Some clients may face challenges adding 10KC email domains to their "safe lists", potentially hindering the delivery of emails to members' inboxes. For such clients, we can request authentication to send 10KC emails from their email domain. This ensures guarantees that their members will receive important emails from the platform without any disruptions.
Here's a brief overview of the process to implement a custom email domain:
Create CNAME Records in Sendgrid: Don't worry, this is easy. We have instructions and a video below.
Update CNAME Records: Ask clients to update their DNS server by adding CNAME records for their specified domain.
Add authenticated domain to Tenant Settings. Add the domain ID under advanced settings.
Create CNAME records in Sendgrid
Login to Sendgrid using your 10KC Google credentials
Make sure you've selected "10kc-production" in the top left menu.
Go to Settings > Sender authentication.
Click on "Show more" under "Domain Authentication" section.
Click "Create" on the top right
On the "Authenticate Your Domain" screen, leave the first question blank. For the second question ("Would you also like to brand the links for this domain?), select "Yes" then click "Next".
On the next screen, you'll be asked to enter the domain you want to use. We suggest using this format: 10kc.clientdomainhere.com. For example, for BMO the domain would be 10kc.bmo.com. Enter the domain and then press "next".
Copy paste the CNAME records (Type, Host, Value) you've created in the email template below.
Email template for customer IT team
Please use email template below to guide client IT team through the necessary steps. Once you have the CNAME records, update the table in the email template with the CNAME records for their specific domain.
Subject: Action Requested: Email Domain Configuration for 10KC Communications
Hi [IT Team or Contact Person],
We're requesting your help in optimizing the email delivery process for the 10KC platform. Ten Thousand Coffees (10KC) is an all-in-one talent experience platform for mentoring, connectivity and skills development used by the world’s top organizations, including (insert client organization name here)
We'd like you to grant us us authentication to send 10KC platform emails from your email subdomain. If you'd like to proceed with this step, then we would need your assistance with the steps below.
1. Let us know what email subdomain you'd like 10KC emails to send from. For example, it could be @10kc.bmo.com (internal comment: update the example with the client's domain).
2. You'll need to update your DNS server by adding CNAMES records for the appropriate domain to allow 10KC to send emails from your subdomain.
3. Assuming you want the subdomain to be @10kc.bmo.com (internal comment: update the example with the client's domain), you can add the following CNAME records.
CNAME Table
Type | Host | Value |
CNAME | Copy from the table you created in sendgrid | Copy from the table you created in sendgrid |
CNAME | Copy from the table you created in sendgrid | Copy from the table you created in sendgrid |
CNAME | Copy from the table you created in sendgrid | Copy from the table you created in sendgrid |
CNAME | Copy from the table you created in sendgrid | Copy from the table you created in sendgrid |
CNAME | Copy from the table you created in sendgrid | Copy from the table you created in sendgrid |
Note the values for the table above are going to be different for each client. As an example, you can see the table shared with KFC here.
Add authenticated domain to Tenant Settings
Once the customer team says they've updated the CNAME records, you should verify and complete setup by following the steps below.
Login to Sendgrid using your 10KC Google credentials
Make sure you've selected "10kc-production" in the top left menu.
Go to Settings > Sender authentication.
Open the domain name you previously created. Click on the "Verify" button. The status should change from "Pending" to "Verified".
Here's an example of CNAME records that are still pending:
Here's an example of CNAME records that are verified:
Once the new domain you want to authenticate is verified, copy the domain ID from the sendgrid URL.
Navigate to Tenant Admin Settings on 10KC. Go to Advanced Settings > Email Sender Authentication. Copy paste the domain ID from the sendgrid URL. Click save.
If you did the previous step correctly, the domain name you now see on 10KC should match the domain name that was defined on Sendgrid.