Getting a handle on digital security is a hot topic these days, and organizations are doing all they can to keep information protected.
With all the protection around inbound emails, your end users may have trouble receiving QuickHelp communications. Or, you may simply have a company policy against external emails. To assist with this, in the Admin Portal, you can configure QuickHelp to send emails from your organization’s own SMTP server.
IMPORTANT NOTE for Microsoft Exchange Online Users: Microsoft deprecated support of basic SMTP at the beginning of 2023. If you wish to use a custom send method, please use Direct Send instead of SMTP. For more information, please see the following article: Microsoft deprecating support of SMTP Basic authentication.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Your email server may have sending limitations (number of emails sent per minute, per hour, and/or total per day). Prior to configuring SMTP in QuickHelp, verify any limitations with your Email Administrator and ensure said limitations will not impact successful delivery of QuickHelp emails to your end users.
Who is needed?
- Your organizational QuickHelp Admin (requires either the Communication Administrator or the User Administrator role)
- Your SMTP/Email Administrator
- Your Security Administrator (may be the same as the SMTP Administrator)
What is needed?
Prior to configuring SMTP in the QuickHelp Admin Portal, you will need to configure the following in your Email tenant/SMTP server:
- An email account from which to send QuickHelp emails
- Will this be a monitored or an un-monitored account?
- Security policies configured to allow emails to originate from an external source
Things to keep in mind
- If any of the settings used for SMTP configuration change (Sender email, User Name, User Password), these settings will need to be updated in the Admin Portal at the same time or all QuickHelp emails will fail to send.
- Your SMTP server may have sending limits (number of emails sent at a time) in place. There are a few emails from QuickHelp that are sent in bulk (e.g. Weekly User Digest, Event Reminders, emails from the Communications Tab, etc.), and your server may experience performance issues or emails may not be sent to all users.
QuickHelp Admin Portal Configuration
- Click Settings > SMTP Settings
- Check Use custom SMTP settings checkbox
- Enter your SMTP Host address
- Enter your SMTP Port number
- Enter the Sender Name (see What is needed? above)
- The display name/sender name may be overridden depending on your email server settings.
- Enter the Sender Email (see What is needed? above)
- Your security settings may require this to match the Username below.
- Check Use SSL if applicable
- Enter a User Name
- Must have access to your Email Server.
- Your security settings may require this to match the information provided on step 5.
- Enter the Password for this user
- Enter a Test Email Account to which QuickHelp will send a test (this is required to verify the settings)
- Click Test Email Settings
- If successful, click Save in the Action Bar
- If unsuccessful, please verify the information provided in the different configuration fields
What happens now?
Every future QuickHelp email will now be sent from the email configured above.
An important rule to remember is for emails sent from the Campaigns Tab. In the Campaigns Tab email configuration, for either a custom email or a duplicated QuickHelp email (QuickHelp’s best practice), you will have three options for delivery (see screenshot below).
If your organization uses Direct Send or SMTP as their Custom Send Method you must do the following:
1. Select OTHER as the Send From > Then select your organization's Direct Send email from the dropdown.
2. Duplicate the campaign when using one of our previously created campaigns. If you do not, you will not see the Other radial button.
3. SAVE. If you do not, the email will not send.