OTDI Web Hosting does not offer a managed Email Service to our customers, but we do have infrastructure in place which allows OTDI Web Hosted sites to send outbound messages through OSU’s Outbound Mail Service. If you need more functionality than that, we want you to know you have options. Some through the University Messaging & Collaboration Service, and others through 3rd Party Vendors. Below are some tips you might find helpful, based on the typical types of messaging services currently used by our customers.
Newsletter & Password Reminder Email
Setups differ widely but pointing your messaging application/plugin to the local Sendmail service in your container (aka: Localhost) will forward your messages to the OSU Outbound Email Service. Please configure your application/plugin use a real Name.#@osu.edu or DoNotReply@osu.edu as your message’s return address.
Maintenance Email
For abuse@, info@, webmaster@ and other ‘Maintenance’ email addresses, you can use the default abuse@osu.edu, info@osu.edu, and webmaster@osu.edu addresses, or you can setup an Organizational Account through University’s Messaging & Collaboration Service. This gives you a free inbox for your messages, but you must assign someone to monitor the account. They can setup their email client to fetch messages from the account, but OSU will not auto-forward these messages to an individual’s name.# Exchange account. Organizational Account names which include your group’s site name (Like ociowebmaster@osu.edu or ocioinfo@osu.edu) should be considered when requesting the account.
Hosted Email
Should you need Inbound and Outbound Email service, along with the ability to create custom inboxes with non-osu.edu addresses, then a 3rd party hosted service may be right for you. Companies like ZoHoMail, BlueHost, or GoogleWorkspace can provide these services for a fee. You’ll need to create a Purchase Order for their service in Workday, and we’ll need create special DNS Records before it will work, so please let us know if you plan to use this option.
Marketing Email
If you wish to use a commercial Contact Management & Messaging Suite, which provides the ability to track your messages and assign custom inboxes, then a 3rd party Contact Management Service may be right for you. The University Office of Marketing and Communications suggests the use of their Salesforce Marketing Cloud account, but there are other companies like MailChimp and ConstantContact which provide these services for a fee. We’ll need to create special DNS Records before it will work, so please let us know if you plan to use this option.