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Authenticate a domain with OpenWater
Authenticate a domain with OpenWater

Learn how to improve email deliverability by using Domain Authentication

Jordan Dain avatar
Written by Jordan Dain
Updated this week

Overview

Domain Authentication is the process in which you authorize OpenWater to send emails using your domain. This mostly applies to OpenWater users that choose to override the Reply-To Address located in System Settings -> Organization Information, or via individual Email Wizard templates. The goal is to reduce the amount of emails sent from OpenWater that end up in Junk or Spam folders.
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OpenWater uses Sendgrid as our third party provider for sending out our emails.

High Level Process:

  1. Override Reply-To Address or Email Wizard Templates

  2. Add domain in OpenWater's Authenticated Domains list

  3. Add domain records to your DNS Provider

  4. Verify the domain in OpenWater


Step by Step Instructions:

  1. First, we're going to navigate to System Settings -> Organization Information in your OpenWater instance. Once there, we need to add the email address we want to send from in the Reply-To Address field. In this example, its "help@getopenwater.com." Once you've entered that, you can click "Save" and refresh your page. This will generate a Warning at the top of the page:
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  2. For the next step, you can either click the link in the Warning that says "Click here to configure the domain" or navigate to System Settings -> Authenticated Domains:
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  3. Next, you're going to click on Add Domain:
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  4. From here, we can add the domain we want to use. In our example of wanting to use "help@getopenwater.com" as our Reply-To Address, we'd need to add "getopenwater.com" in the Domain field. You can leave Automated Security and Custom DKIM selector as the default settings, and leave OPW as your default Custom DKIM selector. You can read more on Sendgrid's Automated Security here.
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    You can click Add when you're finished entering the Domain.
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  5. This will take you back to the System Settings -> Authenticated Domains menu, where you'll see that your domain you added is now listed. Let's click "Select" next to the domain we want to authenticate:
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  6. This will bring us to a view where we can see the DNS records that need to added to your domain. You would do this with your DNS provider such as GoDaddy, Network Solutions, or Tucows. You might need to get help from somebody in your organization's IT department to do this part. Once the records have been added, you'll just need to click Verify to complete the process. Please note that you can come back to this menu at any time.
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  7. You should be all set to use your domain anywhere in OpenWater! Please note that sometimes DNS Propagation takes time, so there might be a delay between the time that you add the records to your DNS Provider and being able to Verify in OpenWater.

Review

To summarize what we've done, we've added the necessary DNS records to your DNS provider to allow OpenWater to send email using your domain, improving email deliverability. This will reduce the amount of emails being sent from OpenWater that end up in Junk or Spam folders.

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