Sending Domains

CampaignsPlus is a hosted email application, and every purchase order auto-deploys the CampaignsPlus current version on a cloud instance. The instance is deployed on a subdomain belonging to Mumara, i.e. my.mumara.host from which you would have the ability to select the prefix only. In documentation, we recognize this domain as Mumara assigned domain. You can access your application dashboard by typing Mumara assigned domain and providing the login details. However, before you can schedule or send any broadcasts from the application, there are two more domains that you would need to learn about. 

Primary Domain

Before you can setup a sending domain, you would need to go through from the process of setting up a primary domain. Scope of primary domain is discussed in a separate article that you can reach by clicking Primary Domain. 

Sending & Tracking Domain

Following area discusses both these domains, adding a domain for sending purposes is mandatory part of CampaignsPlus, without having a qualified sending domain you won’t be able to schedule and send emails. Here is how the process of adding a sending domain takes place.

Navigate to Add a Domain

Main Navigation -> Sending Domains -> Add a Domain 

To make the sending domain structure work, you would need to take one of the suitable methods between CNAME and .htaccess. Details of both the methods are discussed under separate heads in the following area. 

.htaccess

The .htacess is a configuration file that uses Apache based web server environment to effect over the directory it is placed in. The option would give you an ability to configure a sending domain for the recipient to see instead of master installation domain. The process ensures that the installation domain was concealed and the recipients are receiving email messages from a domain of your choice. So here goes the process.

Sending Domain

After you select .htaccess as type of the domain forwarding, you are required to provide the sending domain in the field as mandatory part of the process. Make sure you provide a correct address or you simply say a correct path to the sending domain. If the .htaccess file is to be placed in the public_html folder, then the complete qualified domain address is required in this field. And if the .htaccess is to be placed in some other directory i.e. portal, you must provide complete path leading to that specific directory where the file is to be placed i.e. sendingdomain.com/portal. Next step would clarify this a little more.

Download .htaccess

Click the link to download. htaccess is complete file name and it doesn't need to have anything like file.htaccess attached with it, make sure that the file remains in its appropriate format, and doesn't end up with an extension like .txt or .html.

Clicking “Download htaccess” will automatically download the file to your computer. Once done, access the sending domain and upload the downloaded file from your computer to the web root, where the files are stored, you can transfer the file using ways like via FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

In case of Cpanel, the file needs to be placed in public_html folder and in case of Plesk the web root would be httpdocs. Once the transfer of the file is completed, reach the directory where the file is placed in, edit the file and modify it from htaccess.txt to .htaccess to make it work properly.

 

CNAME

The second method you can opt for is the CNAME. CNAME is the type of record in DNS that helps to map a name to another name. In current case, the CNAME record of the sending domain should point to the installation domain. Let’s take a closer look at the process. 

Sending Domain

As already discussed, the sending domain field needs to be filled with a domain name that you want the campaigns to send from and your recipient to view. In the CNAME process, the sending alias to the installation domain, i.e. www.sendingdomain.com points to my.mumara.com. In this field, you would need to provide (www.sendingdomain.com) the complete qualified address of the sending domain.

Create CNAME Record

As mentioned earlier, CNAME is the type of record that needs to be configured using the DNS settings. You can create CNAME using administrative tools provided by the sending domain registrant, or your host depending on your accessibility and convenience. Reach DNS settings that may be called Advanced Settings, Name Server Manager or DNS Management to update the CNAME entry. Update the required values including.

The Host, Alias or Name is the source field value you want to use, for example you are about to create CNAME record for track.sendingdomain.com, then you would use “track” as your host. It can be www, or anything relevant you want to use into the source field. Then choose a record type from the list of record types available, select CNAME and continue updating the record.You will have the field to enter the URL of the domain that you want to point to. In our example case, the URL field will be filled with my.mumara.host.  Once you are done, you can later select to select this domain for sending your campaign.

Recommendation ! It is recommended to implement all important email authentications to ensure the legitimacy of the sending domain. Don’t forget to configure DKIM as well as SPF of the sending domain to avoid getting delivery to suffer.

 

View all Sending Domains 

All domains that you have added as sending domains are listed on this page. You can also quickly add a sending domain from this page by clicking Add a Domain a button at top of the table. Can use the search box to search specific domain from the list, and can select number of records you want to populate on this first page of the view sending domains table.

Navigate to View all Domain

 

Following area discusses the information about the domains listed as sending domain in the system and the actions you can perform to manage these domains.

Selection

Rows of the first column have checkboxes that would help selecting records of multiple rows. You can select one or multiple records by ticking the checkboxes.

Domain

Each row of this column represents a sending domain’s URL. Adding sending domains are necessary part of configuration, and without having a sending domain, you won’t be able to schedule and send email campaigns from your account with CampaignsPlus. 

Type

From type it refers to the method you have opted between masking forwarding using .htaccess or mapping the domain by configuring the CNAME record for the sending domain. Both the methods are discussed in details under the topic of Add Sending Domain.

Actions 

There are more than a few actions you can perform from this page.

 

Edit	Clicking the “Edit” button under “Action” will take you directly to the page, where you will be able to modify the sending domain URL.  But make sure that if you make changes in the sending domain, you would also need to implement changes in the corresponding CNAME record of .htaccess configuration file.
Delete	Remove a sending domain from the list
Bulk Delete	Select multiple domains and reach delete under Actions towards the top right area of the table. This would delete multiple selected lists.
Verify Domain	A one click action to test if the masking of the sending domain is working properly or not. The function is displayed under Actions towards the top right area of the table, slightly above the search box. It automatically tests if the corresponding CNAME record of the sending domain is appropriately configured or the .htaccess file is properly placed and functioning. When you click on this, you will see the page refreshes and another column appears in the table that would display verification status of every sending domain in the list.