How To: Configure the email address and improve deliverability for emails sent by Civica

To configure and use a custom From email address:

NOTE: You are not able to change the From email address by using the Civica Learning Administration portal.

To view the From email address:

1. Log in to your Administration portal.
2. On the NAVIGATION pane, click Settings.
3. In the SECTIONS section, click Notifications.
4. On the Email page, in the FROM EMAIL ADDRESS box, note the email address.

To change the From email address:

1. Raise a Help Desk request to Civica Learning support (or contact your Implementation Manager for a new implementation). When you request the From email address to be updated, it is essential that the address is a valid email address, and that you can access the associated mailbox.

2. We will provide you with DNS records that your IT will need to add to your email servers..

3. When the DNS settings have been applied, we will verify the settings, and if successful, we will apply your new email address.

Configuring your email server and anti-spam systems:

If you change the From email address to an address in your domain (for example, lms@companyname.com), you will need to configure your email servers or anti-spam systems to recognise the Civica email servers as valid senders for your domain.

The steps to complete this task are dependent on the email server and anti-spam systems that you have in place, and configuring these systems is beyond the scope of support provided by Civica. However, if you do need to configure your systems, the information below should provide you with the details required to complete the task.

The DNS addresses of the servers sending emails on behalf of your Civica instance is:

• amazonses.com (can be used in an SPF record)

We recommend that you include this DNS address in the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record for your domain, and where appropriate as authorised senders in the configuration for your email server.

Example SPF record (assumes that your domain is only used by your Civica instance):

"v=spf1 include:amazonses.com -all"

Additional configuration for optimal setup

If you have changed your From email address, you can optionally complete additional setup steps to further improve the delivery reliability for emails sent by the system (by reducing the risk of spam filtering). These steps are important if you have a Domain Message Authentication Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) rule configured for your domain.

Background: When you send an email, the email will have two addresses in the data sent between servers, the address of the server sending the email, and the From address (an email address). If you have completed the process to configure a custom From address these details will be as follows:

• Sending server: server-name.amazonses.com e.g. eu-west-1.amazonses.com
• From address: Your custom email address e.g. donotreply@examplecustomer.com

By default, the email headers are also signed by using DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). The headers are signed with the amazonses.com signatures to match the sending server.

As the domain of the sending server and the From address do not match (this is known as not being aligned), this will fail a DMARC test (if configured). To resolve this, we can additionally configure a custom sending server to match the domain of your From address. 

To complete the additional setup, you will need to add additional records to the DNS records for your domain. You will need to add the following additional records:

• An MX record for civicalearning.yourdomain.com
  • The MX record will need to point to a server address that we will provide during the configuration process.
• 3 domain key (DKIM) entries 
  • We will provide the details for these during the configuration process.
• An SPF record for the civicalearning.yourdomain.com subdomain:
  • "v=spf1 include:amazonses.com -all" will always be appropriate, assuming that no other mail servers are configured to send email by using civicalearning.yourdomain.com as the email server.
• Optionally, a DMARC policy for the domain.
  • This should only be configured if you are sure that no other services (including internal email services) are sending email by using using your domain name, unless they have also been configured correctly with aligned email and sending server domains,and have appropriate SPF and/or DKIM configurations in place. Adding a DMARC record can dramatically improve email delivery reliability, however if mis-configured can cause emails to be filtered as SPAM or rejected entirely. If a significant number or emails bounce (are rejected by the receiving server) then email delivery may be suspended by our email delivery partner for all emails sent by using your From address.

Amazon SES IP addresses

In some circumstances, it may also be necessary to configure one of your internal email systems, such as Mimecast, to accept emails from the Amazon SES servers, which often requires information about the IP addresses the email will be sent from. The Amazon SES IP Addresses blog, gives information on how to identify the IP range that will be used.

Note that the list of IP addresses derived using the information in the blog, are subject to change. If Amazon SES adds or removes any outgoing IP address, the SPF record will be updated, so you need to check back from time to time, if you want to make sure you have the latest list of IP address ranges. 

Also note that there is no guarantee with regard to which particular Amazon SES IP address, of the list of IP addresses, your emails will be sent through. If you need to perform a whitelisting process for the emails we’re sending through Amazon SES, you will need to whitelist all Amazon SES IP address blocks.