Topic

How to define email sender information in Everbridge Suite.

Description

This document describes how to leverage three Everbridge Suite features for obtaining the desired outcome when sending notifications via e-mail.

Document Topics

1. Sender E-Mail Display (Sender Name)
2. Reply-to E-mail
3. Custom From E-Mail Address

Sender E-Mail Display (Sender Name) -Required

The Sender E-Mail Display displays a name or email address your message recipients see in the From field when your email notification arrives in their email inboxes. Please note this feature changes the display name of the sender but not the email address. To change the email address of the sender, please see the section on Custom From E-Mail Address.

This may be the first identifier an e-mail recipient may see or read from their e-mail inbox when scanning their inbound e-mail. Some recipients may scan the Sender E-Mail Display field, also known as Sender Name, when deciding which e-mails to read before others.

This feature is available in the Everbridge application as part of the base service for no additional charge, and you do not need to contact Everbridge to activate this feature. The Implementer assigned to your onboarding will request a default Sender E-Mail Display when configuring your Everbridge account and organization(s) and will instruct you how to change this value after your onboarding is complete.

Benefits of using this feature:

• E-mail recipients will respond to Everbridge notifications and/or take the requested action in the notification if they recognize the Sender E-Mail Display.
• A different Sender E-Mail Display value can be used in each template sent to a different audience, e.g., "Employee Alerts" to employees, "Executive Notifications" to senior management team, "Citizen Alerts" to residents.
• A different Sender E-Mail Display can be used in each organization, e.g., "Citizen Alerts" for citizen alert organization and "Emergency Management Office" for government employees.

An organization or account administrator defines the default Sender E-Mail Display by following these steps:

1. Log in to the Everbridge Manager Portal and select your organization
2. Select Settings > Organization > Notifications > Sender Information
3. Click Edit
4. Type the display name
5. Click Save
   
   

The Sender E-Mail Display is used only for notifications; the Everbridge application does not use this value for administrative e-mails such as user registration e-mails.

In the Settings page, set the Sender E-Mail Display to a value that will motivate your recipients to open your e-mail as soon as possible. The identifier can be a label such as "Security Desk", "City Police Department" or "Office of the President." It is recommended not to use an email address for the value of this field as its purpose is to represent a reader-friendly name, rather than an address. Additionally, using an email address may be a red flag for some downstream spam detection filters.  

An Account Administrator or Organization Administrator can change this value at any time.

If you change this value, then the Everbridge application will not change the value you used in past notifications and will not change the value you have saved in templates or scheduled notifications. However, if you change this value, then Everbridge recommends you notify your recipients, so they recognize the new Sender E-Mail Display.

An Account Administrator or Organization Administrator can select the option to allow message senders to change the Sender E-Mail Display option when sending or saving notifications or notification templates by choosing the by toggling sender override at the top of the page.  

If the Administrator enables message senders to edit the Sender Information when preparing a notification, then the message senders will be able to change the Sender E-Mail Display and the Sender Caller ID in the notification form or template.

If the message sender changes either or both of the Sender Information values when preparing a notification, then the Everbridge application does not push these changes to your Organization Settings or Account Settings page.

Example:

In this example the Sender E-Mail Display field was changed from 'support@everbridge.com'  to 'Office of the President'. 

Definition of the Sender E-Mail Display field:

Here is what the email looks like:

Reply-to E-Mail Address

The Reply-to E-mail Address allows you to specify where contact notification e-mail replies should be sent to. For example, once customized and an e-mail notification is sent, when a recipient contact replies to that e-mail, then the reply e-mail will be sent to the address specified in the Reply-to E-Mail Address.

An organization or account administrator defines the default Sender E-Mail Display by following these steps:

1. Log in to the Everbridge Manager Portal and select your organization
2. Select Settings > Organization > Notifications > Sender Information
3. Enter the Reply-to E-mail address
4. Click the '+' or Add next to the E-mail Address field

Example:

In this example the Reply-to E-mail field was changed to 'security@mailinator.com'.

Definition of the Reply-to E-mail field:

Here is what the email looks like:

Custom From E-Mail Address (Optional Premium Feature)

1. Identify/provision the full e-mail address(es) you want to provide to Everbridge as your custom Custom From E-Mail Address, e.g., noreply@alerts.yourdomain.com.
   1. The e-mail address must be a valid e-mail inbox.
   2. Everbridge will not provide sub-domain e-mail addresses off the "everbridge.net" domain.
   3. Everbridge will not provision or manage an Internet domain on your behalf.
   4. Everbridge will not manage your e-mail security settings on your behalf.
2. Modify the DNS SPF record to authorize everbridge.net to send e-mails with your domain in the Custom From E-Mail Address.
   1. This step cannot be omitted. An SPF record that includes everbridge.net is absolutely required.
   2. Using a subdomain such as alerts.yourdomain.com will prevent the need for you to grant SPF permission for your entire domain. The example below demonstrates one possible way to modify a DNS SPF record, but might not be the best for all use cases. Everbridge recommends any network configurations be evaluated by your network operations team in order to determine the most effective modification.
      1. example: "v=spf1 include:everbridge.net -all"
3. Provide the custom Custom From E-Mail Address value(s) to Everbridge.
   1. If you want a different Custom From E-Mail Address value for each Everbridge organization, then provide the name of the organization and the desired Custom From E-Mail Address value for each organization.
   2. An Everbridge team member will set the Custom From E-Mail Address to the e-mail address you provide for each organization.
   3. The Everbridge application will use the above addresses for all e-mails when these values are populated in your outbound e-mail profile.
4. Test sending notification e-mails and administrative e-mails from your Everbridge account.
   1. Define expected results for the changes outlined above.
   2. Send notifications from your Everbridge account to a small number of recipients who are expecting your test notifications.
   3. Perform the necessary action to send administrative e-mails from your Everbridge Account.
   4. Confirm expected results from all recipients.
5. Finalize your outbound e-mail configuration in your Everbridge account and your DNS/e-mail servers.

Example:

In this example the Custom From E-Mail Address field was changed to 'happytrails@mailinator.com'.