Setting up Sending domains for Showpad

More and more, organizations are implementing more stringent security protocols in order to protect confidential data. In many cases, it is preferable for shares to come from a domain that is specific to the person who is sending the message instead of the default share@showpad.com address. If buyers reply to the sharing email, you also want it to be redirected to the user's company email address.

In Showpad’s Online Platform, you can set this up using 

• Default Domains
• A Custom Global Sending Domain

When using Default Domains, cooperate with your IT department if terms like CNAME, DNS, SPF, DKIM, and MX settings sound unfamiliar. This requires changes to the existing email domain settings.

A Custom Sending Domain is used when IT security settings prevent an organization from setting up shares to send from users' email addresses because it requires making changes to the company's DNS settings. In these cases, Showpad allows you to set up a Custom Sending Domain manually and validate it for external sharing purposes.

This article describes how you can set up Default Domains and a Custom Sending Domain for your organization.

Note: Cooperate with your IT department to add the sending domain configurations to your domain settings.

Key features

• Let users send out share emails using their company email address
• Make share emails for prospects more personal
• Share emails are less classified as spam
• Allow a Custom Sending Domain

You need this to succeed

• Available on all Showpad plans
• Showpad Admin access
• A domain that will be shown as the sender for shares

The quick way to awesomeness

• Validate your domain to avoid abuse.
• Validation requires setting up DNS records. This depends on the chosen verification method. It can be TXT, MX, SPF, DKIM, or TXT, CNAME records.
• In the Custom Global Sending Domain section, set up a configuration for a custom domain
• Add the domains manually and validate, just like regular domain validation
• These custom domains can be used as a replacement for the existing email addresses domain, and the reply-to address will always be the user’s real email address

Do this step by step

• Settings
• Using a Custom Global Sending Domain
• Using Default Domain details
• Most common issues

Settings

Go to the Online Platform, Admin Settings, and Sending Domains.

Here, you have the option to choose between sending from the Showpad domain or from your users' company email addresses.

If you select Always use Showpad, all emails are sent via the default Showpad share@showpad.com address.

If you select Use a verified (custom) domain, only users who have sending domains configured are able to send emails from their own addresses. The other users will use share@showpad.com, or, if configured, a Custom Sending Domain email address.

Custom Global Sending Domain

1. Click Add Configuration under Custom Global Sending Domain.
2. Enter the domain that you want shares to send from. You will need to choose whether to verify the settings with SPF/DKIM or CNAME records.
3. Once the configuration has been set on the mail server, press Verify Now.
4. When the verification status button is green, the custom sending domain will be used. Otherwise, it will default to sending from share@showpad.com. When there are errors, hover over the error for further details.

Note: If you have multiple Showpad organizations authorized in your DNS records to use the same Sending Domain, the configuration and verification status of the Sending Domain will be propagated in all the authorized organizations.

Using Default Domain details

1. To set up the Default Domain, we need to find the configuration settings in Showpad's Online Platform. These details are necessary for your IT department to configure the sending domains because it requires making changes to the company's DNS settings.
2. Most likely you will already see a list of different sending domains you can configure. The domains you see here are automatically added, based on the email addresses of the users you added to the Online Platform.
   For example, when you create a user with test.user@myorganization.com as email address, it will automatically add myorganization.com as a domain name in this list. The domains in the screenshot were added as an example. Select the Configuration button to see the current keys and values.

• DKIM is a signing key for the message which proves that content was not altered by any server along the way.
• SPF and SenderID allow a domain owner to add a file or record on the server that the recipient server cross-checks. This so-called Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an email validation protocol designed to detect and block email spoofing and verifies that incoming mail from a domain comes from an IP Address authorized by the domain administrator.
• An extra mandatory permission (TXT) record is for verification. The TXT record is unique for each Showpad instance and ensures that no other Showpad instance will be able to send from your domain. Checking if the TXT Value is added to your company's DNS records is the first step in the verification process and is the authorization needed to verify a Sending Domain in your organization.

Note: Adding the MX record is strongly encouraged to prevent internal sharing problems and is extra security against being marked as spam.

Verification for SPF, DKIM, and MX (for SPF configuration) or CNAMEs (for CNAME configuration) is necessary to make sending domains work.
Select the Verify Now button to verify your domain.

Provide these details to your IT team and let them implement the changes on your company's domain settings. You can download a Zone file that contains the configuration in a single file.

Note: Depending on the domain configuration, it can take up to 24 hours before DNS changes are visible.

Most common issues

We provide this helpful checklist in case the indicators are red.

• Confirm with your IT team that the sending domains have been configured on the company's domain side.
• Depending on your domain registrar, adding your own domain to the DNS records is not necessary as this doesn't create valid records for the sending domains to work.
  • Sometimes copying the value will automatically add your own domain to the DNS record, which will cause a double paste of the domain, seen in this example:
    •  input: "showpad-verification.example.com"
      result: "showpad-verification.example.com.example.com"
    • If you notice a double domain, simply delete the extra and the DNS setting will work properly.
• The timespan of the changes to the DNS settings can take up to 24h to fully populate. That's the maximum time needed for all servers to know the changed records. We advise you to wait and try to verify the settings again on the next day.
• Make sure you have not forgotten to add Showpad to the keys of your settings. For example, it can happen that the configuration was set in place for myorganization.com instead of showpad.myorganization.com
• Make sure there are no extra spaces or missing letters in the settings. We advise copy-pasting keys and values to make sure everything is correct.
• DMARC should be set to Relaxed. If the DKIM and SPF records are correct, the DMARC can also be set to Reject. 
• In cases where SPF/DKIM or the m1 selector cannot be used, you can choose a custom selector. This only works for the CNAME configuration type. If you type sp1 into the Selector field, for example, the key/value pairs should update and show new CNAME records.