Using Email

Email is one of the most efficient ways to get detailed information out to anyone at your church. And with Elvanto, sending emails en masse is a breeze!

When setting up emails in Elvanto, there are a few things we highly recommend in order to best reach your email recipients. Navigate to Settings > Communication to begin customizing your email communications. 

Elvanto sends emails on your behalf, but because we don’t have access to your email passwords (and we won’t ever ask for them!), we are not authenticated. As a result, some email servers will block the emails. To prevent this from happening, you need to verify your domain. 

1. Navigate to Settings > Communication > enter your default sending email address and click save. Only domain names you own can be verified. The following domain names cannot be verified: gmail.com, yahoo.com
2. Once your default email address has been entered, Elvanto will display your Cnames which will need to be verified with your domain host. Click on the "Sending Domain" tab to obtain your Cname records. 
3. Follow these instructions to verify your domain.

From Emails

By default Elvanto will send email using the sender's email address listed within their profile. This is true for any user/admin with access to sending emails via Elvanto, but not necessarily recommended. Follow the steps outlined below, to enter the email addresses you'd like to have on hand for users to send from. You can give users the ability to send from these addresses by editing Access Permissions.

Note: Configuring "From" Email Addresses in Access Permissions 

1. Log into Elvanto
2. Select Settings.
3. Select Communications.
4. Scroll down to Email Settings heading. 
5. Select the Plus icon to add a new 'From' sender. 
6. Add details 
7. Select Save.

Elvanto has a couple of options for keeping account of your sent emails.

1. Email Reports
   The built-in sent email report allows you to see your emails within whatever search parameters you set. Since it allows you to easily navigate your sent emails without having to trawl through 1,000s of email copies (ew!), we recommend using the built-in reports rather than an email archive. You can learn more here about viewing sent emails in Elvanto. 
   
   
2. Email Archive
   For tracking purposes, you might want to set up an archive email. This means whenever you send an email, a duplicate will be sent to that address, ensuring you have full records of all correspondence. Setting up an archive is easy; look at this page for instructions.

Integrating with MailChimp allows you to manage email subscriptions for people in your church. While Elvanto will replace most of your email communication, many churches choose to continue their accounts for things like newsletters.

To see how to integrate with MailChimp, look at this page.

Email in Elvanto works basically the same as any system you use yourself. The only difference is that replies go directly to your inbox. See this page for more on composing emails.

Email templates will save heaps of time whenever you’re sending regular emails.

For a step-by-step walkthrough on creating email templates, look at this page. Elvanto also allows you to configure default messages, headers & footers, to help streamline your email composition process. From Settings > Communications you have access to defining:

• Default Empty Messages (for email and sms messages when no template has been selected)
• Unsubscribe Messages (All emails sent must provide the recipient with an unsubscribe option. To comply with our Email Policy, this can't be removed, but messages can be customized.)
• Email Header & Footer (This is not personal and will be used across all emails sent out by any user with access). Learn more about personalized email signatures here.