Improve Email Deliverability - Setting Up SPF Records

When you send emails from Service Autopilot, our email servers send emails to your Clients and Leads on your behalf.  The email used is the one listed under Settings > Company Information > Contact Details tab. It will be listed as the From: address.

Modern email systems try to protect their users from SPAM.  To make sure your email coming from the Service Autopilot servers is not considered SPAM, you need to add Service Autopilot's Email Servers to your business' DNS in a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record so that we are allowed to send on your behalf.

First, you will want to check your domain to see if you already have an SPF record set up.

Open a web browser to https://mxtoolbox.com/spf.aspx and fill in your business' domain (for example, agreatcompany.com) and press the SPF Record Lookup button.

If you do not have an SPF record, the result will look like this:

If no SPF record is found, follow these steps:

1. Log in to the management pages for your business' domain (for example, agreatcompany.com, managed by GoDaddy).
2. Add a new DNS TXT Record.
3. Use the following line to add a value to the DNS TXT record as a placeholder until you get the specific information for your domain from your vendor:
   v=spf1 a mx ip4:167.89.72.219 ip4:67.89.72.43 ip4:50.31.32.80 -all
4. The v=spf1 is required.
5. The a mx says to use your existing DNS A and MX records to authorize your existing vendor Email Servers to send mail on your behalf.
6. When you get your vendor-specific SPF entries, you can replace the a mx entries with those.  For example, you see 2 include: entries (in the screenshot below). There is one for Microsoft Office 365 and one for Infusionsoft (another email vendor).  Depending on your email vendors, you would put SPF information for yours there.
7. The 3 ip4: entries are for the 3 Service Autopilot Email Servers that will be sending mail on your behalf.
8. The -all tells receiving Email Servers to not accept email from any server not listed in your SPF record. This protects you from SPAMMERS and hackers who pretend to be you by sending falsified emails from their servers.
9. Save the DNS TXT record - DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to take effect.

If you do have an SPF record, but don't have SA's servers listed, it may look like this:

For an existing SPF record, follow these steps:

1. Log in to the management pages for your business' domain (for example, agreatcompany.com,) managed by GoDaddy).
2. Edit the existing DNS TXT record with v=spf1 in it by adding the following in BOLD using the example above which uses Microsoft Office 365 and Infusionsoft for email:
   v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com include:mail.infusionmail.com ip4:167.89.72.219 ip4:67.89.72.43 ip4:50.31.32.80 - all
3. The 3 added ip4: entries are for the 3 Service Autopilot Email Servers that will be sending mail on your behalf.
4. Save the DNS TXT record - DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to take effect.

This article's content is provided with assistance from Simple Growth, a Service Autopilot Certified Advisor.