Often, we have clients who will mention that email notifications are not coming to the desired email address. This doc should cover some baseline troubleshooting triage before escalating to dev.
Common issues that cause emails to not be delievered
Email notifications not set correctly
- Email to: can only be one address. Comma-separated in the TO field will not work; use the BCC for comma-separated emails.
- The FROM email should be set to a noreply@ the client’s domain.
- The Name can and should be a form field placeholder.
- The Reply To should also be from a form field. This ensure the notification to the client can be replied to back to the submitting user. If this form has no email to reply to, leave blank.
- Ensure any conditionals are not a blocker on the delivery of the notification.
Test the delivery
In a recent entry, on the right side, you can re-process any set notification. Enter your email here, and click resend. This will allow you to test a past entry delivery without having to fill out the form yourself. Check your mail, junk mail and any other filters for the message.
If you did receive the email, let the client know that you were able to test and successfully receive the message. They should check any spam and message filters they have, and possibly work with their IT if they are still having issues. Offer to resend any notifications you need to help them test this.
If there is no email receieved.
On BigScoots? Ask support to check the mail DKIM and SPF records for DNS. These may need to be updated by the client. BigScoots can supply these values.
On a different host? Mention that the client may need to work with their hosting support to set the correct DKIM and SPF records.
Why do these records matter?
DKIM and SPF records verify that this external web server has permission to send mail on behalf of that domain. A lot of spam tools block incoming mail that doesn’t have these records, as they look to be spoofing. Spoofing: Mail that is pretending to be from someone, and has no records that would connect back to the domain. Without these DNS records, our form notification looks like spoofed mail from the client’s domain.