Sending from Your Own Domain

By default, the email your Service Desk sends to customers (your replies, the "we have received your request" acknowledgement, status updates) comes from your channel address, for example acme-support@in.devstride.com. You can send it from an address on your own domain instead, such as support@yourcompany.com, so customers see the address they already know.

It takes three steps, all in settings:

1. Add your domain on the Sending Domains page and publish the DNS records DevStride shows you.
2. Pick a From address on that domain for a channel address once the domain reads Verified.
3. Send the forwarding test from the channel address, to prove mail sent to the new address comes back to DevStride.

Customer email starts carrying the new From address only after all three are done.

What stays the same

• Replies still thread. Every email still carries a Reply-To on in.devstride.com, so when a customer clicks Reply, their answer lands on the same ticket as before. You don't change anything about your inbound mail.
• Your forwarding rule stays. Your support inbox keeps forwarding to the channel address. The forwarding test (below) checks exactly that.
• The sender name stays. The channel address's Reply-From name is still the name customers see, now beside your own address.

Add a sending domain

1. Open Settings → Service Desk → Sending Domains.
2. Under Add a domain, enter a bare domain or subdomain you own, for example yourcompany.com or support.yourcompany.com (no @, http:// or path), and click Add.
3. The domain appears with the DNS records to publish. Copy each Name and Value with the copy buttons beside them and add the records at your DNS provider.

Waiting for verification

Each domain shows a status:

DevStride re-checks every domain every hour, and the row shows when it was Last checked. To check right away after publishing the records, click Re-check.

When a domain can't be added

• A DevStride domain (such as in.devstride.com) is refused: add a domain your organization owns.
• A domain another organization has registered is refused with …is already registered by another organization. A registration that never verifies stops holding the domain after 72 hours, so you can add it then.
• Up to 10 sending domains per organization. Remove one you no longer use to add another.

Send a channel address's email from your domain

1. Open Settings → Service Desk → Channel Addresses and click the pencil on the address.
2. Under From address, choose your verified domain instead of Shared address (in.devstride.com).
3. Type the part before the @ (for example support) and click Save. Letters, numbers, dots, hyphens and underscores are allowed.

Only verified domains are offered. If you have none yet, the field says to verify one under Settings › Sending Domains first.

Prove forwarding with the test email

Customers reply to the address they see, and some will write to it fresh. Before any customer email carries the new From address, DevStride checks that mail sent to it reaches your desk:

1. Make sure your mailbox forwards mail for the new address (for example support@yourcompany.com) to the channel address, the same forwarding rule you set up when you created the channel address.
2. Reopen the channel address (pencil) and click Send test under From address. DevStride sends one test email to your new address.
3. The dialog reads Waiting for it to be forwarded back… while it waits, then Forwarding confirmed with the date once the test email arrives back.

From then on, customer email from this channel address is sent from your own address. The test email never becomes a ticket.

If nothing comes back within about 15 minutes, the test lapses and the dialog says the address is Not yet confirmed. Fix the forwarding rule and click Send test again.

If a domain stops verifying

If your DNS records are removed or changed, the hourly check marks the domain Not verified and every channel address using it falls back to sending from its channel address within the hour. Nothing is lost and replies keep threading. When the records are back and the domain verifies again, those channel addresses switch back to your own address on their own, with no need to repeat the forwarding test.

Remove a sending domain

Click Remove on the domain and confirm Remove …? Channel addresses can no longer be given a From address on it.

A domain still in use is refused, naming the channel addresses that send from it: change their From address first, then remove the domain.

Who can do this

Adding, re-checking and removing sending domains, choosing a channel address's From address and sending the forwarding test all need the Manage Service Desk Settings permission, the same one that manages channel addresses. See Permissions.