Audience: Administrative or power users of 3rd party systems that send email from UW email addresses.
When we send email From: (something)@uw.edu using a 3rd party system (example Slate or Symplicity), we have to do additional setup to get the right metadata on the email so it will be authenticated and not treated as spam.
Email Authentication is a collection of systems for providing metadata on outgoing messages so that the recipient can verify that the email is valid. Most email clients (for example Gmail and Outlook) will check this metadata and may treat messages as spam if the checks fail.
You don't have to worry about Email Authentication when you send messages from your regular user mail systems (again primarily Gmail or Outlook). These systems annotate your messages correctly.
If you need to set this up for a new system or have questions about how to use this contact us at the college Help Desk, [email protected].
What You Need to Know
🚧 Use a From: email address that is already set up for the system.
- For the college's Slate Prospective Students system, use [email protected].
🚧 Contact us if you need a new configuration.
- You have a new 3rd party system that needs to send UW email.
- You need to send email From: a different email address.
Email Replies and Forwarding
When we send emails From: (something)@educ.uw.edu, it's possible the recipient will reply to it. By default, there is no place to deliver "(something)@educ.uw.edu". To fix this we create specific forwarding rules that say emails sent to "(something)@educ.uw.edu" should be forwarded to "(something)@uw.edu".
Email clients also test the deliverability of the From: address and if that address doesn't work the message is likely to be treated as spam.
Our systems' default From: email addresses already have their forwarding rule set up. Whenever we start using a new (something)@educ.uw.edu address we have to add a new forwarding rule.