Setting up email in your Synergy system will allow you to send statements, reminders, invoices and marketing campaigns to your customers. Here's how...
IMPORTANT NOTE: This guide is only relevant if you are running at least ‘Build 375’. Check you have installed the latest update before continuing with this guide. You also need to ensure the Synergy program folder and Synergydata folder are added to the Exclusions/Exceptions list of your antivirus software otherwise it may block communication with your email server.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Configuring Your System for Email:
- Suggested SMTP Settings for common email providers
- Setup your Clients to receive Emails
Configuring Your System for Email:
Emailing is setup in a few places within Synergy.
- Company/Setup -> General -> Company Details
The Email address here must match the provider that you are using as outbound email. - Company/Setup -> General -> Devices - > Email Setup
NB – These settings need to be set up on each workstation individually as follows...
Sending via Microsoft Outlook
You have a choice to ‘Send Emails from Microsoft Outlook’; this is recommended if you have Microsoft Outlook installed and operational (not Outlook Express!) as it will use the working setup from your existing Outlook program and you can review emails in Outlook’s “Sent Items” folder. If you use this option, you don’t need to worry about setting up the SMTP server and authentication details.
SendGrid
SendGrid simplifies the configuration of email in Synergy, not requiring you to configure the SMTP details of your email service provider.
SendGrid is exclusively available to customers on a current Support and Maintenance Plan (SMP).
To use SendGrid, first ensure the "Send Emails from Microsoft Outlook" tickbox is unticked, to be able to see the additional Emailing Method options.
In the Emailing Method dropdown box use our SendGrid relay by selecting SendGrid-SAM
Reply Email Address: In this field, you must specify an email address for all replies from your customers to be sent to, when they click 'reply' on any emails sent through SendGrid.
Note: When sending through our SendGrid relay, your Sent emails will not appear in the 'Sent Items' folder of your email mailbox, however you can audit emails send through Synergy by viewing the email log found in the top dropdown menu Maintenance > Email Log.
Alternatively, you may wish to make use of the following fields in the Email Setup screen to send copies of all emails sent from Synergy to yourself. If, for example, you wanted to receive a copy as reassurance the emails sent successfully or for audit purposes.
CC Email Address: You can define an email address that will receive a "carbon-copy" of all emails sent from Synergy. As is standard with emailing, any addresses in the CC field will be visible to all recipients of the email sent.
BCC Email Address: Here you can define an email address to receive a "blind-carbon-copy" of all emails sent from Synergy. As is standard with emailing, email addresses in the BCC field are not visible to other recipients of the email.
SMTP Email
SMTP allows you to configure your email account settings from your email service provider, so emails sent from Synergy are all sent through your own email account.
To access the SMTP settings, select SMTP in the Emailing Method dropdown box:
Your internet/email service provider e.g. Spark, Orcon, Vodafone etc will be able to confirm the correct SMTP server address (example send.xtra.co.nz in the screenshot above) and authentication options for the email address you set up in the previous step.
A common problem is that the Authentication ‘Username’ and ‘Password’ do not match that of your email program, so check the settings and confirm they are correct.
Also please bear in mind that emailing using “SSL” & “TLS” can be considerably slower, due to the process of securing the connection with the SMTP server prior to sending.
Suggested SMTP Settings for common email providers
During our testing we had the most success with the following settings, if these options do not work for you, please contact your email service provider as their requirements may change from time to time without our knowledge:
Gmail (SSL)
Smtp server: smtp.gmail.com:465
Use authentication: Yes (ticked)
Use SSL: Yes (ticked)
Use TLS: No (unticked)
Username: yourname@gmail.com
Password: yourpassword
Use base64 encoding: No (unticked)
Gmail (TLS)
Smtp server: smtp.gmail.com
Use authentication: Yes (ticked)
Use SSL: No (unticked)
Use TLS: Yes (ticked)
Username: yourname@gmail.com
Password: yourpassword
Use base64 encoding: No (unticked)
IMPORTANT NOTE: Gmail will change the 'from' email address to the one setup as your username (regardless of the email address you have set up in Company/Setup > Company Details). You may require “Less secure apps” turned on for your Gmail account and if you have 2 step authentication you will need to generate an app password for Synergy. Please consult Gmail support (https://support.google.com) or your local IT tech for any further assistance required with your Gmail account. For more detail on Google App Passwords, please see: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833?hl=en
Xtra (SSL)
Company/Setup > Company Details > Email address must have your correct email address.
Smtp server: send.xtra.co.nz:465
Use authentication: Yes (ticked)
Use SSL: Yes (ticked)
Use TLS: No (unticked)
Username: yourname@xtra.co.nz
Password: yourpassword
Use base64 encoding: No (unticked)
Office 365 (TLS)
Company/Setup > Company Details > Email address must have your correct email address.
Smtp server: smtp.office365.com
Use authentication: Yes (ticked)
Use SSL: No (unticked)
Use TLS: Yes (ticked)
Username: yourname@yourdomain.co.nz
Password: yourpassword
Use base64 encoding: No (unticked)
Hotmail:
Company/Setup > Company Details > Email address must have your correct email address.
Smtp server: smtp.live.com
Use authentication: Yes (ticked)
Use SSL: No (unticked)
Use TLS: Yes (ticked)
Username: yourname@hotmail.com
Password: yourpassword
Use base64 encoding: No (unticked)
Setup your Clients to receive Emails
- Click the Clients icon
- Select the appropriate client and click Edit
- Setup the Email Address on the ‘Details’ Tab
- Click on the Settings tab and change the setting of preferred output to Email if appropriate
This setting will highlight the email option when closing an invoice (so you can see it is their preferred option) and will select email as their preferred option for emailing of statements / reminders etc.
Troubleshooting
If you receive the following error message, the most likely cause is an incorrect username/password and/or email address combination. Check your password/login info with your email service provider
If you receive the following or similar error message; this may because of new restrictions from Google over their Gmail accounts, that will require to you set up ‘2 Step Verification’ then add a specific ‘App Password’ for Synergy on this page: