Exxat understands the critical role email deliverability plays in ensuring your messages reach clinical sites. To give you more control and improve success rates, we now offer the ability to send emails using your university's domain.

Using Your University Domain 

This feature strengthens university branding and streamlines email acceptance. Clinical sites won't need to whitelist the Exxat Domain (exxat.com) – they'll simply whitelist your university domain.

Enabling the Feature

 To activate this feature, your IT team will need to add a few specific entries to your university's domain settings. These entries authorize Exxat's email provider (SendGrid) to send emails on your behalf. These entries serve two key functions -

• Verify your ownership of the email sender address domain.
• Grant Exxat (via SendGrid) permission to send emails using your university domain.

We leverage SendGrid's Automated Security feature. This allows SendGrid to manage the signing and authentication processes on your behalf, eliminating the need for frequent updates on your end.

Steps to configure your own domain to send emails

1. Raise support ticket or request Account Manager’s to initiate process of configuring university email address to send emails from Exxat Prism.
2. Provide email address that you want Exxat support team to configure as default from email address for all mails going out from given program / university.
3. Upon receiving request, Exxat support team will work with Exxat Devops team to setup domain whitelisting into SendGrid account and send invitation email from SendGrid to whitelist CNAME records.
4.  Upon successful completion of this activity, Exxat support team will send some test emails and after successful trial enable this feature for all emails that goes out from Exxat Prism.

Configuration Required from University IT team

After receiving the domain whitelisting request, the university IT team will have to add DNS record entries to allow Exxat to start sending emails via university’s email address. There will be DNS entries required for CNAME and DMARC records.

Below is short explanation of these technical terms.

Understanding CNAME Records 

CNAME records act like aliases, linking your domain to SendGrid’s domain. This empowers SendGrid to manage your email authentication records (SPF and DKIM) automatically. Even if we acquire a new dedicated IP address, SendGrid will seamlessly update your SPF record.

Optional DMARC Record 

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is an optional layer of security that verifies email sender authenticity. It helps prevent spoofing attempts that could damage your sender's reputation. While DMARC policies can range from simple to strict, SendGrid supports any valid policy during verification. We recommend starting with a basic policy (v=DMARC1; p=none) and consulting your IT team for potentially stricter options.

Example

For your reference, here's an example of DNS records generated for the 'exxat.us' domain.

Additional Resources

For a more comprehensive explanation of domain authentication, refer to the SendGrid resource: 

How to Set Up Domain Authentication https://docs.sendgrid.com/ui/account-and-settings/how-to-set-up-domain-authentication