Update your SPF record to improve email deliverability from BATS

Update your SPF record to improve email deliverability from BATS

The most important setting that you can add to improve email deliverability is to add SPF record to your domain's DNS record.  BATS uses SendGrid to send emails, therefore you should add SendGrid's domain to your SPF record.  If you already have an SPF record in your DNS, you should add SendGrid to the SPF record like this:

include:sendgrid.net  

If your domain does not have a SPF record, please add a new one like this:

v=spf1 include:sendgrid.net ~all       

The "~all" setting in the SPF record is a "soft fail", meaning that this is a recommended list of allowed servers, but other domains and servers are allowed to send email on behalf of your domain.  To tighten this up even further, and add even more credibility to your domain you should consider using the "-all" setting, which means that no other servers are allowed to send email on behalf of your domain except the ones explicitly listed in the SPF record.  A word of caution: if you are not 100% sure of the complete list of servers that you are sending emails from, then use the "soft fail" option.

This is what the SPF record for BATScrm.com domain looks like:
v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com include:sendgrid.net include:zoho.com include:servers.mcsv.net -all
You can see the "-all" setting which tells the recipient's email server that these are the only servers which are allowed to send email on behalf of batscrm.com domain.  

Additional information about SPF records can be found here.

You can use the free tool at MX Toolbox to test your SPF record and other DNS configurations.  This link will display the SPF record for batscrm.com domain.  You can type in your domain name to test your SPF record on that page.

Another Example:                                              

After adding SendGrid SPF entry your SPF record could look like this (this is not exactly what your SPF record should look like, its just an example of what one could look like after adding SendGrid entry):

v=spf1 a mx include:_spf.google.com include:sendgrid.net ~all