We often encounter issues with spam filters catching our emails. We check the DKIM settings in Setup > Company > Email > Email Preferences > Domain Keys and everything is set up correctly, but the issues persist. NetSuite doesn’t report that an email ended up in spam, and we have no way of checking things on the receiving end. So how can we know about or deal with failed email delivery?
Email Delivery Lifesavers
NetSuite provides three methods you may find helpful as you tackle the problem of your failed emails.
SPF Records
We recently discovered a configuration that some NetSuite implementations sometimes miss, but that can make a huge difference in your email delivery success—SPF records. An SPF record is a configuration that happens on your domain. If sent-via.netsuite.com doesn’t show up in your SPF record, customers and vendors who are supposed to receive your emails sent through NetSuite will often find your emails blocked or in spam. If you’re interested in exactly how SPF works, check out this guide at Postmark.com for a helpful diagram. You can check if your company domain’s SPF record using a free online SPF Checker like MX Toolbox. Just enter your company’s domain name (that’s the part after the @ in your email address), and you should see sent-via.netsuite.com in the results. If it doesn’t show up there, you’ll want to contact your IT department about adding it.
DKIM Settings
If you have set up your SPF record correctly, you may also want to check the DKIM settings in NetSuite. You can find those at Setup > Company > Email > Email Preferences > Domain Keys. Test it by entering your email in the “Email Address to Receive Test Response” box and then use the “Sending Test Email to the DKIM Reflector” button to send yourself an email with details (make sure you select the domain line that you want to test first). In addition, you can also use the “Verify DNS Entry” button here to check other settings.
Undelivered Emails
You can also check for Bounced Emails at Lists > Mailing > Undelivered Emails. This gives you a list of all the emails that didn’t go through and explains why. Sometimes an email may “hard bounce” even if it’s a valid email address, and you just need to remove that email address from the Recently Bounced list (check Lists > Relationships > Recently Bounced) for NetSuite to start sending emails to it again.
Conclusion
We hope this tip on how to deal with failed email delivery has been helpful; to receive more NetSuite tips directly in your inbox each week, subscribe to our mailing list below!