Before FrontDesk emails your patients, you choose the address the mail comes from and prove you are allowed to send as it. That keeps reminders, confirmations and receipts out of the spam folder.
Email is included on Pro and above. On the Free plan, Settings → Email shows an upgrade prompt instead.
Open Settings → Email. The strip at the top tells you where things stand: Patient emails aren't going out yet, Almost there (with a reminder to confirm your address), or Sending as your address once mail is flowing.
Verify your sending address
In the Who patient emails come from card:
- Send from: the address patients see. Use an address on your practice's own domain (for example
appointments@yourpractice.com), not a Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo or other free-mail address. - Shown as: the sender name, usually your practice name. Left blank, emails to clients show the name clients know you by: your organization name, or the location's Name clients see under Settings → Client Portal, never the location's own name.
- Optional: click Send replies somewhere else and fill in Replies go to if replies should land in a different inbox.
- Your mailing address: street, city, state and ZIP. Anti-spam law requires a real address at the bottom of every email patients receive.
- Click Verify this address. SendGrid emails that address a confirmation link from no-reply@sendgrid.com.
- Click the link in that email, then click I've clicked the link. Send it again resends it.
If your domain is already authenticated and the address is on it, the button reads Turn on sending and the address is ready at once, with no email to click. Changing the address later means verifying it again; Remove stops patient email until you set up another sender.
Authenticate your domain (recommended)
- Open the Authenticate your domain card and click Set up.
- Enter the domain your practice uses for email (usually your website's domain) and click Continue.
- Add each record shown (Type, Name and Value) at your domain's DNS host. The card recognizes common hosts and links to their DNS page.
- Click Check records. DNS changes can take a while to appear; check again later if they are not found yet.
When the card says Active, DKIM and SPF are in place, and any address on that domain can send without a verification email.
Setting up, checking and removing domain authentication is for the account owner and admins. The rest of the team can see the domain and its records.
Bought the domain in FrontDesk? Open Online Booking → Domains and choose Set up sending under DNS & email: the records are added for you. See Buy a domain for your website.
Test and monitor
- Send a test email: the ⋯ button at the top right of the page. It is available once your sender is verified and always goes to the email address you sign in with.
- Numbers: once mail is going out, the strip shows the last 30 days' sent count and delivered and opened rates. The activity card breaks mail down by type for the last 7, 30 or 90 days, and View analytics opens the full analytics, filterable by type (Intake Forms, Reviews, Payments, Reminders, Confirmations).
- Need a hand? The ⋯ menu's Have our team set it up sends a request to our support team.
Good to know
- Most patient email waits for a sender. Reminders, confirmations, invoices and payment emails do not send until a sender is verified or a domain is authenticated. Client Portal sign-in codes and secure-message notices always go out through FrontDesk's own sender as "Your practice via FrontDesk", and so do document requests until you have a verified sender.
- It powers most patient mail. Payment emails and appointment reminders all use this sender.