Email Configuration Requirements

Configuring Gladly to send and receive emails for contact center operations is a fundamental product feature and represents one of the most popular channels offered by Gladly.

Adding new domains or email addresses is done directly in Gladly. Follow the links below to learn how.

DNS

To allow Gladly to send an email from your domain, please add two TXT records to your DNS provider. These entries should be added one week before launch so Gladly can adequately test the email setup.

Please note that we typically only ask you to configure these records in your production environment.

  1. SPF – This allows Gladly to send mail from your email domain name via Gladly's mail provider. If you already have an SPF record, then you can add include:mailgun.org into the value. For example: v=spf1 include:mandrill.com include:mailgun.org ~all

  2. DKIM – This allows email servers to ensure that emails from Gladly’s email provider are authentic.

An example is outlined in the table below. The SPF and DKIM values are found in Gladly.

Type

Hostname

Value (example only)

TXT

@

v=spf1 include:mailgun.org ~all

TXT

.ID._domainkey.something.com

k=rsa; p=

Add MX record for domains without CNAME

Email domains that doesn’t have a website (i.e., a CNAME record), most likely because it's a subdomain, needs to have MX records created to work with some email providers.

Updating DNS Entries in GoDaddy

To update DNS entries in GoDaddy:

  1. First, go to the Email Settings and clicknext to the sending domain, then click View SPF and DKIM Values.

  2. Log in as an Administrator in GoDaddy.

  3. On the screen's upper left-hand side, click Domains > All Domains.

  4. Select your email domain.

  5. Scroll down and click on Manage DNS in the Additional Settings panel.  Instructions for setting up Ownership Protection and managing domain settings.

  6. Let's add your DKIM record

    1. Click ADD.

    2. Select Type = TXT.

    3. In Name, enter the hostname you see in the Gladly Email Settings page for this domain without the hostname. If the Gladly Email Settings page for this domain says the host is smtp._domainkey.something.com, you should enter smtp._domainkey and not smtp._domainkey.something.com.

    4. In TXTValue, enter the value in this domain's Gladly Email Settings page.

    5. Set the TTL to 1 hour.

    6. Click Save.  Form fields for adding a TXT record with host and value details displayed.

  7. Let's add your SPF record.

    1. If you already have a TXT record on @ with v=spf1 at the beginning.

      1. Click on Edit for that record.

      2. Enter include:mailgun.org into the record after the v=spf1 value. For example, if your previous record looked like v=spf1 include:something ~all, it will now look like v=spf1 include:mailgun.org include:something ~all.

      3. Click on Save.

    2. If you do not have a TXT record on @ with v=spf1 at the beginning.

      1. Click on ADD.

      2. Select Type = TXT.

      3. Set Name to @.

      4. Set TXTValue to v=spf1 include:mailgun.org ~all.

      5. Set TTL to 1 hour.

      6. Click Save.

Email Forwarding

To receive emails in Gladly from your support email addresses, please follow these steps:

  1. Upon launch, you must configure your mail server (e.g., Exchange, Lotus Notes) to forward a copy of the inbound email to Gladly, which preserves the “from” email address.

  2. Gladly provides you with an email address (or multiple email addresses, depending on your business requirements) to forward the mail copy. The table below outlines an example where the SOMETHING part of the forwarding email address is unique per sending domain in your Gladly organization.

We recommend allowing these dedicated IP addresses to prevent forwarded emails from getting blocked.

Forwarding Email from Gmail to Gladly

There are two ways to forward emails to Gladly.

Address Mapping (preferred)

This forwarding method is only possible if you have access to admin.google.com with administrator access. Use this forwarding method to redirect emails from your company email account to Gladly if possible.

Please see Redirect incoming messages with address maps for instructions.

  • Note – When entering the Map to address field, enter the Gladly address (e.g., [email protected]) to which you want emails forwarded.

Add a Forwarding address (alternate)

To forward emails from Gmail to Gladly, you can follow these simple steps:

  1. Go to the Gladly Email Settings page > Email Addresses. For the Email Address you wish to set up, click, then select View forwarding address.

  2. Login to your Gmail email address.

  3. Go to https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/fwdandpop.

  4. Click on Add a Forwarding Address.

  5. Add the forwarding address you retrieved in Step 1.  Input field for adding a new email forwarding address in a dialog box.

  6. Click on Next.

  7. Click on Proceed.

  8. Login to Gladly and wait a few minutes.

  9. Search for an email from "[email protected]" and follow the instructions in that email to activate email forwarding.

  10. Go back to https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/fwdandpop to make sure that forwarding has been turned on:  Option to forward incoming mail to another address is displayed in the settings.

Spam Email

By default, Gmail will not forward Spam emails to Gladly. We highly discourage doing so but follow these steps if you want to continue forwarding Spam emails to Gladly.

Web Form

If your website has a form that Customers enter support inquiries into, you must do the following upon launch:

  1. Ensure there are required fields for Customer Name and Customer Email in the web form.

  2. Compile the inquiry into a valid email HTML template upon web form submission.

  3. Forward the inquiry into one of your email inboxes (e.g., <emailinbox>@YOUREMAILDOMAIN.com), making sure to preserve the customer’s email address as the email “reply-to” header, and the customer’s name as the email “friendly name.” If you are utilizing FormStack, this article helps explain how to configure that with no code needed!

  4. Ensure you have forwarded communications from the email inbox to the corresponding Gladly forwarding address.

Spam / Junk Mail

Gladly does not have a junk mail filter, but there are a couple of options to combat spam potentially:

  1. Creating a ‘Junk Inbox’ in Gladly and directing junk mail there.

  2. Working with your email provider to restrict spam and not forwarding it to Gladly.

Junk Inbox in Gladly

Restricting Spam from Gladly

Configuration

Create a junk Inbox in Gladly, and no dot assign anyone to it.  Create Gladly rules to route to the junk Inbox whenever a Conversation matches a certain email address.

Work with your email service provider to not forward spam into Gladly.

Impact

Process is manual  Junk Conversations in Gladly will affect reporting.

Can be automated.  Reporting will not be affected since junk Conversations don't enter Gladly.  May miss out on non-spam Conversations depending on the configuration.

Managed

Your contact center supervisors.

Your IT team