These settings let you specify a default email address for all emails sent from Course Evaluations & Surveys on behalf of your organization, including notifications and project-related communications. Additionally, you can follow the instructions on this page to validate your email domain, enabling Course Evaluations & Surveys to send emails on your behalf.
To access the Outgoing Email Settings, navigate to: Account > Site Settings [section] > Outgoing Email Settings
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Edit Outgoing Email Settings
The "Email From Name" and "Email From Address" you enter here will automatically appear as the default sender name and address in your project communications on the Communications tab. You can update this default information for specific communications if necessary.
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Validating Your Email Domain(s)
By default, all email communications are sent from notifications@watermarkinsights.com. However, the "Email From Address" set in Outgoing Email Settings will be the default sender address for new communications. This means that while emails come from the watermarkinsights.com server, the "Email From Address" is "spoofed" if you use a custom address.
If you prefer to send emails from a campus email address instead of the system default and want to avoid "spoofing," you'll need to use self-service tools to configure and authorize Watermark to send from your preferred campus email domain(s).
To Validate Your Sending Email Server:
To access the Outgoing Email Settings, navigate to: Account > Site Settings [section] > Outgoing Email Settings
Edit Outgoing Email Settings
The "Email From Name" and "Email From Address" you enter here will automatically appear as the default sender name and address in your project communications on the Communications tab. You can update this default information for specific communications if necessary.
- Email From Name - Enter the name you want the email to come from. This should be something students will recognize, such as "[School] Evaluations," "Survey Administrator," or "Student Surveys."
- Email From Address - Enter the default email address for your communications. Examples include evaluations@yourschool.com, noreply@yourschool.com, or evals@yourschool.com. Using a real email address reduces the likelihood of your emails being marked as spam.
- BCC Copies - Choose whether you want a copy of all communications sent from Course Evaluations & Surveys to also be sent as a BB to the email address you provided above.
Validating Your Email Domain(s)
By default, all email communications are sent from notifications@watermarkinsights.com. However, the "Email From Address" set in Outgoing Email Settings will be the default sender address for new communications. This means that while emails come from the watermarkinsights.com server, the "Email From Address" is "spoofed" if you use a custom address.
If you prefer to send emails from a campus email address instead of the system default and want to avoid "spoofing," you'll need to use self-service tools to configure and authorize Watermark to send from your preferred campus email domain(s).
To Validate Your Sending Email Server:
- Click Add Domain. In the appearing box, enter your sending domain. If you have subdomains, there's no need to enter them separately. For instance, if you have yourschool.com and mail.yourschool.com, you only need to enter yourschool.com
(Rare Scenario) If your institution has multiple Course Evaluations & Surveys subaccounts and you need to send emails from a campus domain for all or several of them, you must add that email domain to each subaccount. However, you only need to complete steps 3-4 below with your DNS administrator once.
- After saving the domain, click on the added domain to open the Email Domain dialog and view your table of values. Copy the Type, Name, and Value columns and provide them to your DNS Administrator and/or Email Administrator at your school. It's best to cut and paste these values when sending them to your DNS Admin, rather than taking a screenshot, as the DNS Admin will need to paste them into their systems.
- Your DNS Administrator needs to add these values to the DNS zone that supports the email domain you're validating. The specific steps for this depend on your DNS provider, so we can't provide detailed instructions.
- Once you receive confirmation from the DNS Administrator that they've added the values, click on your added domain to open the Email Domain dialog again and click the Validate button.
- If your institution uses DMARC to verify emails, set the DMARC policy to specify relaxed alignment. Strict DMARC alignment isn't supported due to email relay limitation and may cause DMARC failures.
- Your DNS Administrator can check for an existing DMARC policy on the domain using nslookup. For example, if your sending domain is example.com, the following command will return the DMARC policy:
- nslookup -type=TXT _dmarc.example.com
- If a DMARC policy exists or if a new one is added, ensure the alignment policy is set to relaxed by making sure the adkim=s and aspf=s attributes are not present in the DMARC policy.
- Your DNS Administrator can check for an existing DMARC policy on the domain using nslookup. For example, if your sending domain is example.com, the following command will return the DMARC policy:
- Once the email domain is successfully validated, the system is authorized to send from any email address using that validated domain. You can then use your preferred "From" email address in any automated or direct-to-user emails without "spoofing".