The following steps should be taken in order to maximize email deliverability from iMIS (including confirmation emails, password reset emails, and emails sent from the Communication Creator), and reduce the chance of your websites or IPs being placed on ISP "blacklists":
- Add the public IP address of the iMIS SMTP server to your domain's SPF record.
- If your domain does not have an SPF record, one should be created.
- The iMIS server sends emails with the "from" address you specify (for emails composed with the Communication Creator) or the “from” address specified in your iMIS settings (for order confirmations/password reset emails). Typically, this is an email address using your organization's domain name. Some spam filters will do a check on that “from” address domain to verify that the iMIS server domain/IP address has permission to send email for that domain. This check is done through a lookup on the domain’s Sender Policy Framework (SPF), which is an open standard aimed at preventing sender address forgery. (For more information, see http://www.open-spf.org/.) We recommend that your domain’s SPF be updated to include the iMIS EMS hosting server as a valid sender.
- If you do not know whether your domain has a Sender Policy Framework, we recommend using the Kitterman SPF record testing tool. Type your domain name and select the option to Get SPF Record (if any). If the resulting page contains the message states that no valid SPF records are found of either type TXT or type SPF, then your domain does not currently have an SPF. If your domain does have an SPF record, the results of the SPF record will be shown.
- Contact your DNS provider and request to update the domain SPF. .
- Follow the opt-in/opt-out rules for your country.
- iMIS includes tools for specifying the Type of communication you are sending (and automatically excluding those who should not receive a specific type of communication). In addition, a Communication preferences link can be added to your emails for users to easily specify and update their communication preferences.
- For more information, see this Managing communication preferences.
- Review emails that bounce back because of hard-bounce and authorization violations.
- Review the information provided in the bounced email for actions you can take to remove all authorization violations.
- For more information, see Communication logs.