Setting Up Office 365 Hosting

This article will assist you to setup Office 365 e-mail hosting, which is an alternative to hosting your e-mail accounts with Oncord.  

This article is also relevant if you already use Office 365 and are wanting to keep that configuration when you make your new website go live.  

You should setup your MX records as instructed below or import your domain configuration before you go live, in order to prevent interruption to your email service.

Already Using Office 365 Prior to Oncord?

If you are migrating to Oncord and are currently using Office 365, you can just use our "Go Live Wizard" to import your existing Office 365 settings. 

Login to the Dashboard, and select the Settings icon, which is located at the bottom of the left sidebar. 

Select the "Domains" heading.

A notice will display that says "Your website is not live yet", click the link "Launch the Go Live Wizard". 

Manually Setup Office 365

To setup Office 365, you first need to complete all setup instructions with Office 365, until it asks you to "Update your DNS settings".

Once you have created all your accounts in Office 365, open Oncord and go to Settings (cog icon bottom left) then Domains. Click the domain you want to configure Office 365 for.  

This will open a screen with your DNS settings.  These settings are only relevant if your domain points to our name servers.

Click Switch Email Hosting to Office 365.  This might take a few minutes.

It will take up to a few hours for the settings to take effect.

You can check your MX records using:   https://mxtoolbox.com/

Not Using Our Name Servers?

In your external DNS service, set your MX records to Office 365's MX Servers per Microsoft's instructions.

To ensure that email marketing and website form submissions work, you will also need to configure an SPF record with the letter a in the record.  

Example:

v=spf1  a  include:spf.protection.outlook.com  -all

Receiving a "fraud detection check" warning?

This warning will only show to you when Oncord has sent mail to email addresses at your domain.  It should not show to your customers. This warning is because Office365 thinks it is the only server valid for mail from your domain.

To fix: First, ensure that you have an SPF record.  This will be automatically configured if you are using our DNS servers.  If you are using external DNS, please follow the instructions in the previous section.

If the problem persists, open Microsoft Exchange and add your website's IP address to the "Safe Senders List" within the default "Connection Filter Policy".  You can determine your website's IP address by pinging it.

More information is available at: Microsoft's Website