+2

SMTP settings for Gmail / G-Suite

mark 7 years ago updated 6 years ago 4

We use Google G-Suite for our email and the hosted XTRF. We know that Gmail does not allow using custom From header other than the one you use to log in to the SMTP server. And this is causing us problems.


Is there any way around this? Can individuals use their personal gmail SMTP settings so emails can come from the individual employees rather than a general mailbox?

There is only one outgoing email server possible per each branch. There is an email relay option with Gmail:

https://support.google.com/a/answer/2956491?hl=en

it looks it might be possible, but we haven't tried it.

Setting the From: header is however not recommended, as the email are sent from the system, not from your PMs directly and this might not be in line with some anti-spam tools and recommendations.

I'll look into this and see what the issues are. 


Does anyone else have this problem?

When you say problem, do you mean sometimes it goes to spam or sometimes when people reply to an email it goes to the general mailbox? If so then yes, we have that problem. Did you try the option Marcin mentioned (thanks for that Marcin, we are looking into it as well).


I'm going to open another suggestion that user specific outgoing settings be possible, and more specifically (and maybe easier done) that users with certain privileges can send mail as other users. We have times when a PM or Sales or Account manager is out. If someone else sends the email to vendors or clients, even if they CC the main contact, all of a sudden vendors and clients are asking the wrong person questions. Another time this happens is when one PM is overloaded and we have a PM help her out by sending out jobs or POs. Because the helper PM sent out the PO or Job request, she gets responses from linguists, and so it makes it difficult to load balance or cover when people are out.  Anyway, I'll submit this as a separate idea, not sure if anyone else sees value in it.

I never pursued this answer because at the time, someone informed me that this wasn't possible with XTRF. But maybe I should revisit it.


However, when I say problem, I don't think it's a huge issue, but something I would like to address. 


What happens, is emails are sent through XTRF, you get some mismatched meta data (is that what it's called?). Pardon as I try to explain...


You have a From Name, a From Email Address. You also have a Reply To Name and a Reply To Email Address. Usually the From Name matches the Reply To Name, and the From Email Address matches the Reply To Email Address.


In our instance of XTRF, for example, the From Name would be the Project Manager, and the From Email Address would be from the general account that XTRF was set up on. And the From Name would be the Project Manager and it would match the Reply to Name. So in short, the names match, but the from email addresses don't match the reply to email addresses.


I'm afraid that this set up does increase the likelihood of emails being targeted as spam.


Your suggestion is a great one, I'd love it. However it doesn't address what I'm trying to get at.