Welcome to Top of Mind Networks’ Surefire CRM. Our goal is to make your experience with Surefire is as smooth and frustration free as possible so that Surefire keeps you in contact with your customers. This begins with making sure that your email server is setup correctly so that you can receive and open all the communications that we send to you and that your contacts can receive the emails that you send to them.
There are five questions that need to be answered. This article will help you answer these questions.
- Am I using an email address that allows me to control the email server’s SPF TXT record?
- Does my email server have an SPF TXT record that authorizes Surefire to send emails on my behalf?
- Have I whitelisted all Top of Mind IP addresses and domains on my email server to ensure that I receive all critical communication from Surefire?
- Does my email server have a DMARC policy?
- Do I use a spam blocking service such as Mimecast, Barracuda, SPAMCOP, Proofpoint or other similar service? If so, are Top of Mind's IP addresses whitelisted with this service?
Am I using an email address that allows me to control the email server’s SPF TXT record?
Because Surefire is a third-party email sender, it is necessary to edit your email server to authorize Surefire to send emails on your behalf. This means that you must have control of the email server to make the necessary edits to your email server’s SPF TXT record. If you are using an email address from gmail.com, aol.com, hotmail.com, att.net, or any other public email address you will not have access to make these changes. The result of using a public email address and not having a valid SPF TXT record is that some emails that we send to you through Surefire and some emails that you send to your contacts will be diverted to spam and will not be delivered. This is especially true if you are sending emails to other public email addresses. If you are planning to use a public email address with your Surefire account, we strongly recommend that you reconsider. Please see Why Public Email Addresses Do Not Work in Your Surefire Account for more details on this topic.
Does my email server have an SPF TXT record that authorizes Surefire to send emails on my behalf?
To optimize use of Surefire, you will need to make edits to your SPF TXT record. Here is an easy way to test your current status.
- Go to this link: https://vamsoft.com/support/tools/spf-policy-tester .
- Click on the Basic tab and enter 168.245.1.130 in the Sender IP Address field.
- Enter the email address that you are going to use in the Sender Address field.
- Then click the “Test” button.
- Scroll to the bottom of the screen to view your results.
Here are some examples of the results you might see. Any results other than “pass” will require an adjustment to your SPF TXT record.
If your SPF record requires editing, please ask your IT department for assistance. If you don’t have an IT department or a third-party IT consultant, you should contact the support staff of your email server hosting company for help. Please see SPF Record and White Listing Guide for Surefire Users for the details required to make these changes. If you need additional assistance, please contact Top of Mind by emailing help@topofmind.com.
Have I whitelisted all Top of Mind IP addresses and domains on my email server to ensure that I receive all critical communication from Surefire.
Please whitelist all Top of Mind IP addresses and domains as outlined in SPF Record and White Listing Guide for Surefire Users. This will ensure that you receive any emails that we send to you. This edit can be done at the same time you edit your SPF TXT record.
Does my email server have a DMARC policy?
DMARC is another level of spam protection that some companies employ. Unless you are a large company or you have employed an email security consultant to assist you, it is unlikely that you have a DMARC policy. Currently, Surefire does not support DMARC. If your company has a strict DMARC policy, you may not be able to receive our emails. See Surefire and DMARC for more details.
To check DMARC go to this link: https://vamsoft.com/support/tools/dmarc-policy-validator
Click the Domain tab and enter your email address domain (just the part after the @ symbol) then click the Query and Validate button.
If your server has a DMARC policy, you will see something like this. Look for the “p” value (policy value). There are three possible values: “none”, “quarantine”, and “block.” We prefer to see a value of “none”. If the value is “quarantine” emails that we send to you may be delayed. If the value is “block” you may not receive our emails.
If your domain does not have a DMARC policy, you will get a result that looks like this. This is also an acceptable result.
Do I use a spam blocking service such as Mimecast, Barracuda, or SPAMCOP?
If you are a client of any spam blocking or email filtering service you will have to whitelist IP addresses 50.31.43.184, 168.245.3.130 with that service. This will ensure that email that we send you are not blocked by this service. Please see How to Resolve Mimecast Delivery Issues for more details on this issue.