You will need the Limited Email permission to see your sending domain, and the Full Account permission to set one up, check it, start it over, or remove it.
By default, email from One Church Software goes out from an address at onechurchsoftware.com. Your church can change that, so the people you email see a familiar address from your own domain instead — pastor@thedomainofyourchurch.org rather than mailer@onechurchsoftware.com.
Setting this up means adding a short list of DNS records at whoever manages your domain. One Church Software looks for those records, and as soon as it finds all of them, your email switches over. You do not need to move your mailboxes or change how anyone sends email; only the address recipients see changes.
A sending domain requires a paid subscription. It is not available during a free trial.
Where to find your sending domain
Go to Messaging > Message History to open the Messaging Center. The Emailing panel on the right side of the page begins with a Sending Domain row.
The first line of that row is always the domain your email is going out from right now. Until you finish setting up a domain of your own, it reads onechurchsoftware.com.
What you see on that row depends on your permissions:
Limited Email - shows the Emailing panel, and with it the Sending Domain row. Without this permission the panel is not there at all.
Full Account - shows the button that lets you set up, check, start over, or remove a domain. Without it, you can see the row and its status but not act on it.
During a free trial the Use Your Domain button is greyed out, with Available once your subscription starts. beneath it. Setup becomes available as soon as your subscription begins.
Setting up your domain
You will need someone who can add DNS records for your domain, often whoever manages your church website. Have them ready before you start, or send them the records once you have them.
Start the setup
On the Sending Domain row, select Use Your Domain.
Enter the domain you want your email to come from. The Domain field is already filled in with the domain from your church email address, unless that address is at a public provider such as Gmail. You can paste an email address or a website address here — info@thedomainofyourchurch.org and https://www.thedomainofyourchurch.org/about both become thedomainofyourchurch.org.
Select Continue. The first check runs right away and the window switches to show your DNS records.
Have whoever manages your DNS add every record shown in the window at your DNS provider. Each name and value has a copy button; you would use it rather than typing the values by hand.
Wait. DNS changes can take up to 72 hours to be found. Checks run automatically in the background, so you can close the window and carry on.
When DKIM, MAIL FROM, and DMARC all show Found, your domain becomes Verified, your email starts going out from it, and you receive an email confirming the change.
Tip: Seeing Missing right after you select Continue is normal. That first check runs before your records have been added, so DKIM usually shows Waiting and the others show Missing. They turn to Found as the records are published and picked up.
Your existing email is not affected
The MX and SPF records go on appmail. in front of your domain, not on the domain itself. Your inbox, your current MX records, and any SPF record you already have stay exactly as they are. A DMARC record is only requested when your domain does not already have a valid one.
The DNS records
Open the records window from the button on the Sending Domain row, or from the link in any of the notification emails described below. Your domain and its status sit at the top, followed by three groups of records.
DKIM - three CNAME records that prove the email really came from you. The names and values are unique to your church.
MAIL FROM - an MX record and a TXT (SPF) record, both on appmail. in front of your domain.
DMARC - one TXT record on _dmarc. in front of your domain. This group only appears when your domain does not already have a valid DMARC record.
Each group shows one of three labels: Found means the group passes, Missing means a record is absent or incorrect, and Waiting means nothing is known yet — usually DKIM in the first hours after setup. Under an individual record, Not found yet means that record was looked up and is not there.
Watch for a doubled domain name
Many DNS providers add your domain to the end of whatever name you type in. If you paste the full name from the window, the record can end up as ..._domainkey.thedomainofyourchurch.org.thedomainofyourchurch.org, which will never be found.
One Church Software watches for this on DKIM records and tells you when it sees it. The fix is to enter only the part of the name that comes before your domain.
What the DMARC group asks for
What you see in the DMARC group depends on what your domain already has:
One valid DMARC record - a green Already set. No changes needed. message appears. There is nothing for you to do.
A valid DMARC record on a domain above yours - a green message says it is already set on that domain. A record on yourchurch.org covers mail.yourchurch.org. There is nothing for you to do.
More than one DMARC record - a warning lists them all. Only one is allowed, so remove the extras until a single record remains.
A DMARC record with no policy - a warning shows the record, followed by the record you should use. Replace the existing record rather than adding a second one.
No DMARC record - add the record shown in the window.
The record One Church Software suggests uses a monitoring-only policy, which is the gentlest option. If your domain already has a stricter policy, keep it — any single DMARC record with a policy will pass.
What changes when your domain is verified
Verifying a domain changes the From address on your email and nothing else. The sender name, the Reply-To address, the message, and the recipients all stay exactly as they were.
One rule decides every From address. An address that ends in exactly your verified domain is kept as written. Any other address is replaced with mailer@ at your domain.
With @thedomainofyourchurch.org verified:
An email sent from pastor@thedomainofyourchurch.org arrives from pastor@thedomainofyourchurch.org
An email sent from a staff member’s gmail.com email address arrives from mailer@thedomainofyourchurch.org.
An email sent from another domain your church owns, such as office@thedomainofyourchurch.org, arrives from mailer@thedomainofyourchurch.org.
Warning: The match is exact. Capital letters do not matter, but subdomains do. With thedomainofyourchurch.org verified, an address at mail.yourchurch.org still goes out as mailer@thedomainofyourchurch.org. Verify the domain your staff actually use in their email addresses.
Replies still reach the sender
Replies go exactly where they went before. Email sent from the Messaging menu sets the Reply-To address to the address it was sent from, so a staff member who sends from a Gmail address appears as Jane Smith <mailer@thedomainofyourchurch.org> and still receives the replies in Gmail.
Two church addresses worth checking
Some email goes out from your church’s own addresses rather than from a person. Two of these are worth checking before you finish:
Your main church email, at Settings & Tools (Cog icon in the tool-bar) > Your Organization > Account Settings > Edit Account > Email. Email the system sends on behalf of the church without a named sender comes from this address, including giving receipts.
Your financial reply address, in your contributions settings on the Options tab under Financial Communication. Giving statements come from this address when it is set, and from your main church email when it is not.
If either address is not on your verified domain, email sent from it goes out as mailer@ at your domain. The records window points this out and names the address. You can change the address to one on your domain, or leave it if mailer@ is fine for your church.
What keeps the One Church Software address
Email that One Church Software sends to your staff about your account always comes from an onechurchsoftware.com address, whatever domain you verify. That covers account notices, including the sending domain emails described below, and scheduled reports.
Statuses and the emails you will receive
Your sending domain moves through four statuses. Each one tells you where your email is going out from, and most of them come with an email to your church.
Pending
Your records have been issued but not all of them have been found yet. Email continues to go out from onechurchsoftware.com. Pending has no deadline of its own — it ends when every record is found, or when the DKIM records run out their 72 hours.
Verified
Every record has been found and your email is going out from your domain. You receive an email titled Your emails now send from your domain. If your domain is returning from Action Needed, the email reads Your emails send from your domain again.
Action Needed
A record your domain needs has gone missing, often after a change at your DNS provider. Email goes back to onechurchsoftware.com so it keeps arriving, and you receive an email titled Action needed: your domain records are missing, naming which group is at fault.
This status fixes itself. Once the missing records are back in place and found, your domain returns to Verified on its own, your email moves back to your domain, and you receive the confirmation email again.
Expired
The DKIM records were not found within 72 hours of setup, or they later stopped working on a domain that had been running. Email goes out from onechurchsoftware.com and you receive an email titled with your domain and setup expired.
Unlike Action Needed, this status does not fix itself. You need to start over and publish three new DKIM records, as described below.
Tip: A verified domain gets an hour of grace on its MAIL FROM and DMARC records, so a quick change at your DNS provider does not knock it offline. DKIM gets no grace; if DKIM stops passing, the change is immediate.
About the notification emails
Each of these emails goes to the person who started the setup and to your main church email. They come from One Church Software at notifications@onechurchsoftware.com, and replies reach our support team. Every one of them ends with a link that opens your sending domain settings directly.
If you were already sending from your own domain
Some churches were sending from their own domain before this feature existed. Those domains show as Verified from the start, with a Live Since date matching the release rather than the date they were originally set up. Their DKIM records appear in the window after the first automatic check. From then on they are checked like everyone else.
Checking, starting over, and removing your domain
All three of these actions require the Full Account permission. Without it, you see the records window but not these buttons.
Check Now
Check Now appears in every status except Expired. It checks every record immediately and refreshes the window. Checks are limited to one a minute per church, counting the automatic ones, so if the last check ran less than a minute ago you see that result instead.
Tip: Check Now does one thing the automatic checks do not. If the search for your MAIL FROM MX record has given up, only a Check Now restarts it. If you have fixed your MX record and MAIL FROM still shows Missing, select Check Now.
Start Over
Start Over appears only when your domain is Expired, inside the records window beneath the notice. It issues three brand-new DKIM records, returns your domain to Pending, and starts a fresh 72 hours. Your MAIL FROM and DMARC records do not change.
Warning: You must replace all three DKIM records at your DNS provider with the new values. The old values will never verify.
Remove Domain
Remove Domain sits at the bottom of the records window in any status. A confirmation explains what will happen: for a verified domain, email goes back to onechurchsoftware.com; in any other status, your email is already going out from onechurchsoftware.com, so nothing changes.
New email goes out from onechurchsoftware.com straight away. Email that was already being sent when you removed the domain finishes from your domain.
Your domain stays reserved to your church for about a day afterwards. Adding the same domain back within that day normally reuses the DKIM records you already published, so it can return to Verified on the first check. After that day the reservation ends, and adding the domain again issues new DKIM records.
Troubleshooting
You cannot find the Sending Domain row
The row lives in the Emailing panel on the right of the Messaging Center, at Messaging > Message History. If the whole Emailing panel is missing, your user account does not have the Limited Email permission.
The row has no button, or the button is greyed out
No button at all means you do not have the Full Account permission; someone who does will need to do the setup. A greyed-out Use Your Domain button with Available once your subscription starts. beneath it means your church is on a free trial.
You see "This domain is already in use"
Another One Church Software account is holding that domain. A domain stays held for about a day after it is removed, so if you have just removed it from a second account your church runs, waiting a day will clear it. Otherwise, contact our support team with your domain and account name.
You see a message about public email providers
Domains such as gmail.com, yahoo.com, outlook.com, and icloud.com cannot be used, because your church cannot publish DNS records for them. Use a domain your church owns, usually the one your website uses. An onechurchsoftware.com address cannot be used either.
Your records are added but still show as not found
Work through these in order:
Has it been 72 hours? DNS changes can take that long to be seen. Select Check Now so you are not waiting on the next automatic check.
Is the doubled-name message showing on a DKIM record? Re-enter that record with only the part of the name before your domain.
Are the MX and TXT records on appmail. in front of your domain, rather than on the domain itself?
Is there exactly one SPF record on the appmail. name? Two records there count as missing.
For DMARC, is there exactly one record, and does it include a policy? The window shows a warning when either is wrong.
Do the values match character for character? Use the copy button beside each value; typing them by hand is the most common cause of a mismatch.
MAIL FROM still shows Missing after you fixed it
Select Check Now. The search for the MX record can give up, and only a manual check restarts it.
Email arrives from mailer@ instead of the sender’s address
The From address is not on your verified domain. The match is exact, so a Gmail address, another domain your church owns, or a subdomain all become mailer@. Replies still reach the sender, because the Reply-To address is unchanged.
Giving receipts or statements come from mailer@
Your main church email or your financial reply address is not on your domain. The records window lists both with a warning when that is the case. Change the address in your account settings, or in your contributions settings on the Options tab under Financial Communication, to one on your domain.
Your domain is verified but some email still comes from onechurchsoftware.com
There are three normal reasons. Email that was already being sent before your domain was verified finishes the old way. Account notices and scheduled reports always come from onechurchsoftware.com. And if the email’s own From address was already an onechurchsoftware.com address, it is kept as it is.
You want to switch to a different domain
Your church can have one sending domain at a time. Remove the current one, then set up the new one from Use Your Domain. Your email goes out from onechurchsoftware.com in between.
Live Since shows a date you do not recognise
Live Since is the date your domain most recently became Verified, so it moves forward after a spell in Action Needed. If it shows the date this feature was released, your church was already sending from its own domain beforehand and the original setup date was not carried over. Last Checked shows when the most recent check ran, automatic or manual.
Good to know
Your church can have one sending domain at a time.
A domain can belong to one church at a time, and stays held for about a day after it is removed.
Sending domains are not available during a free trial.
Public mailbox providers and onechurchsoftware.com cannot be used.
A From address is kept only when it ends in exactly your verified domain. Subdomains and other domains your church owns become mailer@.
Check Now runs at most once a minute for your church.
Account notices and scheduled reports from One Church Software always send from onechurchsoftware.com.