There are times when University of Delaware faculty and staff need to send email messages from a third party service, such as Mailchimp. Because the external sending service does not own UD email addresses, steps must be taken to verify that the sender is authorized to send from these addresses. If these steps are not completed, attempts to send messages from the service will typically fail to send, be blocked by most mail services on the Internet, or “land” in the recipients’ junk/spam email folders.
Note: When possible, the best option is to send mass email messages through the UD bulk mail or PO box systems.
These directions detail the steps necessary to verify a UD email address is authorized to send from Mailchimp. Although these directions apply to Mailchimp, they may be modified for email verification in other third party services. You must be using a paid Mailchimp account to complete these instructions.
Complete the initial requirements to send mail messages from Mailchimp
- Enable 2fa for all Mailchimp accounts that need to send messages from Mailchimp, and ensure that all future accounts will have 2FA enabled.
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You will not be able to send messages from Mailchimp using an @udel.edu address, but must instead send from a UD subdomain address, such as newsletter@mail.departmentname.udel.edu (departmentname.udel.edu is the subdomain). If you do not have a University of Delaware subdomain, use the UD Subdomain request form to apply for one through the Office of Communication and Marketing.
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If you already have a subdomain (such as departmentname.udel.edu), it may already be reserved or needed for use as a web address. We therefore advise you to add another subdomain "level" to the existing subdomain. You choose a name that indicates communications will be sent from the subdomain. For example, if your subdomain is departmentname.udel.edu, use mail.departmentname.udel.edu or comms.departmentname.udel.edu
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If you already have a subdomain (such as departmentname.udel.edu), you do not need to fill out a subdomain request for the next ”level”. For example, if the subdomain departmentname.udel.edu exists, you do not need to fill out the subdomain request form to use mail.departmentname.udel.edu.
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Choose the subdomain email addresses that you will send from in Mailchimp. Note that this address does not need to be an actual email account. For example, if you’ve chosen the subdomain mail.department.udel.edu, you could choose news@mail.departmentname.udel.edu or info@mail.departmentxyz.udel.edu. You can opt to send from more than one email address.
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You will need a UD Google Group to facilitate the Mailchimp email authentication. We also recommend that this Google group be used to help manage replies to your mailings. You can name the group whatever you want, but something like comms-yoursubdomainName would be appropriate. Add those who manage the newsletters and communications to the group. The sending addresses in Mailchimp will be added as nicknames to your Google Group. Verification requests from Mailchimp will then “land” in the nicknamed Google Group, which will allow a group member to complete the email verification.
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An example: Jane Doe from UD wants to send from Mailchimp using news@mail.departmentname.udel.edu. She owns a UD Google Group called comms-departmentname@udel.edu, and requests that news@mail.departmentname.udel.edu be added as a nickname to that Google group . Once UDIT adds the nickname, Jane proceeds with Mailchimp verification. The request to verify the news@mail.departmentname.udel.edu lands in the comms-departmentname@udel.edu Google Group, and Jane confirms the Mailchimp verification.
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For technical reasons, nicknames cannot be added to Exchange shared mailbox or user’s email accounts.
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If you don’t have an existing Google Group to use for this purpose, submit the
UD Google Group request form. You can ask that the requested nicknames (the sending email addresses in Mailchimp) be added to the group in the "additional details" form field.
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After the group is created, you should add those who manage the news letters and communications to the group.
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Note that your Google Group must be set so that Anyone on the Web can post to the group, and Conversation history must be set to On.
Send the following information to askit@udel.edu
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A statement that you are trying to set up email authentication in Mailchimp, that you are using a paid-for Mailchimp account, and that all persons using the Mailchimp account have set up 2FA for their Mailchimp accounts.
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The name of your subdomain. For example, mail.departmentname.udel.edu
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The name of the Google Group that will be used to verify the addresses you will send from in MailChimp.
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The email address(es) that you will send from in Mailchimp. Additional addresses can be added later but you will need to submit a request to askit@udel.edu to add them as a nickname to your Google Group so that they can be verified by Mailchimp.
Wait for UDIT to add the appropriate records
At this point, UDIT creates the necessary DNS records in our system, and adds the email addresses you will send from in Mailchimp as nicknames to your Google Group. Do not proceed until you’ve been notified that UDIT has completed these steps.
Complete the remaining necessary steps in Mailchimp
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If you have not already done so, change the default sending address in Mailchimp to an address that has gone through the verification process.
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Verify the sending email addresses in Mailchimp. Once your email address has been validated, you are ready to send.