Website being migrated to new server email from Doug Steinig

[Miss Kate]

I was just informed via email support ticket my website is being migrated to a new server in the next 30 days. I will be losing my email and need to outsource it. For those of you using Microsoft Exchange Server, are you able to use [email protected] still? I was given two suggestions Microsoft Exchange Server or Google. I tried calling Microsoft @7:45pm this evening and got message saying they were gone for the day (Shouldn't have been gone since they are open M-F 6am - 6pm Pacific time). If I go with Microsoft Exchange Server, do I need to purchase Microsoft 365 Business Standard
which costs $12.50/month and allows for customized email addresses or will Exchange Online (Plan 2) (costs $8.00/month) be enough for me but it doesn't list anything about customized email addresses. This really has me jumping through hoops right now as I never expected this would happen. I really need to be able to keep my [email protected] email address as I just bought new business cards with it on.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

You'd really be fine with even their $4/mo plan:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/micr...xchange-online

The $8 plan includes more storage at 100 GB instead of 50 GB, but you would not need that to start out. Their plan lets you have your base domain and any alias domains you need. On a mailbox basis, where you can choose any name you want for each mailbox, you can also add unlimited aliases to it which do not count against the base monthly mailbox cost. So if you only really care about hermes@ and want sales, support, etc. to all point at it, that won't add additional fees. The $12.50 plan I believe includes the full office suite if you need that.

I use their $4/mo plan for my non-Miva personal domains.

[Miss Kate]

You'd really be fine with even their $4/mo plan:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/micr...xchange-online

The $8 plan includes more storage at 100 GB instead of 50 GB, but you would not need that to start out. Their plan lets you have your base domain and any alias domains you need. On a mailbox basis, where you can choose any name you want for each mailbox, you can also add unlimited aliases to it which do not count against the base monthly mailbox cost. So if you only really care about hermes@ and want sales, support, etc. to all point at it, that won't add additional fees. The $12.50 plan I believe includes the full office suite if you need that.

I use their $4/mo plan for my non-Miva personal domains.

Thank you for responding back so quickly. I wasn't sure if the $4 plan would let me use [email protected] as it doesn't say that in the description. I don't need the whole suite of apps as I absolutely hate Microsoft 365. When I had it, it was more trouble than it was worth. I prefer just having the software on my computer and being done with it. I already pay $1.99/mo for additional OneDrive storage so I guess I would never need to upgrade to the 100 Gb.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

That $12.50 plan includes both the online version and the download version, in case that's of interest. My wife's personal domain we host with Microsoft too and use the $12.50 plan for her because she likes their office suite, but the download version like you prefer, not the web version. The $4 will let you create mailboxes of any name of your choosing on your domain, and then you can add both alias domains and alias mail names too without incurring additional mailbox charges. You can also have group aliases if needed, such as sales@ going to two people, etc.

[Miss Kate]

That $12.50 plan includes both the online version and the download version, in case that's of interest. My wife's personal domain we host with Microsoft too and use the $12.50 plan for her because she likes their office suite, but the download version like you prefer, not the web version. The $4 will let you create mailboxes of any name of your choosing on your domain, and then you can add both alias domains and alias mail names too without incurring additional mailbox charges. You can also have group aliases if needed, such as sales@ going to two people, etc.

In another post, you suggested SendGrid to the inquiry. If I'm only using the email for order confirmations and minimal correspondence, would that be a better option for me to use than Microsoft Exchange? Quite frankly, I'm not worried how fast a customer gets an order confirmation as long as I get one too. There is a free SendGrid option and then the next option is $20/mo. What are your thoughts?

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Ah, I see that plan now, the risk there is it seems to only support 100 emails/day, so if you've got order notifications going out to you, the customer, lost password emails, admin browser validation, etc. it would be pretty easy to hit that limit. For the most part though, the only benefit in this situation is to work around issues of spam folder deliveries; if you aren't seeing that occur much among your customers, you may not want to worry about it for the time being. Sites that have been on the same IP for a considerable amount of time don't tend to have the issues as often, and we typically have customers on the same IP for years or decades.

[Miss Kate]

Ah, I see that plan now, the risk there is it seems to only support 100 emails/day, so if you've got order notifications going out to you, the customer, lost password emails, admin browser validation, etc. it would be pretty easy to hit that limit. For the most part though, the only benefit in this situation is to work around issues of spam folder deliveries; if you aren't seeing that occur much among your customers, you may not want to worry about it for the time being. Sites that have been on the same IP for a considerable amount of time don't tend to have the issues as often, and we typically have customers on the same IP for years or decades.

Right now I'm totally confused as to what I need to be using when Miva drops my email. I signed up for the $4/mo Microsoft Exchange but I can't seem to get any help setting it up so Microsoft can verify I own my website. You mentioned in another thread that Microsoft takes longer to send out emails to customers who have placed an order, etc. Since your wife uses the $4/mo option, is she happy with the speed in which emails get sent out via Microsoft?

[ILoveHostasaurus]

The delay issue won't be visible when using Microsoft for your own domain's email services. The delay is when you try to connect a transactional system of any type, such as Miva Merchant or other software, to Microsoft for sending messages in real time as part of a transaction. They do not work well for such a configuration because of the delays incorporated into sending; you never notice those yourself because if you just click send in Outlook it does it all behind the scenes, but in a store you're checking out of, if it sits there for eight to ten seconds per message it sends, it will be very noticeable.

The Microsoft domain verification is typically a DNS record they ask you to add. We can add that for you if you have that either in the portal or in an email they sent.

[Miss Kate]

The delay issue won't be visible when using Microsoft for your own domain's email services. The delay is when you try to connect a transactional system of any type, such as Miva Merchant or other software, to Microsoft for sending messages in real time as part of a transaction. They do not work well for such a configuration because of the delays incorporated into sending; you never notice those yourself because if you just click send in Outlook it does it all behind the scenes, but in a store you're checking out of, if it sits there for eight to ten seconds per message it sends, it will be very noticeable.

The Microsoft domain verification is typically a DNS record they ask you to add. We can add that for you if you have that either in the portal or in an email they sent.

Okay, aren't the emails sent out from Miva Merchant verifying a sale to me and the customer considered transactional? Those emails go out when I am notified of a new sale. Since I don't get many orders (none so far this year), should I be worried about an 8-10 second delay?

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Yes, those are transactional. However, the delay is for each unique email, so if the store is sending two per checkout, and then perhaps your payment gateway has a delay, or Microsoft's SMTP is not accepting connections right then, or any other aspect of the transaction also incurs delay, you can run into several possible failure scenarios that could result in the order being charged but the customer not knowing that and repeating it, errors presented to them, wasted customer service time from inquiries related to any of that, etc. We do not recommend using Microsoft's email services for the store to send email through; better to leave it sending as it does through us, or if there are reasons to do so, use Sendgrid for those store-generated transactional emails.

[Kent Multer]

Yes, those are transactional. However, the delay is for each unique email, so if the store is sending two per checkout, and then perhaps your payment gateway has a delay, or Microsoft's SMTP is not accepting connections right then, or any other aspect of the transaction also incurs delay, you can run into several possible failure scenarios that could result in the order being charged but the customer not knowing that and repeating it, errors presented to them, wasted customer service time from inquiries related to any of that, etc. We do not recommend using Microsoft's email services for the store to send email through; better to leave it sending as it does through us, or if there are reasons to do so, use Sendgrid for those store-generated transactional emails.

Hi David, I'd like to make sure I understand your last answer. It seems that, after I set up email hosting at Microsoft, I should change my email program's settings (Thunderbird) to use the new host. But I shouldn't change any settings in the store; it will continue to use Miva for sending transactional emails. Is that correct?

Thanks --

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Correct. Very undesirable to have the store use Microsoft for sending, it can continue to use 'localhost' as long as the mail services on our side have been turned off so the local server doesn't attempt to intercept the outbound messages.

[lesliekirk]

Correct. Very undesirable to have the store use Microsoft for sending, it can continue to use 'localhost' as long as the mail services on our side have been turned off so the local server doesn't attempt to intercept the outbound messages.

I was wondering about the store configurations and using localhost. I've seen some stores use their mail server, for example Google. It was a while back but I seem to recall the configuration was recommended to cut down on email being sent rejected as spam.

Is a how-to going to be posted to help with all the confusion?

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Microsoft seems to be the only big entity who has the sending issue, so many customers do choose to send through their normal mail provider without issue, and undertake that change because they're familiar with email concepts and know it would be beneficial to their use case. I don't know that there is any guidance that would be generally accurate for all, other than not touching the existing localhost setting when moving mail services elsewhere, since that will typically work fine and not create new issues that were not already occurring. That would also already be the default option, since it's already set that way. The recommendation for Sendgrid is more geared towards those who are encountering spam folder issues when using localhost, due to mail not coming from a high volume reputation IP address.

[Kent Multer]

I just started this process: I signed up for the $4/mo. plan at Microsoft. But it's not letting me complete the setup. It tells me to create a TXT record with a specific value, "MS=(my ID number), which I did in my domain's control panel DNS Settings page. But then I clicked the Verify button at Microsoft, and it says it can't find the record. It found a different record, which starts with "v=spf1..."

Am I supposed to delete that old record? There's another TXT record in there too. Do I also have to delete that one?

I got the impression that this would be an easy process. The original form letter from Doug Steinig just gives a link to Microsoft. Can you provide more detailed instructions that will actually allow me to complete this process?