Entering Email Sending Info (CoAction/VitaLogics Basic Clients Only – CoAction Software, Inc.

Email Settings

If you would like to utilize the Appointment Reminder Feature, you must tell your software what third party the reminders are going to be sent through.

You can choose:

Mandrill- Paid option. Must sign up with Mailchimp and then add mandrill transactional emails option to use this option. Mandrill has a dashboard that enables searching of Patient email addresses/phone numbers

SendGrid - On July 31, 2024, SMS appointment reminder texts are unavailable. Has free version for less than 100 reminders being sent a day but, shares an IP address with all Free version users. To ensure reliability you will need to sign up for one of their paid packages. Sendgrid has a dashboard that enables searching of Patient email addresses/phone numbers

Gmail is no longer an option. On May 30th, 2022 Google removed its Less Secure Apps option, which must be turned on in order to use your Gmail account as your 3rd party sending option for Appointment Reminders.

Amazon AWS is no longer an option. The area only remains for clinics that signed on with this service when the feature originally came out.

Within this feature, you will see two tabs. In this article, we are only focusing on the Email Settings Tab.

We always recommend a clinic review all options before they decide on a specific Appointment Reminder service.

Setting Up an Email & Text Account – Mandrill

Mandrill is a user-friendly, scale-able email infrastructure service that provides the analytic tools to track your communications. You will need to check with Mandrill for any pricing.

-Effective 3/16/16 new Mandrill clients will need to create a MailChimp account to run Mandrill.

-If you don't have a paid monthly MailChimp account and decide to create one, you can go to mailchimp.com

-Please Note: You MUST utilize an email address that ends in your domain. Example: info@yourdomainname.com or something similar

-Don't forget to add transactional emails to your Mailchimp account as that will be needed.

Gather the Necessary Information needed by Mandrill for your Domain to be verified. This is a series of 3 Records that will need to be entered into your Hosting Website's DNS settings area(goDaddy, Hostgator, etc)

Go to Settings>Sending Domain and enter in your domain name: yourdomain.com then hit Add(DO NOT add in www.). You will see your domain added below. Click on all three areas to gain the records for: Verify Domain, DKIM Settings & SPF settings(Word doc works best). You will send these to your website handler to get entered in or enter them in yourself. Once these are entered in, come back to this page and hit Test DNS settings button and if you then see green Check marks next to each. This means your domain was verified!:

(this image shows a verified Domain)

Adding info into CoAction:

Go to Admin> Email Settings

Fill in the following (see image below):

Click on “Use this Provider’s SMTP settings to send email
Enter “smtp.mandrillapp.com” in the SMTP Server Address field
Add the Port# given to you from Mandrill -587
Place a check in the “Use SSL” box
Place a check in the “My ISP requires authentication” boxes
Add the username that you used to set up your Mandrill account
Add the API Key provided by Mandrill to the Password field. To get the API key, go to Settings>SMTP & API Info and hit +New API key. One will generate in the list below. Copy & Paste that API key into the Password area(#4 in the image below):

When all is entered into CoAction>Email Settings, it should now look like this:

Click “Test Server Settings”

Complete the Server Setting Test by:

Enter sender's email address
Enter a Recipient address that you will be able to verify if the email was received
Make sure you add a subject (test)
Include something in the Text box like "This is a Test"
Hit Send.

HINT: When using Mandrill, the patient will be able to reply to the reminders they receive, and it will be sent to the email address you set up your account with.

Once sent, you can verify you received the email by checking your inbox.

You can also check the status through Mandrill by hovering over the “Outbound” option on the tab across the top of the screen and selecting “Activity”. You will see the status of the email there.

Not only will you see the status of the email, but you can view the content of the email or resend it right from the Mandrill interface.

*Please Note - CoAction does not support the Mandrill App so clients need to contact Mandrill by clicking on their support option on their site if you would like more information on any issues that arise, Support is unable to answer.

Setting Up An Email & Text Account - SendGrid

**Text Appointment reminders no longer an option after July 31, 2024

For Sendgrid information and pricing click HERE.

If you choose this option, Your username will be "APIKEY" and your password will be the API Key created for "CoAction" so make sure to write that down.

Adding info into CoAction:

Go to Admin > Email Settings

In the Email Settings tab go to the bottom section and select “Use this Provider's SMTP settings to send email"
Fill in the following:
- SMTP Server Address: smtp.sendgrid.net
- Port: 587
- Use SSL: check
- My ISP requires authentication: check
- Username: apikey
- Password: API Key generated within your sendgrid account
- DO NOT TEST at this time

Now go back to your SendGrid account and select Verify settings.
Go back to CoAction, Select Test, and enter your Email connected to SendGrid, the email you want to send the test to, Enter Test Subject and Test in the body of the message, and hit Send.

Now go back to SendGrid and make sure it is verified.

If it does not go through or you are having trouble, please contact support.

Here is the Sendgrid Support website IF you need any additional info from Sendgrid:

https://support.sendgrid.com/hc/en-us/articles/200328026-Recommended-SMTP-settings

Setting Up An Email & Text Account – Gmail

**No Longer an option**

On May 30th, 2022 Google removed its Less Secure Apps option, which must be turned on in order to use your Gmail account as your 3rd party sending option for Appointment Reminders.

The instructions below will help you to set up using Gmail.

Go to Admin> Email Settings

Under Email Settings Tab

Select "Use this Provider's SMTP settings to send email"
SMTP Server Address: smtp.gmail.com
Port: 587
Use SSL: check this box
My ISP requires authentication: check this box
Username: (enter your GMAIL email that you want to use to send reminders) ex: abc@gmail.com
Password: (enter your GMAIL password)

Click on "Test Server Settings"

Fill in your sender email address, an email you will be able to see if you receive the test, Test in subject and Test in message box & SEND

If you received your test email - you are all set!

If you receive an error message like the image below

the problem is either because you have not turned on less secure apps or 2 step verification is turned on for this Gmail account

see below for instructions on each:

Less Secure Apps

Customers will need to close ALL Gmail that may be open (mail, calendar, drive, anything using the Gmail password)
There are 2 URL’s that you can use to allow the password to work
Go to a browser tab and try whichever of these works
https://security.google.com/settings/security/apppasswords
You will need to TURN ON less secure apps

OR use this URL

https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps
You will need to TURN ON less secure apps
Close and open CoAction and try to send another Test
IF Still get error after Turned On less secure apps - Reboot computer and try again

2 Step Verification:

If it still does not work, it is probably due to 2 step verification.

To use Gmail, you cannot have 2 step verification running on the email address. If you need this turned on, you will have to create another email address that is just used for reminders or use another third-party option.

If you are still having an issue with the setup your password may not be strong enough for google security settings.

Please contact support if you are still having an issue with any of the setup/3rd party options and support can assist.

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