How to link your domain name with the Rental Inspector

How do I link my domain name to the Rental Inspector?

We recommend linking your own domain name to the Rental Inspector. This way, the emails with the reports will be sent from your own email addresses (for example, rentals@sheridanre.co.uk) and no longer from noreply@chapps.com.

Linking your domain name has many advantages:

• The email comes across as more professional and reliable to recipients
• All replies and out-of-office replies to emails go directly to your own email address
  
• And last but not least: the automatic emails with the reports are much less susceptible to spam, so they are much more likely to end up in the mailboxes of your tenants and landlords.

To make this possible, you only need to set up three configurations on your domain name once. More specifically, three:

1. Add an SPF record
2. Add a DKIM record
   
3. Make sure your domain name has a valid DMARC record active.

Only if all 3 settings are correctly configured, you are assured of a smooth delivery of your e-mails with the reports.

What do you need?

1. You must be an Admin user of the Rental Inspector
2. Access to the online management module of the provider where your domain name is hosted

The management module differs from one hosting provider to another. Consult your provider's documentation to find out how it works and via which URL you need to log in.

If you do not have access to the management of your domain name or if you find the steps below too complicated, please contact the helpdesk of your hosting provider or your internal IT department. Provide them with the SPF code that you created in step 4 below.


Follow these steps 1 and 2 to link your domain name to the Rental Inspector:

1. Set up SPF record

1. Log in to the Rental Manager
   
   
2. Go to General Settings via the main menu:
   
   
3. In the middle of the screen you will find the settings for the SPF record:
   
   
4. Click on the plus to create a new SPF record for your domain name:
   
   
5. A pop-up window will now appear. In the Hostname field, enter your domain name (without the www, so for example mycompany.com and not www.mycompany.com). Click on save.
   
   
6. Now you will see the code lines for SPF and DKIM to add to your domain name. Click on them one by one to copy them to your clip board and enter them in the settings of the control panel from your hosting provider.
   

Now log in to your hosting provider's management module. In the settings of the hosted domain name, look for the option to modify the TXT records or add new ones.

Now there are two possibilities:

1. Your domain name does not yet have an (other) SPF record
   In that case, create a new TXT record on the domain name and add the full code to this record (e.g.: v=spf1 mx a include:spf.chapps.com ~all). Then save it.
   
   
2. Your domain name already has an existing SPF record
   This will certainly be the case if your domain name is already linked to other software systems such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. In that case, you only need to edit the existing record and add include:spf.chapps.com.
   
   An example:
   
   Your current record is now: v=spf1 mx a include:_spf.relay.mailprotect.be ~all and you now add include:spf.chapps.com to it. Your record will then look like this:
   
   v=spf1 mx a include:_spf.relay.mailprotect.be include:spf.chapps.com ~all
   
   Make sure that the ‘v=spf1 mx a’ at the beginning and the ‘~all’ at the end only appear once in the code line!

Save the changes you have made.

Depending on your hosting provider, it can take up to 48 hours for the new SPF record to become active. 

2. Setting up the DKIM Record

1. Log in to the management module of your domain name provider.
2. Enter the following value in DKIM settings and save it:

DKIM domain key:

turbo-smtp._domainkey

DKIM value:

k=rsa; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQDT3MWLni6so1q9eQggRYBCLHFjohZkCnYHH8gZNDBm6zRrodRVpWpJQW7x3cWWiuBhS1X0IfBB80l5tqFa+yc+mVgnk8tkUzOH FbPQPp4fi7egTpMtsQW/ZMrxw73SItNvPr72qvJTYZNPxarMx+ULjEWybcfEdXHPY8jslGcpCwIDAQAB

Note:
Make sure you completely copy the DKIM value above and that there are no extra spaces or new lines, otherwise it will not work. 

3. DMARC

IMPORTANT: also make sure that your domain name has a DMARC record. This is not a specific record or requirement for Chapps, but it is a must for the smooth operation of your e-mail in general. A DMARC record is a requirement for the normal delivery of e-mails for providers such as Google and Yahoo. Contact your system administrator for more information.

These three steps will connect your domain name correctly and ensure that emails containing reports are delivered smoothly to landlords, tenants and other parties.

Does your company or organisation use multiple domain names? If so, you can add the extra domain names as described in this article.