Email Service Configuration

Overview

Gainsight PX uses SendGrid to send emails. For you to be able to send emails that pass DMARC, you need to complete the SendGrid sender authentication and allow passing of traffic. 

Allowing is a functionality that shows ISPs for which SendGrid (Gainsight's ESP) has your permission to send emails on your behalf. This permission is given by the act of pointing very specific DNS entries from your domain registrar to SendGrid. Once these DNS entries are entered and propagated, recipient email servers and services read the headers on the emails you send and check the DNS records to verify if the email is initiated from a trusted source. This drastically increases your ability to deliver emails and allows you to begin building a sender reputation for your domain and for your IP addresses.

PX supports Domain Allow. This type allows recipient email servers and services to verify the identity of the email sender back to the domain that the sender controls. This provides a layer of email authentication that helps in email deliverability. With only Domain Allow, you are still subject to the reputation of your IP address.

The following are the reasons why it is recommended to use the allow services:  

• Remove the Sent via Gainsightapp.com tag from emails.
• Increase the deliverability of the emails to Inbox instead of the Spam folder.
• In case your organization has a DMARC policy configured in the public DNS, you will have to allow them to send emails using Gainsight Email Infrastructure.
• In case you have configured the -all option at the end of your SPF setting, the process to allow is mandatory for using Gainsight Email Infrastructure.

Configure PX to Allow Emails 

Once you have access to PX, perform the following steps to allow emails: 

1. Reach out to Gainsight Support asking them to provide your DNS settings. For more information on entering a support ticket, refer to the How to Submit a Gainsight Support Ticket article.  In the support ticket, ensure to include the following information:
   • The sending domain you would like to use.
   • The Subscription ID for your instance of Gainsight PX. You can find Subscription ID at Administration > Company & Timezone.
2. The support team generates a Domain & Email allow list in the form of CNAME records similar to the examples below:

3. Enter the setings shared by the support team in your public DNS (preferably with the help of your IT team). 
4. Once successful, communicate back to your support representative with a confirmation.
5. The PX Engineering team runs validation tests to confirm the values and configuration. In case there are issues identified, our team works with your IT team to investigate further.

Calculate Reputation Score

The reputation score is automatically calculated based on the following calculations: 

• The number of emails reported as spam 
• The number of email bounces / the total number of emails sent.

Gainsight email service is configured to maintain this at an optimum level using the following methods:

• Bounces are added to the master deny list which is maintained by Gainsight. Further, Gainsight ensures that future emails to that address are not attempted.
• Spam reports are automatically added to the unsubscribed list.

Note: The usual behavior observed with most Gainsight customers is that they start with a low score since their contact list is often initially unvalidated, but within a few outreaches, it improves. The problem is minimal for Gainsight because the recipients are customers and not prospects. The average reputation of Gainsight customers is 98/100.

For more recommendations on Email deliverability and best practices, refer to the guides published by Sendgrid.

Additional Resources

• Email Service Configuration FAQs