OurBigBook
  • ensure that you have a working email address in the hosted domain such as notification@ourbigbook.com. E.g. on our custom domain name setup with Porkbun. We achieved this by redirecting notification@ourbigbook.com to your personal email initially.
  • create a Sendgrid account
    • it would also be a good idea to setup two factor authentication
  • verify your domain, e.g. ourbigbook.com. This means setting up three CNAME records given by Sendgrid on your DNS provider, e.g. Porkbun.
  • create a single sender. We used:
    • From Name: OurBigBook.com
    • From Email Address: notification@ourbigbook.com
    • Reply to: notification@ourbigbook.com
  • we disabled their "link tracking" feature, which was turned on by default. While it is fund to track clicks, it is basically useless for transactional email, and it parse HTML and replaces the links with their tracking links, making things less clear for end users. It is also harder to debug.
  • integrate using web API
    • create an API key, and then save it on Heroku:
      heroku config:set -a ourbigbook SENDGRID_API_KEY=thekey
      Also set it locally to be able to test email sending integratio locally:
      echo ourbigbook SENDGRID_API_KEY=thekey >> web/.env
      Then, to veryfi that the email sending is actually working run;
      OURBIGBOOK_SEND_EMAIL=1 npm run dev
      and try to register some of your real emails. You should actually receive the email at this step. The email appears as sent from:
      ciro@ourbigbook.com via sendgrid.net
      gmail accepted the email under promotions wihtout domain verification, but outlook sent it to spam. Make sure to click "it is not spam" in that case.

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