not yet connected to their main domain name

If your HarmonySite is not yet "launched" (your regular domain name - e.g. prestigechoir.com - is not yet connected to your HarmonySite), then you have a problem.  Sending from an "official" email address won't be any more reliable than sending from a personal email address.  So the sooner your launch your HarmonySite (connect your domain name), the sooner your emails will start being reliably delivered.

If you have any questions about this, please reply to this email.

In harmony,

Mark Virtue

HarmonySite

Australia

+61 2 8005 4277 (Australian number)

In North America, call:  1-415-651-7009 (San Francisco number)

Skype name:  mvirtue

mark@harmonysite.com

www.harmonysite.com