As discussed in the Email & Push Notifications section, Elastic Email provides a generous free tier that should be more than sufficient for use with QuestionPulse.
The only downside is if you set your target alert email address (as set in the Email Settings section) to an email service that utilizes Microsoft Exchange (@outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @msn.com, or domain-specific emails powered by MS Exchange) you may experience deliverability issues (at least from our experience, and not specific to sending through QuestionPulse), so that is something to keep in mind.
To get set up with Elastic Email:
2) Click the "Try for Free" button:
3) Click the "Try for Free" button under the "Email API" section:
4) Enter the necessary information to create your account and agree to the Terms of Use, then click the "Sign Up" button:
5) You will be taken to the Dashboard—before continuing please check the email address you used to register for the verification email and verify your account.
6) Once you've verified your account, click the "My Account" button on the bottom left of the sidebar navigation menu:
7) Then click the Settings section:
8) Click the "SMTP" Tab at the top of the Settings Interface:
9) You will be presented with a "Send Consent" prompt. Check the box to confirm you agree to their terms and then click the "I Consent" button:
10) Click the "Create SMTP Credential" button:
11) Enter the username you'd like to use for your SMTP configuration. This will default to your Elastic Email account's email address, but you can change it if you prefer. After settting the user name, click the Create button (ignore the "Set access restriction" section as you won't need it for use with QuestionPulse):
12) You will see a "Credentials Successfully Created" popup that shows your SMTP user name, password, server, and port information - be sure to note all of this data and save the SMTP password somewhere safe as they won't show you it again (though you can reset the password from this same settings area if ncecessary).
13) Use this data to fill out the settings in the Email Settings interface so QuestionPulse can utilize the Elastic Email SMTP service to deliver emails to you as new questions are found.
Extra Notes:
When using Elastic Email SMTP settings in the Email Settings interface, leave the "Use SSL" checkbox UNchecked. If the "Send Test Email" function in QuestionPulse doesn't work and you've verified all other SMTP settings are correct, try to enable "Use SSL" to confirm that it is not the culprit.
By default, Elastic Email converts all links to use tracking features such as recording open rates and clicks tracked. While this is useful for email marketing, it creates long, obfuscated links instead of simple, direct URL links to the relevant Quora questions sent by the software.
To disable these features and allow for short, nicer-looking URLs in your alert emails, from the settings interface (shown in Steps 7 & 8 above), under the "Sending" Tab UNcheck the "Track opens," "Track clicks," and "Track clicks by link" checkboxes - and be sure to click the "Save" button in the upper right after unchecking these settings:
