Using a Custom SendGrid Key

Introduction

ChurnZero currently uses a third party email service provider called SendGrid to send email out of our system. In doing so, we use a SendGrid API key specific to ChurnZero. This allows us to use the SendGrid system for sending emails, tracking opens, and tracking clicks on behalf of our customers.

As part of this process, customers often setup an SPF record to list SendGrid/ChurnZero as an authorized sender of email for their domain. Doing so ensures email makes it to the inbox and is not marked as spam.

But if you already use SendGrid for other applications and have an existing SPF record setup, you will find that you will not be able to configure ChurnZero's instance of SendGrid for SPF. Instead, you can configure ChurnZero to use your existing SendGrid API key.

Configure a Custom SendGrid API Key

Before beginning, it is recommended that you create a dedicated SendGrid API Key for use with ChurnZero. To do this, log in to SendGrid and create an API Key with the "Mail Send" permission (this is the only permission required). See this documentation for more details on creating a SendGrid API key.

**Note: These steps assume that the user logging in has the "Dev Tools" permission.

1. Log in to ChurnZero
2. Navigate to the Admin->Email Settings
3. On the General page, find the area for SendGrid API Key
   
4. Enter your SendGrid API key (see notes above for details on creating a SendGrid API Key).
5. Once entered, click the Send Test Email button. This will send a test email to the email address of the currently logged in user using the SendGrid API Key provided.
6. Check your email for a confirmation that your SendGrid API Key worked, it should look something like this:
   
   
   
7. Once verified, click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen. Note that once saved, we will no longer show the SendGrid API key in it's entirety. This is for security reasons. If you need to change the API Key in the future, you will need to generate a new SendGrid API Key as described earlier in this document.

Summary

It is important to note that configuring a custom SendGrid API key will also cause ChurnZero to use our custom email open and tracking solution. As the customer, you will see no changes in application behavior other than the tracking links that are generated in emails will be a ChurnZero domain instead of a SendGrid domain. All other statistics and reports will remain the same.

Configuring a custom SendGrid API key allows you to use the same SendGrid account for multiple applications and still be able to configure SPF records as appropriate.