What is email authentication?

Email Authentication is a security feature that verifies whether your domain is authorized to send emails. It helps reduce spoofing, phishing, and improves email deliverability. This setup involves DKIM and DMARC, which validate outgoing emails from your organization. 

Email Authentication helps ensure the deliverability of emails sent from Zoho People.  This also prevents emails from being marked as SPAM.

Understanding the email authentication page and the domains listed here

The Email Authentication page displays the list of domains that Zoho People may use as the "From address" when sending email notifications. These domains are automatically added by the system to support DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) authentication, which enhances email deliverability and helps prevent spoofing.

Important Notes:

1. Users do not have the ability to manually add or remove domains from the "Email Authentication" page.
2. Domains listed are added by the system based on your account configuration. This includes domains currently used by active users in your Zoho People account, as well as verified domains associated with email addresses added under the "From Addresses" section. These addresses may have been manually added through CAPTCHA verification or are actively used to send email notifications from Zoho People.
3. Public domains (e.g., gmail.com, outlook.com) are intentionally excluded, as DKIM cannot be configured for such domains.

Access email authentication settings

1. Navigate to: Settings > Manage Accounts > Organization Setup > Email Authentication
   
2. You'll see a list of domains associated with your organization, along with their Authentication Status and DMARC setup status.
   
   
   

What domains will be listed here?

1. Domains currently in-use by active users of your Zoho People accounts.
   
2. Verified domains of email IDs added in the "From Addresses" page and manually added through CAPTCHA-verification. (i.e, Email IDs that are used to send email updates from Zoho People). 
   
3. Public email domains will no be listed here (example: gmail.com, outlook.com)

DKIM Authentication

What is DKIM authentication, and why is it necessary?

ALERT!
To ensure compliance with the latest security protocols, please note that all ‘from’ email addresses in your Zoho People account are using DKIM-authenticated domains. Only addresses that use DKIM authenticated domains can be used as ‘from’ addresses going forward.

NOTE

If DKIM Authentication is not performed, the default from address: noreply@zohopeople.com
 will be used as the default and only from address for all emails sent from Zoho People.

Steps to configure DKIM for a domain or from address 

1. Navigate to Settings > Manage Accounts > Organization Setup > Email Authentication
   
2. Click on the DKIM Details link for the domain that you would like to authenticate.
   
   
   
3. You will see a series of steps within the product, which involves updating the DKIM data in DNS as a TXT record.
   
   
   
4. Once the TXT is added successfully, allow some time for the changes to be reflected in the DNS servers.
5. Ensure DKIM data has been updated properly. This may take a while.
   
6. Click Validate Authentication to verify authentication.

Once "Validate Authentication" is clicked and authentication is verified the indicator will be change to Authenticated.

Understanding DMARC

Domains without a DMARC policy will display DMARC not set.

It’s essential that all listed domains are DKIM authenticated and have a DMARC policy set for optimal email delivery and security.