Send from your church's own domain

Your church can send email the day it starts. Until you have a domain of your own, email goes out in the church's name from an address Trellis shares with every church. Your own domain, like mail.yourchurch.org, is set up on request. Once an admin has added it and it's verified, Trellis moves over to it by itself.

Admins set this up in Communications, then Settings. The page is called Sending as followed by the church's name.

Sends as: before you have a domain

Until a domain of your own is verified, the Sends as card shows the name people see and the address the email comes from. By default that's the church's name, at an address made from the church's web address in Trellis.

Replies still come back to Trellis, in Replies, and to you.

To change the name or the address:

1. Press Change on Sends as.
2. Fill in Name people see and Address, before the @. Blank keeps the church's name and web address.
3. Press Save.

The address can be letters, numbers, dots or dashes. Every Trellis church shares the part after the @, so an address another church uses, or a common word, may be taken. Trellis says so if it is.

Ask for your own domain

Sending from your own domain means the email shows your church's address, not Trellis's. It's set up on request. Only an admin can ask for one or add one. Each domain is $5 a month, added to your Communications bill from when it's added, verified or not. There's nothing extra on Pioneer pricing or for partner churches.

1. Under Domains, type the domain in Domain to send from.
2. Press Request your own domain.

Use a part of your website's domain, like mail.yourchurch.org, not yourchurch.org itself. That way the mail settings your church already has stay untouched.

The page then shows the domain you asked for and the date. We'll email you when it's ready. To change the domain, press Ask again.

Add your own domain

Once we've said yes, Domains shows Add domain instead. You can add as many domains as we've approved; for another one, ask again the same way.

1. Type the domain in Domain to send from, or Another domain if you've added one before.
2. Press Add domain.

If Trellis says it couldn't set up the domain right now, support has been told and will get back to you. If it says the domain can't be used, check the spelling.

Add the DNS records

After you add a domain, its card shows Not verified and a table of records, with columns Type, Name and Value. These prove to inboxes that Trellis sends on your church's behalf.

1. Sign in where your domain's DNS is managed. That's often the company you bought the domain from, or whoever looks after your website.
2. For each row in the table, add a record there with the same Type, Name and Value. Copy each one exactly.
3. Come back to Trellis and press Check DNS.

Each record shows OK once it's found. When all are found, the domain shows Verified and you can send from it.

If Trellis says another church already uses the domain, check the spelling. If it's your church's, write to support@trellischurch.app and they'll look into it.

What changes once it's verified

When the first domain is added, Trellis makes a sender for it: the church's own voice. Once the domain is verified, everything Trellis sends for the church goes out from it, and the shared address stops being used. There's nothing else to switch.

Senders

A sender is who an email comes from: a name and an address on your domain. Senders appear once a domain is verified. One domain can carry any number of them, like hello@, kids@, or a pastor by name.

• A shared sender is for a role, like "Riverside Kids" for the kids team. An admin adds these.
• A personal sender is one person's own address. Only they can write as it.
• The Church's voice is the sender used for invitations, reminders and receipts.

To add one:

1. Press Add a sender. If you're not an admin, it's Add my own sender.
2. An admin chooses Shared, for a role or My own.
3. Fill in Name people see and Address, before the @.
4. Fill in Replies go to, the address that should get a copy of replies.
5. Add a Signature if you like. It goes under every message from this sender, up to six lines.
6. For a shared sender, tick Who can write as it. Tick nobody and anyone in Communications can use it. Admins always can.
7. Press Add sender.

Each sender shows where its replies go. If it says "replies have nowhere to go", press Edit and add an address under Replies go to.

To make a shared sender the church's main one, press Make it the church's voice. To remove a sender, press Remove. The church's voice can't be removed until another sender takes its place.

Leaders' own addresses

Admins also see Leaders' own addresses. With Group leaders may send as themselves ticked, a leader who emails their group from Trellis sends under their own name, and replies go to their own email.

• Before the church has its own domain, that's from the church's shared address.
• Once a domain is verified, each leader gets an address on it the first time they email their group, made from their first name.

Untick it and leaders send from their own mail app instead.

Remove a domain

Press Remove domain on its card and confirm. Every sender on it goes too. If it carried the church's voice, a shared sender on another verified domain takes over. With none, the church sends from the shared address again.

Still stuck? Ask Silas