To send emails through the aXcelerate system, you must first configure your Outgoing Mail Settings. aXcelerate allows you to send emails using the aXcelerate mail server (the default setting used by most customers), or by configuring settings to use your own mail server which we recommend.

Each mail server has its own sending reputation which determines the success of emails being delivered. Anyone using the aXcelerate mail server shares the same reputation as everyone else sending emails from it. An alternative to using the aXcelerate Mail server which may improve the success of your emails being delivered is to configure your Mail Server Settings in aXcelerate to use a Custom Mail Server if you have the capacity to do so.

System Settings

Outgoing Mail Settings

Note: If using our mail server, for mail to be delivered successfully, your domain (or any domain you’re sending from) must include an SPF Record to authorise aXcelerate as a valid sender.

Warning: You must use your own email domain when using the aXcelerate Mail Server. Sending from popular mail providers such as gmail or hotmail require you to use your own Custom Mail Server.

Configure Primary Sender Details

The primary sender details are those that can be used by any user in the system that are able to send emails regardless of which Sending Behaviour is selected.

Enter the Primary Sender Email
Enter the Primary Sender Name
Click Save Web Settings

Tip: When using a custom mail server, in most cases the primary sender email address will match the username specified. The only time this would not be the case is if the username is not a full email address.

Note: When the Sending Behaviour is set to 'Primary Sender email ONLY', the Primary Sender email will always be used as the sending address. Users will still be able to use their own name and set the 'Reply To' address as their own when sending emails.

Select Sending Options

The Sending Options determine the way outgoing mail is processed through the system and which domains are able to be used

Select the appropriate Sending Behaviour
Click Save Web Settings

Primary Sender email Only

This setting will ONLY allow you to send mail from the Primary Sender email address. Users will still be able to use their own name as the sender and set the 'Reply To' address as their own when sending emails but the 'From' email will always be the Primary Sender's.

Allow from whitelisted domains

This setting will allow you to send mail from any email address within a set of selected domains. The Primary Sender Email domain will be whitelisted by default. Any user with an email that uses a whitelisted domain will be able to send mail from their email or the Primary Sender email.

Return-Path

This setting will allow you to set a custom return-path, also known as a bounce address or reverse path. It is an SMTP address that is separate from your original sending address, and is used specifically for collecting and processing bounced messages. Having a proper return-path can help with your deliverability and sending reputation and provide credibility for your messages. If left blank, the return-path will be set as the email address of the user doing the sending.

Tip: When the whitelisted domains Sending Option is selected, you are able to enable the Allow Other Usernames setting. This will allow any user to select the Other option when sending mail and use any username coupled with a whitelisted domain.

Manage whitelisted domains

If the 'Allow From Whitelisted Domains' Sending Behaviour is selected, you are able to specify any domains you would like to allow to be sent through the system. For example, we can allow emails to be sent from users in our system if their email domain is “axcelerate.com.au” or “vmlearning.com.au”. If the user's email address were to not match either of these domains, the system will automatically convert the sending address to the Primary Sender email and set the user’s own email as the “reply-to” address.

Select Allow from whitelisted domains as the Sending Behaviour
Click Add New to specify additional whitelisted domains
Click Save Web Settings

Tip: When the 'Allow from whitelisted domains' sending behaviour is selected, the domain of the Primary Sender Email will be automatically set as a whitelisted domain.

Note: Any domain you’re using to send emails from the aXcelerate mail server must have an SPF Record authorising aXcelerate.

Warning: You must use your own email domain/s when using the aXcelerate Mail Server. Popular mail providers such as gmail or hotmail require you to use your own custom mail server. This restriction still applies when configuring whitelisted domains.

Configure Custom Mail Server Settings

By default, aXcelerate's own (SMTP) mail server will be used for messages sent throughout the system. Specifying a custom outgoing mail server will allow a particular mail server other than aXcelerate's to be used.

Please be aware that the required settings will differ according to the mail server that you will be using. You will need to refer to the relevant help documentation and specific configuration settings of your mail service provider. Please contact your IT department or Website host for assistance in configuring these settings.

Set your Outgoing SMTP Server to Custom Mail Server
Set a Host Name
Enter the Username and Password of your email account
Select the Port to be used.
Select whether TLS and SSL is used for your server
Click Save Web Settings

Tip: When you have configured your custom mail server settings, you can test whether your server settings are valid by sending a test email. You will need to ensure that the settings have been saved first before clicking Send Test email.

Note: Custom SMTP details do not apply to reminders and emails sent from the Workflow Engine where the action is "Send Email" and the from address is workflow@axcelerate.com.au. However, template emails will be sent via aXcelerate using your configured outgoing mail settings.

Warning: Connecting to mail servers using self-signed certificates is not supported, as this is not guaranteed to work with all mail servers.

Setup an SPF Record

An SPF (Sender Policy Framework) Record is an email authentication method used to determine which mail servers are able to send emails on behalf of your domain. Blocking mail servers not on your SPF record deters fraudulent servers from sending mail through your domain.

If you are using the aXcelerate mail server (mail01.axcelerate.com.au), aXcelerate will attempt to send emails through your domain from our server. Without an SPF record configured to allow our mail server, your emails will be blocked from sending through the system. Please contact your IT team to assist you in configuring your SPF record on your mail server.

Note: Even with the SPF record, there’s no guarantee your email will be delivered as intended due to restrictions and checks from the recipient mail servers and mail clients. If you're having issues, an alternative to the aXcelerate mail server is to configure your Outgoing Mail Settings to send through your own Custom Mail Server.

An example SPF record that lists aXcelerate as an allowed sender is v=spf1 mx a:mail01.axcelerate.com.au -all

Setup an SMTP relay

Though it’s not required, you may want to configure your SMTP server to relay emails from multiple (or any) domains. By default, your SMTP server may only accept and relay emails from the authorised sending address. Depending on the server, it may either override the sending email address to the authorised address, or it may completely reject the email and not send at all.

aXcelerate provides you with the sending behaviour of ‘Primary Sender email only’ within our Sending Options, to reduce the chance of emails being rejected by your server. This option will override on our end, prior to being sent to your SMTP server.

If you’re using Google G Suite, it’s easy to configure G Suite’s settings to allow routing of non-primary domains. Please refer to their help guide for more information on how to do so. Some SMTP server relays will only allow emails to come from a single static IP address, of which aXcelerate cannot support without assistance. If you do require that option, please contact our support team.

Outgoing Mail Server FAQs

What settings should I use with Office 365?

If you are using Office 365 as your mail service provider, you will need to Configure Custom Mail Server settings and use the 'Primary Sender Email Only' Sending Behaviour.

I need to whitelist aXcelerate, what is the IP range?

As a large cloud-based SaaS application hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), new servers, with new IP addresses are added and removed from our application load-balancer every day. Emails could come from any of these servers.

AWS utilises a large list of IP ranges. These ranges are always changing as AWS grows and consumes more IP Addresses so it is recommended that you use strong username/password authentication rather than trying to whitelist an IP range. Whitelisting could result in emails being rejected if you do not maintain this list.

Below is some technical documentation with details on the current and future IP range of AWS if you wish to learn more. aXcelerate is hosted in the ap-southeast-2 Region (Sydney):

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/aws-ip-ranges.html
https://ip-ranges.amazonaws.com/ip-ranges.json

I keep getting failed authentication/failed connection/Username and Password errors when I try to use my GSuite SMTP in aXcelerate.

Errors of this nature can sometimes refer to either incorrect credentials entered to aXcelerate, or insufficient permissions to send through your GSuite account. In this instance, you could try to create a GSuite App Password by following the steps listed below:

Visit https://www.google.com/settings/security
Set up the 2-Step-Authentication in your gmail account
Once done, visit this page https://security.google.com/settings/security/apppasswords
Create a new app password and name the app whatever you like
Input the new password to your custom SMTP settings in aXcelerate
Send a test email

Are there any downsides to using my own custom SMTP settings?

Using your own SMTP server is not the perfect solution. There may still be restrictions on using custom settings, including (but not limited to):

Multi-Factor Authentication requirements(2FA)
Sending limits
'From' address restrictions
Reduced email logging

What is the best Emailing solution?

There is no perfect email setting solution. Due to the nature of spam, and attempts to combat it, even emails from large organisations such as Facebook may sometimes end in junk mail. Every website will have some amount of 'junk' cases.

Does aXcelerate support DKIM signatures?

No. aXcelerate itself does not support DKIM signing. However, if you have an SMTP mail server with DKIM signatures, it is possible to connect it to our system as a custom mail server.