Why aren't emails generated in Stacks showing up in my inbox?

Email notifications may be sent from your Stacks site for a variety of reasons, including for password resets, room bookings (request, approval, or denied emails), event registration notifications, and easyform notifications. If you or your users/patrons are not receiving these notifications, there may be a few reasons they may not be receiving them, but the most common problems are usually due to:

• Email settings
• Easyform email configuration

Email Settings

Email notifications can be sent from Stacks by either using your organization's own SMTP Server or by using our email service provider. Both options are a reliable method for delivering emails, however they also both require special configuration, reviewing this configuration is correct is a good first step in troubleshooting. 

SMTP Server

Using your own SMTP server allows your organization control over the email sending from Stacks. This ensures full alignment with your domain’s authentication policies (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and gives you complete control over outbound email delivery.

For more information on how to set this up, see the user guide article SMTP Settings. 

If you are currently using SMTP and notifications are not being sent, verify none of the settings in the Dashboard > System Configuration > SMTP Settings area have changed or need updating based on the configuration of your SMTP server. 

Stacks' Email Service Provider

When Stacks sends emails on your behalf using our own enterprise email service, these emails can appear as "email spoofing," a situation where the email appears to come from your own domain, but isn't actually sent through your own organizations servers. Many organizations enforce strict email authentication policies (like DMARC and DKIM) which may reject or mark this type of email as suspicious unless certain configurations are in place. 

Domain-level verification allows us to send emails on your behalf using proper DKIM signatures, which significantly improves deliverability and reduces the chances of emails being flagged or blocked. This process involves adding records to your domain registrar account to verify your domain with our service provider.

If you are using Stacks' email service but are not receiving notifications, its possible your domain has not been verified, please contact EBSCO support for assistance.

EasyForm Email Configuration

If you are using either email option described above, yet your users/patrons are not receiving EasyForm notifications, then the email configuration for the EasyForm is usually where the problem lies. 

The first item to check should be the in the Emails/Handlers section of the EasyForm Settings, specifically the "Send From" email value. During configuration, you can select the "Send From" email from one of 3 sources:

• [Site:mail] - this is the email address added in the Dashboard > System Configuration > Site Details > Site's Email Address field
  • Check that there are no typos or that this is using a email from the verified domain (when using Stacks' email service)
• Custom From email address... - this option allows you to manually enter any email address(es)
  • Check that there are no typos or that this has an email from the verified domain (when using Stacks' email service)
• Elements - these are fields that are added to your form, which can include an email address field
  • If selecting an email field here, consider that this relies on the submitter to enter a valid email address; it is possible that they may make a mistake in typing or enter an email address from an unverified domain (when using Stacks' email service)

For more information on EasyForm email notifications, see the user guide article EasyForm Settings - Emails/Handlers.