Overview
By default, all emails are sent and received via our own email server, and the default address used for sending passwords and invites is: messages@matrixlms.com. Our email integration allows you to leverage your own email system for sending/receiving emails.
Integration
By default, all emails sent and received via our site are routed through our email server. This is very convenient, but if you send, say, learner invites and indicate that they are coming from an email account such as graham@myorganization.com, some email clients will place the email into a spam folder because the emails are in fact being sent from our email server.
To reduce the chance of your emails being flagged as spam, it's better that all emails sent and received via our site are routed through your own organization's email server. To do this, first create an email account for your organization that will be used specifically for email integration with our platform. We recommend calling this account "messages". For example, if your organization has the domain "myorganization.com", then create an account called "messages@myorganization.com" for the integration. Note that the email used for email integration shouldn't be a personal email address or used for any other communication since MATRIX will delete the emails in that account as part of the email syncing process.
Also, note that you should contact your email provider and find out more about their email volume limitations to avoid overloading when you send out lots of emails.
To start using a custom email server first, you have to install the Custom email app from Admin/App center. Then click on configure to start setting up your options.
Select your email provider so that some configuration options can be set automatically.
Enter the information required, then click Save.
Here are some notes on the various fields:
User
The user name of the email account without the domain. In this example, it would be "messages".
Password
The password for the email account.
Domain
The domain of the email account.
SMTP server
The address of your SMTP server.
SMTP port
The port of your SMTP server.
SMTP authentication
The kind of authentication your SMTP server requires.
Use TLS for SMTP?
Enable if your SMTP server requires TLS.
POP3 server
The address of your POP3 server.
POP3 port
The port of your POP3 server.
POP3 polling
The number of minutes for your POP3 polling.
Once you've saved your settings, all future emails that are sent and received via our site will be routed through your own organization's email server.
To test your configuration settings, click Send test message. This will send an email to you via your SMTP server. If the configuration is correct, the message should get sent to your email account within a few seconds.
To edit your email integration settings, click Edit. To disable email integration, click Disable.
Please not that for integration with Gmail, you need to set up to allow less secure apps to access your account.
AWS-SES integration
This integration allows you to use your own AWS-SES to SEND emails. Note that AWS-SES can only be used to send emails, you have to use a POP3 server to read email replies.
To start setting up AWS-SES integration go to Admin/Email/Configure and select AWS-SES from the available options.
In the "Outgoing emails" section you can choose between AWS-SES and SMTP delivery methods. Select the delivery method then enter the values of the account that will be used solely for email integration.
If you select AWS-SES as delivery method from the drop-down, the "From email" field will appear in the form. The address entered in this field is used to set the "from address" in the sent emails. The email address used in this field has to be verified in your AWS account. To learn more about verifying email addresses click here.
In case of AWS-SES delivery method, the Domain name should be "amazonaws.com".
SMTP credentials such as user and password for AWS-SES should be generated from here.
In case of AWS-SES, the SMTP server should be "email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com" or equivalent depending on the region of your AWS account.
In the "Incoming emails" section it is mandatory to choose the "Different POP3 account?" option if you selected the AWS-SES delivery method. This is necessary because AWS-SES can only be used to send emails, to receive email replies you must use a different POP3 account.
Microsoft 365 email integration
Enabling SMTP
Configuring Email
Once SMTP is enabled, follow the steps below:
Navigate to Admin / Email.
Click the Configure tab.
Click Office 365.
Under the Outgoing emails heading, enter your Office 365 account credentials:
- User: the user name before “@yourOfficeDomain.com”
- Password: your Microsoft account password
- Domain: yourdomain.com
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.
On the Configure screen, click Edit.
Under the Incoming emails heading, click Configure OAuth 2.0 for POP3.
Keep the Configuration page open.
Azure Active Directory Application
In order to obtain the OAuth 2.0 credentials, you have to create an application on Azure Active Directory:
Log into Microsoft Azure with your Office 365 account credentials.
Under Azure services, click Azure Active Directory.
In the left column, click App registrations.
At the top, click + New registration.
In the Registration screen, fill in:
- Name: Enter a name for the application.
- Supported account types: The first option is set as the default, leave this as is.
-
Redirect URI: From the dropdown menu, select Web.
In the URI field, enter the "Redirect URI" from the OAuth 2.0 configuration page on the LMS (https://portal_url/email/oauth2_code/[id]).
Note: You can find this by clicking on the "Configure OAuth 2.0 for POP3" option in the email configure menu here: /email/edit.
When you have finished, click Register.
On the Overview page, navigate to the Essentials area.
Copy the Application (client) ID and Directory (tenant) ID.
From the left navigation menu, click Certificates & secrets.
Click + New client secret.
Enter a description and click Add.
Copy the newly created Value as this is the Client secret.
LMS Configuration Page
Enter the following information based on the steps completed above:
- Authorization URL: https://login.microsoftonline.com/[tenant ID]/oauth2/v2.0/authorize
- Token URL: https://login.microsoftonline.com/[tenant ID]/oauth2/v2.0/token
- Scope: https://outlook.office.com/POP.AccessAsUser.All offline_access
- Client ID: From Step 8 above.
- Client secret: From Step 11 above.
Click Save.
Navigate back to this page.
Under the Incoming Emails headings, click Configure OAuth 2.0K for POP3.
Click Get access token.
Log in with your Office 365 account (the account used for the integration).
Accept the requested permissions.
The page refreshes and the access token and expiration date are available.
Common email errors
In this section, we documented the common email errors that may occur when you integrate your own email server. Also here, you will find instruction on how to proceed when these errors occur.
- "Net:SMTPUnknownError: could not get 3xx (550)": This error will occur when the Google email sending limit was exceeded. To keep the system healthy and accounts safe, Google limits the number of email messages users can send per day and the number of recipients per message. For more details, you can check this Google support article and if you need further assistance please contact Google support.
- "Net:SMTPAuthenticationError: 454 4.7.0 Too many login attempts, please try again later": This happens when Gmail can't handle the high email volume. If you encounter this error, our recommendation is to contact Google support. If you have a very high email volume, you could use our AWS-SES integration.
- "Timeout::Error": Connection time-out means that your email server cannot be reached anymore. In this case, we recommend contacting your e-mail provider to check if they enabled a firewall that blocks connections or if they made changes that require updating your settings.
- "POPAuthenticationError: -ERR Login failure: unknown user name or bad password"; "Error: 535 5.7.3 Authentication unsuccessful"; "Incorrect authentication data:Authentication failed": These errors will occur when the credentials used for authentication are incorrect.
- "Error: 534-5.7.14": This error appears when you didn't set up Gmail to allow less secure apps to access your account. Please note that for integration with Gmail, you need to set up to allow less secure apps to access your account.
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