So confused about salon software emails!

[crystaltash]

Hi guys. Well my head is totally melted with this salon software setup. I really want to buy saloniris and use it to email and text clients. But it's telling me that I need something called SMTP details and an email address from my service provider. Now I'm so not technically minded so could someone please explain to me what this means?
I'm getting broadband put in the salon in the next few days so do I have to wait until that is all set up? Does it mean that I have to create a new email address with whoever is supplying my broadband? Like if u got ur Internet from sky, ur email address would be [email protected]? Please someone shed some light on this? Thank u in advance!

 

[Ruth Mills]

An SMTP server is just an outgoing mail server - I think you'd need to put "smtp.tools.sky.com" for Sky Broadband - Sky Email setup and settings - if you were using a Sky email address.

Although if you were sending out marketing emails from Salon Iris, then it would look more professional to get a proper domain name for your salon, e.g. mysalon.co.uk or whatever (assuming you haven't got one already - you may have one if you already have a website) - so you can use an email address like [email protected] or [email protected] or whatever - in which case you might need to use the SMTP details for your domain provider if the Sky ones don't work with a non-Sky email address (in which case you'll probably need to enter a username and password for the outgoing mail server too)...

 

[salonbabe]

We use Platinum Software and they will set up the email and SMS features for you-free of charge!
I was a little like you when I started using the software, I was unsure what some things meant and how to go about setting it up, they were so helpful though and got me going with everything quickly and easily and I did not pay any extra!

 

[crystaltash]

So if I want to use my existing email address ([email protected]) I just have to contact Vistaprint for the smpt details?

 

[Ruth Mills]

So if I want to use my existing email address ([email protected]) I just have to contact Vistaprint for the smpt details?

Yes you would, as Vistaprint would be responsible for your domain name and consequently should be able to provide you with SMTP access. If they don't then a third party company may be able to provide you with SMTP access (but the Vistaprint SMTP server or the third party SMTP server would almost certainly need authentication via username and password and may also need secure SSL/TLS access so you would need to be sure that Salon Iris was able to cope with that).

Although you may be OK using the Sky SMTP server - although I have a nasty feeling that Sky forces any emails sent via the Sky SMTP server to have your Sky email address on them - as I had an issue where a client was trying to send outgoing email for a non-Sky email address via Sky's SMTP server - but the email was sent with his Sky email address even though Outlook was sending it with his other (non-Sky) email address.