Use your own mail domain

Have your organisation’s mail arrive in PAFworks and leave from it under your own domain name. Add the domain, publish the DNS records PAFworks lists for it, then give everyone their address — and add shared mailboxes, distribution lists and a scan-to-mail address where you need them.

Step 1 — Add the domain

1. Click Admin in the left bar, then Allowed domains under Mail. Type your domain and click Add.

   

2. The domain appears as Not verified, followed by its DNS records: the list of what to publish, with the type, the name and the value of each record, and a line on what it is for.

   

Step 2 — Publish the DNS records

At your registrar or DNS host, create each record exactly as PAFworks lists it: same type, same name, same value. The values are those of your PAFworks service — copy them from your page; the picture above shows examples. In the order of the list:

Depending on your PAFworks service, the list may hold other optional records, such as SRV and TXT records under _caldavs._tcp and _carddavs._tcp: they let calendar and contacts apps find PAFworks from an address alone.

Step 3 — Check the records

Once the records are published, click Check on the domain. PAFworks asks your domain’s own name servers rather than a cache, so a record is seen as soon as your DNS host publishes it. Each record then gets a mark, and the domain a status.

• A tick means in place, a cross to fix. A dash marks an optional record that is not there: it does not make the domain incomplete.
• The last line says when the domain was last checked. Click Check again after each correction.
• You do not have to come back for the proof of ownership: PAFworks also looks for it by itself every ten minutes, 48 times at most.

Give everyone an address

A colleague uses Mail once they hold an address on one of your verified domains.

1. In Admin, click Mailboxes. Under Mail addresses, type the address and choose its owner in the list: an account by its user name, a shared mailbox marked (shared) or a distribution list marked (distribution list). Tick Primary if it should be the address its owner sends from, then click Add.

   

2. The list shows every address of your organisation and its owner. The primary one is what its owner’s mail is sent from; Make primary changes it, Delete removes an address.

• Aliases. Any further address of an account is an alias: its mail arrives in the same inbox, and the person can choose it in From. With a rule on Received at address, they can sort it apart — see Sort your mail automatically.
• New accounts. When you create a user whose e-mail address is on one of your verified domains, that address becomes their first mail address by itself.
• The first address of an owner is always its primary one.
• Removing a person’s last address takes Mail away from them, unless they belong to a shared mailbox. Their messages are kept, and come back when they are given an address again.

Shared mailboxes

A shared mailbox is an address with its own folders, read by several colleagues at once: contact@, support@, accounting@.

1. In Admin › Mailboxes, under Shared mailboxes, type its name and its address, then click Create. The new mailbox opens, still without members.

2. Under Members, choose a colleague in Add a user…, their right, and click Add. Each member’s right can be changed in their line; Remove takes them out. Manage opens a mailbox again later, to rename it or change its address and members.

   

Members find the mailbox in Mail, under Team share: see Shared mailboxes in the mail guide. A mailbox without members still receives mail, but nobody can read it.

Distribution lists

A distribution list is an address that delivers each message to the inbox of several colleagues — sales@, team@. Unlike a shared mailbox there is no common folder: every member gets their own copy, sorted by their own rules, and can answer from the list’s address so that the reply keeps reaching all of them.

1. In Admin › Mailboxes, under Distribution lists, type the name and the address of the list, then click Create.

   

   If the address already belongs to a colleague, PAFworks offers to Move it to the list: they become a member and keep receiving its mail.

2. The list opens: add its members with Add a user… and Add.

   

• To answer as the list, members choose its address in From.
• Members are accounts of your organisation: a list does not forward mail to outside addresses. A paused account, marked inactive, receives nothing from the list until it is resumed.
• A list without members refuses the mail sent to it. Deleting a list refuses its addresses from then on; the copies its members already received stay in their mailboxes.

Scan to a folder

A Mail to folder address files the attachments of every message it receives into a folder of Files: the address to give the scan-to-mail function of a copier.

1. In Admin › Mailboxes, under Mail to folder, type a name and the address. Click Choose a folder…, open the folder — any shared folder, or the files of any account — and click Choose this folder.

   

2. In the last list, choose Keep no copy of the message, or keep a copy in the inbox of an account or of a shared mailbox. Click Create.

   

3. Set the copier to send its scans to the new address. Each address shows its folder and how many files it has received.

   

• Every attachment becomes a file of the folder. A file with the same name is never replaced: the new one gets a name of its own.
• The message itself is deleted once its attachments are filed, unless you chose to keep a copy. A message without attachment is refused and returned to its sender.
• When the folder is an automatic folder, the address shows Automatic sorting: the scans are then renamed and filed like anything dropped there — see File your documents automatically.
• Edit changes the name, the address, the folder or the copy; Delete stops the address, and the files already filed stay where they are.

Spam filter

When your PAFworks service runs the spam filter, it reads every incoming message: obvious spam is refused at the door — the sending server tells its own user — and doubtful messages go to the Junk folder of each recipient, whatever their rules. It learns from what your colleagues mark as Spam or Not spam, for your organisation alone (see Junk mail).

Its state is in Admin › Mail and meetings, under Antispam: whether incoming mail is scanned, whether the filter learns, and after how many days the junk folders are emptied, with a Test connection button. There is nothing to set there: the filter is configured by whoever runs your PAFworks service.

Good to know

• A domain belongs to one organisation: once verified, no other PAFworks organisation can add it. It stays verified even if you remove the proof record later.
• A domain that still holds addresses cannot be deleted: delete its addresses first.
• If your organisation sends its mail through a relay of its own, the domain panel says so and does not list SPF and DKIM: publish the records your relay’s provider documents.
• An address belongs to one owner only, and the part before the @ is limited to 64 characters. Mail sent to an address nobody holds is refused.
• A shared mailbox or a distribution list always keeps one address: give it another one before deleting its last.
• Deleting a shared mailbox deletes its folders, its messages and its addresses; PAFworks asks for confirmation first.
• If the spam filter cannot be reached, mail is delivered unfiltered rather than held.